Thanks to JC for finding this information and for the text of this post, which he posted as a comment on the Media thread this evening:
Hatch Calls for Feedback on Tax Reform
The Senate Finance Committee is yet again asking the general public to send comments on tax reform. The deadline is July 17, and the email address is taxreform2017@finance.senate.gov.
https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/hatch-calls-for-feedback-on-tax-reform
Maybe I’ll just dust off my previous submissions to the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee. Maybe ADCS should send them the fine multipart/multimedia submission sent previously to the Senate Finance Committee international work group on tax reform.
They claim that these submissions will be private. I don’t mind to have a submission placed on a website somewhere.
They don’t have a specific category that fits our case. #4 talks about international and competitiveness yet also has the words “preserve our tax base.”
I don’t see a “simplification” category, or a “fairer” category.
If we send submissions in perhaps they will be categorized under the 4 categories provided. Instead of getting drowned out in the individual person tax category, as I imagine there will be a vast majority from Homelanders in this category, maybe best to angle it as international, category #4.
Already a month has passed since this request. The 17th is this coming Monday.
Perhaps this call for submissions has not been broadcast widely. That would mean something less than a mountain of submissions, so more opportunity to impact.
Good idea to resubmit all the previous submissions (at a minimum).
Two years ago somebody summarized all the submissions at:
http://fatca.eu.pn
I notice that the links to the famous videos do not seem to be working. The videos are generally at:
https://vimeo.com/citizenshiptaxation
If whoever did the fatca.eu.pn site is reading this:
Could you update the site to include the proper urls of the videos.
Once updated, perhaps that site could be sent as a submission with an email referencing certain of the submissions in particular.
Wrote a letter In Re:Tax Reform, Citizenship Based Taxation (CBT) and it’s enforcement mechanism, FATCA to the email address: taxreform2017@finance.senate.gov
Also included attachments, letters including US Post Mailed letters from My Representative, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, and the White House regarding repealing Fatca and suggested changes to US Corporate Tax Law..
Well, I did my civic duty.
I might reference the Republican Party Platform in my redux letter.
Even though, IMO, it was a bit muddled on FATCA, yet clear in the end:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/07/19/republican-2016-platform-for-fatca-repeal-and-against-extra-territorial-personal-taxation-cbt/
C`mon. This has got to be a joke. Years ago 1000s of letters were sent from expats all around the world.
Feels like somebody is just jerking my chain. How many MORE times do letters have to be sent in with complaints? How many more times does Nina Olsen have to decry the suffering of expats? This is getting ridiculous.
@Polly. The beauty of this is you roll out your old letter, make a few changes, and send as new.
The last times these were sent were just practice and preparation for this request for submission.
Done!
Polly: Yes, it’s ridiculous, but we gotta do it. In fact, in your letter you can make the point that we have been screaming loudly about all this for years now and nothing has been done. Tell them how shameful that is! Tell them that every year nothing is done thousands more Americans renounce their American identity. Shame them into getting off their collective duffs!
Thanks JC and Pacifica for alerting us to this!
Yes it’s tedious and boring, but nothing ever happens when people give up.
Cut and paste, short and sweet – whatever it takes to get on the radar.
While you guys are upset about FATCA, nowadays people of the world are going nuts about CRS issues particularly if you are living in different countries.
http://www.finews.com/news/english-news/28073-automatic-exchange-of-information-drazen-turujlija-bank-reyl-oecd-aeoi-loopholes-residency-offshore.
Yes US govt started one big nightmare and got OECD on board who was trying to pass a world wide law like this for years and could not have got it done without US govt on steroids with FATCA and then GATCA(CRS) followed.
Time for repeal is gone now I think as it has been too many years and so much has happened since then. Read my comment and watch the video in the link. If you have a job or business that makes you live in different countries for the past ten years you are bound for all these govts where you lived at to come after you. Banks all over the world are now checking for country of citizenship to report to their govts in the country of citizenship and not looking for actual residence.
“Banks all over the world are now checking for country of citizenship to report to their govts in the country of citizenship and not looking for actual residence.”
Except in Murka.
Bubblestein, yes in Murca too.
https://www.artiopartners.com/nonresident/nonresident-aliens-us-bank-tax/.
They are dragging their feet but reporting bank accounts of citizens of some EU countries as mentioned in tax news update that I read earlier. Will post the link later when I find it again,
@Harrison.super Not true. Banks in Delaware, Wyoming, etc are famous for not requiring beneficiary information. U.S. banks are not required to ask the FATCA questions that the U.S. forces on other countries of the world, bank account applicants in the U.S. are not required to sign under penalty of perjury that they are only U.S. citizens.
Seems like you are trying to muddle the picture here saying it is all inevitable. The forces and factors lined up against FATCA are far greater than those against CRS which as you suggest may be here to last (except to remain blocked in the U.S.). Backstopping the FATCA opposition are legal actions against FATCA in Canada and France. Legal takes longer. Hopefully a political repeal of FATCA, as in the Republican Party Platform, will be with tax reform this year.
I asked Solomon Yue (Twitter) if there was any special angle that we should pursue in submissions.
His response:
https://twitter.com/SolomonYue/status/885120769457508352
@SolomonYue already submitted Territorial Tax 4 Individuals + @GroverNorquist endorsement letter of TTFI 2 Sen Finance 4 RO: no need #FATCA.
This response is brief. He points to a letter from Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform.
This is the letter: It frames the request for territoriality for individuals in the context of current momentum for territorial tax for business. The current international system disadvantages businesses competitively because they face double taxation and burdensome international rules.
https://twitter.com/SolomonYue/status/872128358229962754
@USCA: I am the perpetrator of the fatca.eu.pn site. I lost the login credentials and am unable to retrieve them, so I’m afraid those video links will remain broken. It isn’t as though anyone looks at the site.
How many times have I sent that link to Congressional staffers? I even sent DVDs containing the entire site’s contents (minus the videos, since they were purposely made un-downloadable by whoever originally posted them), only to fall on blind eyes.
I will e-mail the site link to the Finance Committee, and I hope others will do the same.
Asked Anthony Parent @IRSMedic of any angle we might focus on.
He came back with questions about FBAR: What I’ve been wondering — If expats don’t need to file because of RBT, does FBAR requirement still exist? Yes if no changes to Title 31.
FBAR only has one unconstitutional claim against it in the FATCA/FBAR lawsuit in regards to excessive fines. There needs to be more claims. The requirement of reporting an account of an employer one has signature authority over (but no beneficial interest) certainly must be targeted. To report such – bringing company confidential data out side a company and reporting to a foreign government, is grounds for termination. Grounds for denying promotion as well.
Anthony Parent did not go into all of that he just asked if the FBAR requirement would still exist. I mentioned for Homeland residents, and in transitional circumstances of one moving overseas.
https://twitter.com/IRSMedic/status/885281116726472706
‘FBAR only has one unconstitutional claim against it in the FATCA/FBAR lawsuit in regards to excessive fines. There needs to be more claims.’
If a Venezuelan has a bank account in the US she’s protected by the US tax haven, but if she has a bank account in Canada, and if one of her parents came from the US, the US FBAR will tell the Venezuelan government about her Canadian bank account. This would violate the US’s 5th amendment if the US had a 5th amendment.
I read over my 2015 Senate submission. I can’t use that. My impression is that it lacks directness and maybe I was relatively ‘on training wheels’ then. It played up too much on the sovereignty infringement of Australia, as if the U.S. or Australia would care about this.
My Ways & Means submission is better. I submitted a Word document that had memes embedded in it: The Ginny Tax Slave one and the Boston Tea Party one about – today only the U.S. taxes its colonists from afar.
A few memes were submitted to Senate Finance in 2015. I was impressed with that. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” And, a picture would make a submission stand out.
This time I’ll focus more on the justification of taxation and under what circumstances a country is justified to claim tax jurisdiction. This goes beyond ‘taxation without representation.’ Clearly we have no representation as we never would have agreed to it all.
Ask them to remember to answer the submissions to Finance Committee made YEARS ago.
Section F. Overseas Americans
According to working group submissions, there are currently 7.6 million ? (9 million) American citizens living outside of the United States. Of the 347 submissions made to the international working group, nearly three-quarters dealt with the international taxation of individuals, mainly focusing on citizenship-based taxation, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), and the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).
While the co-chairs were not able to produce a comprehensive plan to overhaul the taxation of individual Americans living overseas within the time-constraints placed on the working group, the co-chairs urge the Chairman and Ranking Member to carefully consider the concerns articulated in the submissions moving forward
Ask therm to specifically make public the inclusion of RBT for US Expats
taxreform2017@finance.senate.gov. The deadline to respond is July 17, 2017.
Reps have Twitter and Facebook pages too !!!
https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/hatch-calls-for-feedback-on-tax-reform
Maybe review points made in Expat Survey
http://www.theamerican.co.uk/pr/ea-Greenback-Tax-Survey.php
expat
Expat voter turnout and the potential effect that it may have had on the outcome of a US presidential election.
The number of US expats around the world is larger than the combined populations of Washington D.C., plus the nine smallest US states
US expats surveyed do not feel their interests are fairly represented by the US government
Inclined to vote if a candidate had made a point to address their concerns
Do not feel they should be required to file US taxes while living abroad
MANY Citizens renouncing
The top three things that Americans living abroad would like to see addressed by the US government are:
1) The repeal of citizenship-based taxation
2) Simplification the tax filing process
3) An increase in the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and other deductions/credits to lower tax burden
I think important to claim it all Un-American.
Spent all AM putting in info / old submissions etc If everybody sent in some letter etc we would overwhealm the submissions that went in a few years ago (347 submissions made to the international working group) Got to be in it to win it
No time ? Just copy and paste and ask them to “look and listen”
taxreform2017@finance.senate.gov
“look and listen”
Section F. Overseas Americans
According to working group submissions, there are currently 7.6 million American citizens ? (9 million) living outside of the United States. Of the 347 submissions made to the international working group, nearly three-quarters dealt with the international taxation of individuals, mainly focusing on citizenship-based taxation, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), and the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).
While the co-chairs were not able to produce a comprehensive plan to overhaul the taxation of individual Americans living overseas within the time-constraints placed on the working group, the co-chairs urge the Chairman and Ranking Member to carefully consider the concerns articulated in the submissions moving forward
http://fatca.eu.pn/
https://vimeo.com/citizenshiptaxation
Suzanne Herman has been busy. On Facebook she posted her letter yet that was only 1 of 3 submissions. Another submission was the Grover Norquist letter. Another an article at taxconnections.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmericanExpatriates/permalink/824482141051193/?comment_id=825659614266779&reply_comment_id=825667580932649&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D
https://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/why-is-nobody-listening-to-the-repeal-fatca-calls/#.WWhdPylLdaR
I’ll send in one of my favorite articles: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/09/12/dear-son-why-you-should-leave-america-now/#1a3d493b4b3a
I just tried to email my submission and it bounced back with a message that the mailbox was full. Has anyone else had this problem? I’ll try again tomorrow.
Just tried to email my submission and received the following message.
“The recipient’s mailbox is full and can’t accept messages now. Please try resending this message later, or contact the recipient directly.”