TODAY (DECEMBER 1, 2017) REPUBLICANS OVERSEAS SAID:
“RO Update on TTFI and FATCA:
The JCT (Joint Committee on Taxation) finally released the Senate tax bill score with the indication that the Senate Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would add more than $1 trillion to federal deficits over the next 10 years: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-tax-bill…/…/2642198
Unfortunately, the TTFI score was not included. Without JCT’s TTFI score, Sen. Heller’s two place-holder amendments cannot be moved to the Senate floor for debate and vote. Because Congress intends to pass tax reform using budget reconciliation (which imposes a limit on any increase in the budget deficit), no amendments without a JCT score can be included in the bill, and this, unfortunately, includes TTFI.
Republicans Overseas is very disappointed that TTFI will not be included in the current Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
We will not stop fighting, however, and we still have a chance to make one major change in this bill process: repeal FATCA.
Senator Rand Paul’s FATCA amendment has been submitted to the Senate, and the amendment will be debated and voted on as early as Friday. FATCA has already been scored by the JCT in a previous process, so it can be included in the bill.
Please contact your senators!
The Senate vote on the tax bill was delayed while Senate Republican leaders made changes to the bill to win over several hold-outs. This delay gives us more time to contact senators and ask them to support Sen. Paul’s FATCA repeal amendment.”
The above posted in: https://www.facebook.com/republicansoverseas/
badger: The FBAR was never meant to be used the way they’re wielding it – as a weapon poised in threat over those with legitimate legal local accounts, and as a revenue generator to squeeze out revenue in lieu of taxes when they can’t succeed at assessing any tax from those outside the US.”
plaxy: “In practice, they don’t seem to be trying to do that, even to those with only US citizenship.
If anyone knows of a case in which a normal non-tax-cheating USC has been FBARred for not reporting a local account, I’d be interested to hear.”
Nononymous: “There are no such known cases, here or elsewhere. The damage is largely self-inflicted, from attempts at compliance. Collection outside the US would be difficult if not impossible.”
Thinking about this, and about the way the IRS misuses language to claim that black is white and that wrong is right and that foreign-source income is US-source income and local is offshore.
When USCs outside the US try to comply because US law threatens them with destruction if they don’t – that’s “voluntary”, and the consequent damage is not “self-inflicted.”
It’s not voluntary when a person hands over detailed financial information only because they’re being threatened with massive penalties if they don’t deliver.
It’s not self-inflicted damage when a person pays off the IRS only because they believe (not unreasonably, since US law says so) that if they don’t pay up, the IRS can and will come and take the money by force.
It’s compliance under duress. Only it turns out to be a bluff. As the ambiguous judgment in Cook v. Tait says:
“…the native citizen who is taxed may have domicile, and the property from which his income is derived may have situs, in a foreign country and the tax be legal—the government having power to impose the tax.”
The government does not have the power to impose the tax. USCs outside the US need to hear this, and act accordingly.
America’s inability to enforce its insane laws extraterritorially is surely good news, even though the damage already inflicted can’t be undone.
“When USCs outside the US try to comply because US law threatens them with destruction if they don’t – that’s “voluntary”, and the consequent damage is not “self-inflicted.”
should be:
“When USCs outside the US try to comply because US law threatens them with destruction if they don’t – that’s not “voluntary”, and the consequent damage is not “self-inflicted.”
badger: ”If the IGAs can subvert Congress’s FATCA law via Presidential decree, can’t FBAR application and thresholds and the renunciation fees be changed without Congress?”
The IGAs are effective in modifying FATCA because the IGAs change local law (stripping USCs of data protection rights, and protecting FIs from withholding), thus making it possible for FIs with US business (virtually all of them) to comply with both local law and US law. This diabolical arrangement suits both parties (US and residence state) and that’s the reason both states agree to it.
FBAR and the documentation of loss of citizenship are different, because residence-country law is not involved, and residence-country interests are not threatened. The residence country has no reason to intervene, and no reason to want to intervene.
“The government does not have the power to impose the tax.”
Yes it does because of savings clauses (Santa is over) in tax treaties.
The saving clause doesn’t give the US any power to impose US taxation on the non-US-source income of residents of other countries. Plenty of USCs (including me) never even heard of tax treaties and saving clauses until FATCA came into our lives.