[OCTOBER 1 UPDATE: THANKS EVERYONE WHO SENT LETTERS!]
Today is the very last day to support — by your letter and petition — a Republicans Overseas (RO)/RNC proposal that would replace citizenship-based taxation with a form of “territorial taxation”.
Info is at this website: https://republicansoverseas.com/territorial-taxation-individuals/#petition
RO’s Solomon and Michael will personally bring the letters and petition to the White House on October 2, but they need to receive everything by September 30 — WHICH IS TODAY.
USCA suggests that you consider:
“…The comments in this thread have reflected a diverse collection of views. The RO proposal has been severely criticized for various reasons (mostly revolving around the taxation of nonresident aliens). It’s true that the RO proposal has many flaws.
That said, I think it’s important to recognize in broad terms, that the RO proposal that will change the impact of CBT as it currently stands. In that respect the proposal is at least a start and that start is described as “Territorial Taxation For Individuals”. It is possible (and I think advisable) to support the broad principle of changing CBT without necessarily agreeing with every aspect (or any aspect) of the specific RO proposal. Some of you may have read the most recent ACA proposal which does a good and interesting job of explaining what “territorial taxation” (borrowing from the language of the RO proposal) could mean for individuals. (Interestingly what “territorial taxation” COULD mean for individuals is what most of us think of as “residence-based taxation…)
I am simply trying to argue that change will require education. Education will require engagement. Engagement requires personal interaction.
Your sending a letter and/or signing the petition will help RO achieve the personal interaction that they need to engage and educate. If you care about this issue at all, then you must participate.
I don’t believe that the mere fact of sending letters or signing petitions will make a difference. But, I do believe that WITHOUT YOUR EFFORTS and support that NO CHANGE IS POSSIBLE. Therefore, you are really deciding whether you want to act in a way that makes change possible or if you choose to act in a way that makes change not possible. It’s your choice. This is NOT about supporting a specific proposal. This is about behaving in a way that opens the door to discussion in change.If it matters, I am not a Republican. I am not a Democrat. To the extent that I am political, I would be an independent. I am not primarily a U.S. citizen. So, these comments are not partisan. But, I am deeply committed to the struggle to getting these unjust laws changed. Furthermore, I believe that change can happen ONLY if all those affected create a united front in opposition to CBT. It is the opposition to CBT that unites ALL Americans abroad.
It’s very simple really. Where laws are made through a democratic process: If you don’t make your view known you can’t expect change.
Your participation may or may not make a difference. But, your NONPARTICIPATION will make a difference because it will ensure that no change will happen….”
I agree. There are 8000 lobbyists and all 8000 represent some special interest group and will put the arm twisting cash to use starting the day any changes are to be made. Each one of the 8000 has a congressman from the committee on ways and means, in his pocket. They represent every possible segment of U.S. society and this is how the current code got to be 77,000 pages and more words than the Holy Bible.
Only the congressman whom they bought and the special interest who paid the money even know where the amendment is in the stack of paper that reaches 3 feet high.
I belong to a grass roots organization that is growing as we write, who wants to reamp the was government gets its money. We are all not rich or even well off and cannot buy ourselves a spply of congressmen, whom everyone knows is for sale. They couch the tacit bribes in ”campaign contributions”, which are unlimited because the Supreme Court who ruled that money equals free speech and individuals can speak all they want to. If you have the money you have all kinds of access and if you don’t have the money you may as well stay home. The free speech they ruled on should say money equals free speech and money talks.
“They couch the tacit bribes in ”campaign contributions”, which are unlimited because the Supreme Court who ruled that money equals free speech and individuals can speak all they want to. If you have the money you have all kinds of access and if you don’t have the money you may as well stay home. The free speech they ruled on should say money equals free speech and money talks.”
Yep. A famous victory for James Bopp Jr.
“I can see reasons for contribution limits, but that they need to be much higher than they are now, because you can’t even buy a Democrat politician for $2,500.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/james-bopp-what-citizens-united-means-for-campaign-finance/
Calgary, Original George, Mrs. and Mr. EmBee, Nononymous, Mr A, and JC…
Thanks for sending a letter…
I have had a family member who runs a company and who has lobbied every state legislature and every congressman who will give her time. They listen as long as the check is in your left hand that constitutes a tacit bribe to do thus and such. As soon as you let the check go and if it is big enough, then they dismiss you as a piece of garbage they picked up.
any reform of the Marxist Income tax will only happen when the country collapses because of economic malfesence. There is a taxing system that would cure the revenue end, but congress will keep spending beyond our means to keep a system afloat that became insolvent 20 yrs ago. We have lived on borrowing money to keep the democrat cities from rioting to anarchy and an armed rebellion.The system they have found is to just kill each other when they disagree…TAX REFORM THAT GOES BACK TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENT AND DUMPS THE MARXIST INCOME TAX IS NOT IN THE INTEREST OF ANY CONGRESSMAN OR SENATOR. SO FORGET GETTING ANYTHING DONE UNLESS YOU HAVE A TON OF MONEY TO GIVE THEM .
Americans abroad have every reason to fear, and no reason to believe their own government over the likes of CBT and friends. Standing up to be heard now, in this ‘opportunity’ for ‘tax reform’, which will likely die a pathetic death as the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, would likely be like sticking your head in a guillotine. Why would you do it? Especially with an Administration that’s preaching “America First!”
Think about it. What do the optics of Americans living abroad look like, under an America First policy? What do WE look like to them, under an America First policy? You can’t even express you opinion as a professional football player, without the president calling you a ‘Son of a bitch!’, and demanding your firing! No! You’re supposed to run onto the field, place your hand over your heart, and salute that goddamn piece of cloth like a good American, whether you want to or not! Who the hell cares what you think! So you can take a good fucking guess as to how THEY feel about us! I don’t see how the answer isn’t self evident from the obvious inference, which is: They fucking HATE us!!
If this is the new litmus test for deciding who is really American, then I could never pass it. I don’t feel American, anyway. I am Canadian. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: I do not want to be an American.
My stepson knows of US tax slavery, as I have warned him of it. But, as he is Canadian, does not have the US taint on him, and has a good head on his shoulders, he will never experience US tax slavery for himself. I sleep good at night because of that. As for myself, well, given that the Mrs. is so sick now that I have no choice but to be her POA, I have to hide, and I have to lie, to protect the both of us. My Canadian citizenship is my only shield against the tyranny of the US, so naturally, I am precluded from even participating in this scam called ‘tax reform’, anyway. From my point of view, they are a THREAT, so why would I go to them for help? To see such a move as logical, I would have to be afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome first.
No. You LEAVE your abuser! You don’t run to them for help, and you sure as hell don’t sympathise with them when they say something like….”Americans abroad? Oh, they don’t care. None of them spoke up, anyway….” Oh, bullshit! This latest ‘tax reform’ scam, is like an abuser feigning regret for beating on his spouse, in order to prevent her from leaving. Do you want to go back, just to be gaslighted again? Fuck no! Look at it for what it truly is, and make preparations to renounce.
Also, anyone naively equating ‘America First’ with ‘Americans First’, will pay the highest price for not knowing the difference.
@ Stephen Kish
No thanks to me. I’m just the one who motivated Mr. to write. Our deal has always been that he writes to the USA side and I write to the Canadian side. I have zero “standing” down there and my husband, as an ex-American, thinks his “standing” has dwindled very close to zero too. I continue to be grateful for our Canadian lawsuit because it gave me something to contribute to, in the hope of ending the CBT/FBAR/FATCA travesty. ,
I am sorry that any American has to renounce their birthright as an American for any reason.
We are working on , at some time in the future, a national sales tax, and with that as the only tax, the revenue will be the same without all the social Engineering. The founders would be spinning in their graves of they knew what these Marxist bastards had done to their precious document.
They were so disrespected when the Communists got the 16th amendment passed that allowed a progressive tax on income. The founders had it right. Revenue to operate the government should be derived from tariffs and duties, meaning a tax on goods when sold. If companies didn’t have to add 30% onto mfg costs for taxes and extra accounting the 23% sales tax that makes the sales tax revenue neutral, they could reduce the prices of goods 30% and the added sales tax could be less than the price we are now paying.
Accounting , lawyers, and tax experts are eating our lunch un necessarily, just to make 8% of the population rich who are filling out our complicated tax forms and charging for unwinding the complicated provisions they had inserted into the law..
You sound like me and I never left the land of the free and the slave to the IRS and all the other Politicians and deep government folks who look at me and Donald Trump as their enemy, because we hate the mother fucking Marxist Income tax.
A small minority of us wants the FairTax which would make it nobodies business again where you put your fucking money. freedom at last is our goal as it was with Dr M.L.King. get off my back and stop pissing on me and telling me it is rain.
Anyone with any info re Individual RBT in new Tax Reform ?
I wrote, and tried to get other Americans in Taiwan to do so as well. I don’t know why some of you are afraid of writing. “Sticking your head in a guillotine”? I mean, what do you think they could do to you–hunt you down? We’re lucky if the letters get read at all.
No, I’m not optimistic about the results, but there is a chance it could work. Enough to make writing a letter worthwhile. Yes, the lobbyists will be all over this thing. No, this congress’s track record in passing controversial legislation is not very impressive. But we’re small fry. We might slip through. Politicians are NOT all alike, and some of them may even be well intentioned. If a few of them like us, and the rest don’t care very much, then we have a chance.
Yes, I do have a “Plan B” (which is more like my Plan A). But I’m willing to wait a few months and see what comes of this. And write a letter. Come on, it’s not such a sacrifice.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/citizenshiptaxation/permalink/1521863831236693/
posted by Charles Buckley
Disappointing News from Grover Norquist
I was on this call today. I could ask my usual probing questions because all questions had to be submitted in advance. The news was disappointing — the Trump tax plan being sent to Congress includes territorial taxation for corporations, but not individuals!
When asked why, the reasons Mr Norquist gave were that members of Congress felt uncomfortable with TTFI because it hadn’t been scored fully. The advice was to write your Congressperson repeatedly, and let them know that overseas citizens vote too.
This advice didn’t dovetail too well for those of us with exclusively Democratic representation in both the House and Senate, as we were told this plan was being conceived without Democratic involvement. I really wish I could have asked why.
Mr Norquist said that this would not be the last tax reform bill, there would be another next year.
I like my parallel, implied repeal through a respect of sovereignty law coerced by threat of application of 26 USC 891 more and more. The members of Congress see that this is an option they can accept or discard at their leisure. Meanwhile we’re dying of discrimination out here.
Most people who ask me for tax advice rarely wind up paying taxes — there’s usually a way around that. But the ‘hands off’ discrimination that comes of foreign spouses, employers and business partners not wanting to have anything to do with a US person is the harm that endures.
Anyway, with the closure of the loopholes identified by Solomon Yue &c, I would expect the change to be revenue positive, even if there is no economic growth multiplier effect.
Mr Norquist did say that tax revenue increase due to economic growth was taken into account in scoring the domestic aspects of the proposed tax plan. Why not for the international part? Enquiring minds want to know!
A major area of concern to me, obviously not addressed in any of our letters or petitions, is the Foreign Earned Income Exemption, and, to a lesser degree, the Foreign Tax Credit.
If they really mean to eliminate the state and local tax (SALT) credit, then clearly the above two deductions are on the same chopping block. Powerful people are already railing against the elimination of SALT deductions, such as
that schmuckRep. Peter King of New York, who is quoted as saying, “No New York resident should be double taxed” (unless they live abroad, right, Pete?). And it’s hard to imagine that the SALT credit will be eliminated. In fact, I support the SALT credits–not that it affects me–because double taxation is double taxation, whether it involves US states or foreign governments.But who will be there to speak up hard for us? Politically, getting rid of the FEIE is a no-risk option. They would fling it off the table as easily as flicking a fly off your arm, then forget it ever existed. Even if someone like Rand Paul stood up for it, he’d be shouted down in a snap. After all, they won’t want to waste their time wrangling over it, when they have the agribusiness lobbyists breathing down their throats about farm credits. I’m not as worried about the FTC, since I’m sure Trump himself uses that a lot.
The worst case scenario that has cost me sleep these past two nights is that CBT will firmly stay in place, but the FEIE done away with. For people living in non-treaty and “low tax” countries, like us, this will spell disaster. And as we all know from experience, the worst case scenario that we can imagine usually ends up being better than the even-worse scenario that they actually bring in.
@mjh writes:
You are wrong. They do NOT HATE US. It’s far worse! They are completely indifferent. Indifference is a far worse from of abuse than hatred.
Look I get your point and I understand why you don’t want to write. But, they are “indifferent” largely because they don’t know anything about the situation. The indifference is guaranteed to continue as long as they are ignorant. So, there is far more to gain than to lose by registering your complaint by writing a letter or by signing a petition.
As Zhiod points out, there is nothing they can do to you anyway.
@All
The Fearfulness Of The American Mind
As usual this discussion takes place within the context of people “wanting to obey the law” and therefore “lobbying for laws that they feel they can obey”. This is consistent with the mindset of the Modern American (obedience, compliance and fear of the USA). Remember, by definition, an American citizen is a person who is terrified of the U.S. government!!!!!
TaxReform17 and Americans Abroad
This is the “last stand” for Americans abroad in the tax reform debate. Nobody is going to be waiting for tax reform 2 or any of that BS. No, this is it. (And this is why you must get your views registered.)
The Outcome of TaxReform17 for Americans Abroad – All roads lead to few if any tax returns filed by Americans abroad
There will either be change or they won’t be change (how profound, right?).
Option 1: There is change. Change will either be a move to RBT or a series of changes that will make the situation more tolerable. Chances are that those who are already complying will continue to comply. (Although I suspect that it will still be painful.)
Option 2: There will be no change. Now, this is interesting. I suspect that, absent change, those who are complying will simply cease to comply (either through renunciation or willful noncompliance). Those in Canada will simply hide behind the treaty. This will come at a cost (maybe) of having to stay out of the USA. But, that’s simply the price you will have to pay. We are not living in a “just world”. We are living in an “American world”.
(Obviously those who are NOT in compliance will continue to be in noncompliance. They have learned that, that those who have paid the highest price, are those who tried to comply!)
Question: So, what does this all mean?
Answer: No matter what happens with #TaxReform17, I suspect that when it’s done, the compliance landscape will look like this …
1. there will be no additional Americans abroad filing U.S. taxes. I suspect that those who are filing will either renounce (because they can’t live a normal life as a tax compliant American) or simply stop filing altogether reasoning that: “The only thing worse than noncompliance is compliance”. It has becoming increasingly clear that compliance is the first step toward renunciation.
2. Those who have never filed will continue to never file because they have observed what has happened to those who filed.
In terms of being “Good, Patriotic American Citizens”, the conclusion (I think) is …
The way to continue to be an American citizen (if you are living #offshore) is to NOT file U.S. taxes.
Think of it, noncompliance with U.S. law as a necessary condition to maintain U.S. citizenship! This is the America of today!
The united States is the ”new Roman Empire” The tax compliance agents and the English language along with Us bases in 150 locations around the world populated by the new Centurians (American service men and women) is proof that we are the new Rome, What happened to the Roman Empire? It fell apart from within due to everyone wanting benefits and nobody wanting to work. We are half way there. History is repeating itself and will keep doing so as long as it is populated by humans, Citizen taxation will seem normal.
@Wilton
In ancient times, Rome granted citizenship to more people as a way to gain more military recruits (and presumably taxes). See the interesting post here:
http://nomadcapitalist.com/2013/06/27/the-ancient-second-citizenship-no-one-asked-for/
Although the Isaac Brock Society (and various Facebook groups) is populated by people who focus on their own situation, the far bigger problem with U.S. “citizenship-based taxation” is that it imposes direct taxation, according to U.S. law, on the residents of other countries (by deeming them to be U.S. citizens). I believe that the residents and governments of other countries are beginning to understand this. This is all perfectly obvious, as demonstrated by at least:
1. Savings clause in U.S. tax treaties means that other countries agree that that the USA can impose direct taxation on the resident of any country that the U.S. (in its sole discretion) deems to be a U.S. citizen.
2. The FATCA IGAs (what a joke) obligate to other countries to locate any resident of any country that the USA in its sole discretion deems to be a U.S. citizen.
Gradually, the USA will just make more and more people in the world a U.S. citizen. After all, to make every person a U.S. citizen is to make them a tax slave to the USA. This is why it’s important for all people to complain about U.S. tax policy. U.S. “citizenship-based taxation” is NOT a U.S. internal matter. It is a matter that affects the whole world and the whole world must complain.
In fact, it’s far more important that the rest of the world complain about this than that American citizens complain. American citizens are a lost cause. They have been beaten and whipped for so long that they no longer have the will or the courage to object. (Some Homelanders Abroad believe that the PFIC, FBAR, FATCA, etc. are really necessary to preserve the freedoms of all Americans.) The proof is that most Americans are afraid to complain (write or sign petitions, etc.) Sorry, but it’s true. But, forget about Americans taking steps to preserve their own freedoms.
Those who are NOT Americans really should be complaining loudly about U.S. extra-territorial tax policy. At the very least, their complaints will illuminate that fact that the USA is imposing direct taxation on the residents of other countries!
The point is this:
For the U.S. to retain citizenship-based taxation is for the U.S. to willfully impose taxation on the residents of other countries. This is something the rest of the world must object to!
It’s a mistake to think that #taxreform17 affects ONLY Americans!
I will add that I too was on the call with Mr. Norquist and came away with a more positive impression apparently than some others. I will have to explain later when I have more time however, after being a long time member(7+ years) of Brock and the various Facebook groups on expat issues I find the increasingly negativity a disincentive to post here and their about the various efforts I am making personally on this issue.
@ Tim Smyth
Been here a long time too and I would dearly like to see less negativity as well. I look forward to your impressions about the Norquist call. I think someone mentioned it was not recorded so we have to rely on those who were on the line to give us a sense of where the anti-CBT train is heading at the moment. Personally I think the very fact that this this call took place is a pretty positive thing.
Tim,
Thanks for your efforts (through the years) and comment today.
@Tim
I join @Embee in thanking you for your efforts: past, present and I hope future. Let me put it you this way:
The U.S. Government is a big enough problem. Don’t let those swimming in the “sea of negativity” detract from your efforts!
@Tim Smyth I am interested in your report.
“For the U.S. to retain citizenship-based taxation is for the U.S. to willfully impose taxation on the residents of other countries. This is something the rest of the world must object to!”
I understand this, but try getting our local politicians to get this. Once a country imposes its laws upon us and demands our residents and citizens follow US law and send money to the USA, this becomes a matter for our politicians and is one they should be furious about.
There is complete and utter apathy. 🙁
Tomorrow is the last day to send your letters.
Thanks to all who have sent letters so far.
@Mike
So why don’t you figure out to do something about it?