Get rid of #FATCA now. By Sept 30 (this week)
Send your letter to: taxreform@republicansoverseas.com
Example Letter: http://bit.ly/ExampleLetterInWord
Sign petition: http://bit.ly/TaxReformExpats
Long Links
Example Letter: http://republicansoverseas.com/wp-content/uploads/Letter-to-President-on-Tax-Reform-.docx
Sign petition: https://republicansoverseas.com/territorial-taxation-individuals/#petit
Not about FATCA, actually. The main focus of these letters and the petition is about implementing Territorial Based Taxation. Try to keep the campaign focused on CBT/TBT, or else it blurs the message. FATCA is the secondary topic. Please tell all your US person friends to participate.
Does anyone have suggestions as to how former US citizens could word their letters? Would it be best to pretend they are still US citizens? (They might, after all, consider themselves to be Americans in a heritage sense.) I think this might give their letters more “standing”, writing as though they are back at the time before the decision to renounce/relinquish was made. I doubt anyone will cross-reference their names with the “Liberty List”. Or is there a way to carefully word their letters so that even as renounced/relinquished persons their letters will not be perceived as irrelevant? This little dilemna might be hanging up some potential letter writers who would welcome some advice to help them get started and get it done before the deadline is passed.
EmBee,
In my short letter (I removed most of the RO arguments) I said simply that any tax reform was too late to “save me”, as I had already renounced because of bad U.S. laws, but hoped that the new legislation would help others. I suggested to RO (which I support) that it could use my letter, if it felt it were helpful, or not.
My other suggestion is that people could note in the letters the components of the RO proposal that they don’t like (why not?), but that it would still be reasonable (I think) to consider the big picture and support the (imperfect) kill-CBT tax reform legislation as a whole. I did.
@ Stephen Kish
Thank you, that sounds like a good approach.
@Embee – I used the letter I sent last January (http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/lobby-the-new-us-government/comment-page-4/#comment-7776813) with a couple of minor edits.
Thanks @ Karen. That is a good one.
I think it’s great that Solomon Yue will physically be delivering these letters to the White House on October 2nd. Ordinary overseas Americans would likely never have the opportunity to set foot in there but this way they can get a piece of their mind, set down on a real piece of paper, in the door. This stack of letters has to be as thick as possible … PLEASE write everyone. Think of all the people who have put so much effort into making this chance to end CBT possible. Don’t disappoint them.
Oh my … a post from Keith Redmond on American Expatriates FB:
If anyone thinks adding a few thousand pages to the current tax code and calling it tax reform, is really reform, then I have some ocean front property in AZ cheap.
Every congressman and every senator regardless of party is on the lookout for a lobbyist or a rich individual with a contribution to just leave it alone. and for a price they all do leave it alone. A new amendment to the bill will just get them more money.
The FairTax is real reform but it kills the money train they all love and it ain’t happening.
It’s been confirmed that an anonymous letter or one without a last name is better than none.
I suppose one with a fake name is a problem might cause a problem if it were detected and were a pattern.
The Kisch approach sounds right.
Congress writes the laws, so the auxiliary measures that RO proposes may never be implemented. It’s only their method of selling it to Congressmen.
Solomon Yue sums it up beautifully, eloquently:
Republicans Overseas received this email from Francesca Vogliotti, a 19 year-old American living in Rome. Her heartfelt letter to President Trump reminds us what Republicans Overseas is fighting for. We are fighting for Francesca’s desire to remain an overseas American, to live free wherever she wants, to have her privacy rights respected, and to end double taxation.
“Citizenship Based Taxation and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act are true modern day tyranny because overseas Americans like Francesca and her mom are being forced to choose between the American citizenship they treasure and the imposition of double taxation and FATCA with which America burdens its overseas citizens,” said RO Vice Chairman and CEO Solomon Yue.
“It is hard to watch real Americans have to renounce American citizenship in order to protect their rights and to relieve the burdens of CBT and FATCA. American citizenship should never be synonymous with a reduction in rights,” said Mr. Yue, who lived under Chinese Communist tyranny until he escaped to America as a young man. “My U.S. passport represents freedom from tyranny, and it should represent freedom from tyranny for every American, no matter whether they live within the 50 states or around the world.”
Ms. Vogliotti’s letter should inspire all overseas Americans who want to be freed from CBT and FATCA to participate in our letter/email writing campaign to President Trump.
Ms. Vogliotti does not have a US birthplace. With minimal prudence she could live completely free of FATCA and CBT. She could also travel to the US with her Italian passport.
So it’s all well and good to write something noble and tragic, but in the real world this person (who is in basically the same situation as my daughter) can complete ignore US law.
“My U.S. passport represents freedom from tyranny, and it should represent freedom from tyranny for every American, no matter whether they live within the 50 states or around the world.”
Do me a favor.
Done!!!! Petition signed but goofed up a bit with the attached letter to the president — forgot to put e-mail address below the name. Hopefully RO can add it if needed. BTW, he (i.e. my husband) used the suggestion Dr. Kish gave for renouncers/relinquishers. Received a “thank you” by return e-mail. Only 5 more days to contribute to this particular campaign to get rid of CBT.
‘My U.S. passport represents freedom from tyranny, and it should represent freedom from tyranny for every American, no matter whether they live within the 50 states or around the world.””
Oh bloody hell, give me a break from the jingoism. I understand, Solomon, that you love the United States, but right now, it’s position as a country with freedom from tyranny is highly in doubt.”
Secondly if it was such a bastion of freedom, then perhaps it should lower its fee to renounce to ZERO and allow those who no longer wish to be a United States citizen to unilaterally renounce their citizenship. Such bastions of “freedom” shouldn’t apply ball & chain to their citizens if they no longer wish to be regarded as such.
Such bastions of “freedom” wouldn’t even consider citizenship based taxation in the first place. In that regards…I consider myself freer than any American.
For those who wish to retain their US citizenship, please let me remind you of the quote of Montesquieu
“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice”
THAT is FATCA in a nutshell.
And keep in mind that a leopard does not change its spots. All it takes is one change of government and we’re back to square one.
As I said in another thread, I know a few accidental persons and with US birth places, left in diapers. One was harassed about 10 years ago traveling to the US on a UK passport and has never gone back to the US for holiday after that incident.
I have spread the word and the only proposal they are interested in supporting is one that allows them to renounce without filing the 5 years and paying the ransom fee. They are not subject to the exit tax being born dual. They don’t see this proposal as helping their situation as they are already non compliant and don’t see the proposal as being retroactive. They feel nothing but horror on what the US as become. They just won’t put their name out there under any circumstances.
These are only a few but I would not be surprised if this is the general attitude of accidentals and non compliant people not part of this community. When you are part of a community like Brock, you want change not only for yourself but for fellow Brockers. It is like a community of people that have gone through a bad experience/war together. People not part of such a community don’t have the same mindset and don’t want to think about this and want to just do what they have been doing so far, hiding successfully.
Even my own non US Citizen spouse was annoyed that I was writing a letter and putting my name out there again after safely renouncing.
To me I believe this to be the real reason why there isn’t more letter writing.
Martin Luther King Jr.
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles;
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency ask the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”