This Is an Urgent Campaign to Repeal FATCA ALERT!
Support the Paul Amendment to Repeal FATCA!
November 29, 2017
This week the Senate version of the tax reform bill will come to the Senate
floor. The Campaign to Repeal FATCA has learned that Senator Rand Paul
(R-Kentucky) plans to offer as a floor amendment his bill S. 869 to repeal
the so-called “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
The Campaign to Repeal FATCA is asking everyone immediately to contact your
Senators with this simple message:
“Support the Paul Amendment to Repeal FATCA!”
You can find the contact information for your state’s two Senators
here. Given the partisan divide
in the Senate, it is especially important to contact Republican Senators. If
your state has one from each party, contact the Republican first!
Here is a suggested draft message you can use via the email contact. (NOTE:
If you are contacting a Democratic Senator, please delete the sentence in
red referring to the Platform.):
Dear Senator [Name]:
As your constituent, I strongly urge you to support the floor amendment to
be offered by Senator Rand Paul to repeal the so-called Foreign Account Tax
Compliance Act, or FATCA. Despite the claims of its sponsors when it was
passed in 2010, FATCA is a failure in its supposed aim to recover offshore
tax assets hidden by “fat cats.” Instead, it has imposed massive costs on
middle class Americans, violated Americans’ privacy without probable cause,
and led to a huge increase in U.S. citizenship renunciations. The 2016 GOP
Platform called for the repeal of this wrongheaded Obama-era law – and the
Republican Party should keep its promises! Please support the Paul Amendment
to repeal FATCA!
[Name, location]
In addition, if you represent an organization, please issue a statement in
support of the Paul Amendment to repeal FATCA and send it to Senate offices
and distribute via social media.
Time is of the essence. Thank you for your help at this critical moment!
Nigel Green and Jim Jatras
Co-Leaders, Campaign to Repeal FATCA
Further information points on why FATCA must be repealed follow:
The GOP called for repeal in its 2016 Platform. “The Foreign Account Tax
Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Foreign Bank and Asset Reporting Requirements
result in government’s warrantless seizure of personal financial information
without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Americans overseas should
enjoy the same rights as Americans residing in the United States, whose
private financial information is not subject to disclosure to the government
except as to interest earned. The requirement for all banks around the world
to provide detailed information to the IRS about American account holders
outside the United States has resulted in banks refusing service to them.
Thus, FATCA not only allows ‘unreasonable search and seizures’ but also
threatens the ability of overseas Americans to lead normal lives. We call
for its repeal and for a change to residency-based taxation for U.S.
citizens overseas.”
FATCA fails in its stated purpose of recovering tax revenues. On enactment
in 2010, FATCA was scored as raising about $800M per year. According to
Texas A&M law professor William Byrnes, actual recoveries are closer to
$100-200M per year and falling. FATCA will soon cost more than it brings in.
FATCA is an indiscriminate violation of privacy. FATCA data reporting
requires no probable cause or even suspicion. Unlike domestic 1099s and W2s,
no taxable event is required. Compliance burdens fall disproportionately
upon people of moderate means, few of whom are engaged in evasion or owe any
tax. Foreign banks’ denying services to Americans leads to increased U.S
citizenship renunciations.
FATCA is costly. Estimates of global compliance spending rely on aggregation
of per-institution costs: millions for each small bank, hundreds of millions
for a big one. One projection puts cumulative cost at $58 to $170 billion.
This is an order of magnitude greater than any recoveries from FATCA.
FATCA relies on Obama-era Executive overreach. Because of other countries’
privacy laws, FATCA is unenforceable without so-called “intergovernmental
agreements” (IGAs) invented by Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department. The IGAs
are not authorized by statute or submitted to the U.S. Senate as treaties.
FATCA threatens our domestic financial industry. Reciprocal “Model 1” IGAs
promise “reciprocity” from U.S. domestic banks. This threatens massive
FATCA-like costs on U.S. banks and consumers.
Keeping FATCA on the books risks future harm. The OECD, which for years has
sought to extinguish personal financial privacy and create a worldwide
financial data fishbowl, has praised the IGAs as a “catalyst” to that end.
If FATCA remains on the books, the next Democrat Administration and Congress
may press reciprocity on domestic American financial firms to create a
global FATCA – or “GATCA.” This is the opposite of what the GOP Platform
promised.
Transparency is when citizens monitor government.
When government monitors citizens, that’s tyranny.
“(Not filing US tax returns is not a crime.)”
I think it is, even if the US often decides not to prosecute.
“President Donald Trump has a pen and a phone. He knows how to issue Executive Orders.”
He knows how to issue Tweets. He knows how to delete Tweets. He knows how to assert that he didn’t Tweet what he Tweeted. He knows how to avoid reading his party’s own platform. He knows how to avoid giving a shit about ordinary people including nine million ordinary expats.
Dave W 8 is for non Americans. Fill it in and sign it. Bob’s your uncle.
Dave Just so we are clear. W8s don’t go to the IRS. They are kept by your investment advisor or bank in order for them to determine the level of withholding on US source income.
Tax evasion is a crime; not filing US tax returns is not a crime even in the US.
DoD – thanks for the correction. Dave – apologies for mistake.
Ironically, if it was a crime in my country for a US citizen not to file US tax returns, the bank accounts of a US citizen couldn’t be reported to the IRS without a criminal charge and a trial.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/7203
Wilful failure to make a return is punishable the same as wilful failure to pay estimated tax or tax, regardless of whether any estimated tax or tax has to be paid, including imprisonment up to 1 year.
Wilful failure by any person required by US law to file.. Many are not.
Is there any non-US country whose laws or treaties require a subset of residents to file US tax returns?
it frightens me that a country with so much power and influence is apparently incapable of recognising and putting right the incalculable harm caused by CBT and FATCA. The USA is a fat, monstrously stupid bully and the world needs to beware.
Now if we could only get someone influential to whisper “support repealing FATCA, get rid of OBAMA’s IGAs” into Trump’s ear at Mar-a-Lago during a nice evening when he is in a good mood… Any club members reading this?
Be careful what you wish for. Repealing FATCA would be good. Getting rid of IGAs without repealing FATCA would be good for US-resident USCs, but not necessarily good for USCs living outside the US, who without IGAs would again become much riskier for banks to accept/keep as customers.
Interestingly, according to the IRM, France, the Netherlands and Sweden won’t collect from their own citizens even if they weren’t citizens when the US tax liability “arose.”
Canada and Denmark only refuse to collect from their citizens if they were citizens when the US tax liability “arose.”
https://www.irs.gov/irm/part5/irm_05-021-007r
The IRS manual can’t be relied on to be accurate or up-to-date, so the statement above would need to be verified by checking current actual treaties.
If verified, perhaps Canadian and Danish US-duals might want to lobby their government for a treaty change to give them equal rights. No other country has collection agreements with the US, so Canada and Denmark are treating their citizens worse than other countries with regard to collection of US taxes. Would this violate Canada’s Charter?
@All…I do consider myself a Brocker through and through having been here with all of you too many years….I got my degree faster!!
Anyways I do no social media but visit Expat facebook as Keith is a great voice. Anyways someone just made the following comment that has given me strength;
—
Greg Swanson Keith, I have been in this movement for about one week. It came after a VC told me that I was too risky to have equity in a company that I was starting, and I should denounce. It is not the first time that I was discriminated against because of being a US Citizen. What I have seen inside this week is even more alarming. I saw two organizations that I had donated to expose themselves as not advocating for us, but advocating for their own interests and using us. I see the media that wants to portray us as a bunch of wealthy tax cheats. They don’t correct blatantly false stories, they actively want to spread false stuff. I had a discussion with my “tax advisor” who told me to keep cash in my pillow for retirement. And I see trollers (one in particular who works for DA) out to tell us that we are bad people if we do not set aside our own interests for the God given glory of calling ourselves “American”. I have two kids who are US Citizens (but dual nationals) and do not want to give up. Because of that, I will throw myself on the hand grenade and fight with all others who want to stop this discrimination, and join anyone without an alternative motive. I will give it one more shot for my own citizenship. Let’s get going!
If the IRM statement quoted by me above is correct, that would also mean that the answer to my question
is yes; since it seems that both Canada and Denmark will collect failure-to-file penalties assessed by the US as due from a US citizen residing in Canada / Denmark who (a) was required under US law to file and (b) was not a Canadian / Danish citizen, at the time of the failure to file.
I wish I could shout out to Greg Swanson Keith that I too am throwing myself on that grenade right with him,.
@Plaxy that is not new around here….but the angle you looked at it was different and helpful. Yes, Canada should start a lobby effort for equal treatment or to abolish collections like the rest of the world.
Hmmm, I think there is an OECD collection treaty you may wish to look at as well with your own eyes as it may help you tie a knot. The USA is a signatory but waived large parts.
@Bubbles….@Other Facebook people……
Could someone do a post at the Expat Facebook thread and do a shout out to Keith that there are non-facebook Brockers who are standing with him.
Note…some of us do not do facebook for reasons unrelated to FATCA or CBT!!!
Lastly the glass half full news…………….
1. The Paul amendment was not defeated….it was never voted on. Turns out he needed to play hardball and get it in the Managers Amendment…..not happy about that but………..
2. You Canadians all have Blue Cross that covers you in the USA but the rest of us need to rely on travel insurance on visiting. The repeal of the mandate means that the ability to buy and actually use travel insurance is now available again for Duals. I speak from experience when my young teen was denied a claim because of being dual and they were not Affordable Care Act compliant.
George – “I think there is an OECD collection treaty you may wish to look at as well with your own eyes as it may help you tie a knot. The USA is a signatory but waived large parts.”
Could you clarify? The OECD does not collect taxes as far as I know.
@plaxy
https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/11/01/dual-citizens-of-sweden-france-netherlands-denmark-canada-take-note-your-country-will-not-collect-for-the-u-s/
Please see section of post where the wording of each treaty ( on this issue) is examined.
Patricia Moon – Thanks for the link. I was aware from reading posts on IBS that Canada would collect US taxes from residents who had only US citizenship at the time the US tax liability arose – even if the person had since acquired Canadian citizenship.
But it was news to me that only Canada and Denmark will collect from their own citizens. It seems such an anomaly (two countries in the entire world!), that I wonder if it might be a weak spot which might be worth pressing on.
If either Canada or Denmark could be persuaded to put this right, the world would be united in refusing to collect US extraterritorial taxes from resident citizens! Next stop: world unites in refusing to treat resident citizens as double-taxable under US CBT.
I know that last bit is over-optimistic, for now.
Sorry – didn’t see your lat sentence before I jumped the gun and replied. Will go and read.
Patricia Moon – Having read, am I right in understanding that it’s now only Denmark that will collect from Danish citizens?
@Plaxy, you need to read this treaty;
http://www.oecd.org/ctp/exchange-of-tax-information/convention-on-mutual-administrative-assistance-in-tax-matters.htm