THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to the 101 people (!!!!) who have recently added their names to the Human Rights Complaint that was originally filed with the United Nations in 2014. The number of signatories is now almost quadruple that of the original submission.
In addition, the number of countries represented by the signers has almost doubled, from 10 in 2014 to 19!!
Every year since the Complaint’s filing we have sent a “Support Document” detailing, from online testimonies, the abuses that have been suffered by ordinary folk around the world because of United States CBT/FATCA and FBAR. It has always been accompanied by a short, one or two-paragraph letter simply reminding the UN that we’re still here and waiting for their response. This year the complete failure of the US government to adopt RBT/TBT for individuals, despite its promises to do so, warrants a larger package and a louder message to be sent to the United Nations.
This year’s “Support Document” is accompanied by the long list of additional signatories as well as the following letter (signed by myself and “Karen”) updating our situation. She and “Calgary” have been instrumental in the success of this current campaign and I thank them both deeply for everything they have done.
I hope that supporters will tweet this out to the media, post it on every website they know, send the link to their government representatives, and just get the word out that this action is in the works and we will NOT be ignored any longer.
For the “update” letter, please continue reading. December 2017
To: The United Nations Human Rights Council
It is now over three years since a group of individuals submitted a Human Rights Complaint against the United States of America for harms suffered as a result of that country’s extra-territorial tax policies. These individuals represent an estimated eight to nine million people from all walks of life scattered across the globe, powerless in the face of the nation that claims control over them.
Politicians and government officials come and go but they often leave in their wake a body of law and regulation that, while seeming appropriate at the time, prove, in the future, to be as destructive as any mine-field. Such is the 1913 US tax law that imposes income taxation on “citizens” rather than “residents”. In the insular world of 1913 one can understand that the two words could have been thoughtlessly equated. But one hundred years later the difference is clear….. painfully so for residents of countries outside the United States who are also deemed (by US law, and with or without their knowledge or consent) to be “citizens” of the US. Despite the Republican Party’s 2016 election promise that this out-dated practice of Citizenship-Based Taxation (CBT) would be replaced with the world standard of Residence/Territorial-Based Taxation (RBT/TBT), the tax reform bill about to become law contains not a single inclusion of any measure which would provide relief. To the contrary, a provision in the bill actually promises to make matters worse particularly for any “American” living “overseas” who owns a business. As someone said in a recent blog comment: “We asked for a life jacket and were thrown an anvil.”
We are out of time. The best opportunity for comprehensive tax reform in a generation has focused on the needs of corporate America (with all its resources) and left individuals (with relatively few resources) swinging upside down in the wind to ensure that the last penny falls from their pockets.
We can wait no longer for the wheels of bureaucracy to grind away toward a distant dream of a resolution to our community’s collective nightmare. We need the help of the United Nations Human Rights Council NOW, not seven years from now nor a decade or two. The United Nations has traditionally been the world’s “go to” organization in all matters relating to the violation of human rights (largely by governments), be it lack of a population’s basic necessities, discrimination against groups or individuals, or management of refugees. The modern world has introduced a whole new category of government abuse facilitated by a combination of out-dated law and 21st century cyber-surveillance. The community of “expatriate Americans” is but its first victim.
With the demise of any hope of the adoption of residence/territorial based taxation or the repeal of the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) our domestic recourse is at full stop. True, there is a lawsuit (against FATCA alone) currently being appealed at the Supreme Court level in the United States. Two lower courts nimbly redirected the blame by determining that the plaintiffs in the case, if they had suffered any harm at all, had not suffered it at the hands of the US government but rather at the hands of their local “foreign” banks! The fact that the banks’ actions were the direct result of US threat was not accepted. Lawsuits and appeals are also currently underway in Canada, France and Israel but their decisions will be years away and will affect only the residents of those countries.
There needs to be one decision, one action, which solves the issue once and for all, NOW. International law, as stated in Article 38 of the “Statute of the International Court of Justice”, already recognizes “international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law” and “the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations” as the basis of justice. Already the taxation standard, practiced and established for many years by 98% of the world’s nations, is based on residence &/or territoriality. The United States of America and the dictatorship of Eritrea (already condemned for the practice by the United Nations) are the only two outliers who use citizenship as their basis for the imposition of tax. Since BOTH Eritrea and the United States are clearly not acting according to general custom, they are BOTH clearly in violation of international law. The practice needs to be condemned by ALL nations and ALL international organizations no matter WHAT nation is the perpetrator, no matter its size, no matter its power. In other words, the world and all its governing bodies must abide by Article 2 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: “… no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”
The resolution of our case will be one of the least costly ever brought before your organization. We require no money, no food supplies, no education programs, no refugee camps, and no military intervention. All we ask is a moment of the Human Rights Council’s time to consider our situation with compassion and common sense. Our case is more than adequately proclaimed in the Human Rights Complaint (submitted August 7, 2014) that this letter and the accompanying document support. We have been scrupulous in living up to our agreement not to publish our Complaint until being given permission to do so by the United Nations. At this juncture in the process, over three years in, we must respectfully request that the United Nations Human Rights Council deal immediately with our Complaint.
Attached for your interest is a “Support Document”, the fourth such that we have sent you over the years, giving quotes from and links to testimonies (posted online since August, 2016) of individuals adversely affected by US extra-territorial tax law. Also, we have attached a list of people who wish to have their names added as signatories to the Complaint. We are awaiting a timely response along with news of the acceptance of our Complaint into the complaints process.
Respectfully,
[signatures of myself &”Karen”]
For further explanation of the additional negative impact of certain provisions now included in the US tax reform bill , please see: http://fixthetaxtreaty.org/2017/12/04/call-to-action/
‘Such is the 1913 US tax law that imposes income taxation on “citizens” rather than “residents”. In the insular world of 1913 one can understand that the two words could have been thoughtlessly equated.’
I suggest additions:
For example, passports of the kind we use now did not exist in 1913. For example, US law unilaterally revoked citizenship of persons who resided outside the US for certain periods, automatically relieving them of extraterritorial citizenship based taxation.
Norman: Thank you for these two important details about US passports. More grist for our mill, indeed.
I forgot to mention that the “send button” was already pushed several hours ago. The letter and its attachments are in the hands of the UN “as we speak”.
Such is the 1913 US tax law that imposes income taxation on “citizens” rather than “residents”
Wrong !
CBT pas imposed in thé 19th century during thé american civil war in order to discourage wealthy people to go live abroad to escape the war.
In 1913 the 16th amendement was passed imposing taxation on individuals. But, it was not ratified by the 50 states !!! Si, in effect, it did not change anything.
The private IRS agency working for the private federal reserve also created in 1913 try’s to make american citizens born in one of the 50 states beleive that income tax is obligatory since WW2…when it is not !
Filling a 1040 is a volontary act !
Filling a 1040 means you accept the federal tax contract !
Please watch “America from freedom to fascism” on You Tube and ex IRS agent Jo Banister’s website who has been fighting for 20 years to spread the truth and make things change.
Our problem is that we are fighhting against a private central bank corporation and not a democratic gouvernement.
This is what needs to also be brought up at the United Nations.
Problem is that they, the corporists, created the IMF and the UN in 1947 to invade the world with their central banking system to conrol all nations with FIAT money, debt and allways more tax !
Contact Jo Banister, I’m sure he’ll be glad to help.
Don’t comply !
I don’t, I refuse to abid to illegal laws !!!
Remember the children affected by the US law. Kids that are dual cirtizens, even born in their countries of residence, that barely speaks English, are penalized if they inherit from their parents of grandparents abroad.
Remember also who the countries where dual citizens are living fail to protect their own citizens against the US extraterritoriality.
I think the complaint is important among the various efforts for reform. It is ammunition for legislative reform should the subject be brought up in Congress some day. Thanks to those who take the time and trouble of managing it.
@MuzzledNoMore,
Thank you so much for continuing to maintain this effort. Deeply appreciate this and other of your work on behalf of all of us affected.
Fred (B) and Badger: Thanks so much! The work has been extremely rewarding and I’ve had such wonderful support. Thanks also for all the wisdom you both share with all of us here!
it is unfortunate so many of those affected are too fearful to even sign this document and come out of the shadows for fear of popping up on the radar. Perhaps if the consequences were not so dire, there would be 9 million signatures….then the UN would act, US probably would too.
@Notme
Totally agree 🙂
I’ve personnally written to the Whitehouse in 2014 and commented on the Paris US embassy’s Facebook page sharing the You Tube movie “America from freedon to fascism” using my name and picture just like here.
I’m not afraid when injustice and illegal laws are at work.
They know I know, they know who I am and where I live and so what ?
That’s why they probably won’t come after me.
But also I have NO TIES to the US, not renewing my passport and defenitly never going back to THAT country !
Wich is not the case ofe others.
I still don’t understand why we haven’t had a massive manifestation in front of US embassy’s across the world to get the attention of main stream media and why we have not been lobbying major universities around the world to tell students why they should never go wourk in USA.
I wrote to the Sorbonne university in Paris but they didn’t react.
The world must know why america has become a very bad place to live.
That’s the only way things will change, real pressure on the reputation of USA !
Don’t beleive in any other legal action because THEY have all the strings and don’t care about constitutions or human rights to protect people, what ? Something of the past for them.
My American friend here in the north of England is terrified. She’s absolutely NOT going to be signing any petitions or doing any protesting, she’s just keeping her head down and below the radar.
She’s far from alone.
She won’t be able to fly under the radar forever. As soon as she wants to open a bank account, contract a life insurance, get a mortgage or do anything “financial”, she will have to provide her SSN, and that SSN along with all her contact and bank data will go to the US.
My instinct is to stay under the radar. But I signed. Seriously, what are they going to do? Go after 100 people who signed a complaint? No chance. I don’t live in fear of black helicopters.
As for Mike’s friend, if she can’t avoid giving a SSN to the bank, what could happen? I think the chances of the IRS coming for her are slimmer than winning the Euromillions jackpot.
David…
My US barmaid friend has no bank account in the UK, she owns nothing but the clothes on her back in the UK. Everything is in her husbands name and even her bar job is cash in hand.
Of course, that means she is incredibly vulnerable if the relationship ever soured, and she won’t be alone in that respect either.
Fred (B) I largely agree with you, but the fact is the US has now fully realised just how much they can abuse the rest of the world with what amounts to financial terrorism and if they did turn around and say to the UK “collect penalties from these people or we close your banks” and added a little sweetener in that they would do it with UK citizens in the USA (but never deliver on that!) then I suspect the UK would do it.
Will the US do that?
I doubt it, but I certainly can’t say that it wont. I put nothing past the US any more, they have the morals of a hungry snake.
PEACE ON EARTH & HUMAN RIGHTS WHEREVER WE LIVE OUTSIDE THE USA
and Very Happy Holidays, however you and your families celebrate!
Merry Christmas to all!
Mike : to play devil’s advocate your friend probably owes no tax anyway. She should get a US bank account at least, isn’t there that State Dept Credit Union?
Also current events, see U.N. vote on Jerusalem, show how terrified the rest of the world is now. Not.
Looking forward to IRS Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olsen’s upcoming 2017 Annual Report to Congress, probably due out in the first part of January (10th or so?) https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/reports .
Might provide more backup fodder for the Human rights complaint.
@Fred(B) tax compliance and Jerusalem are two different issues. The countries all over the world are scared of FATCA as US threatens the withholding tax if non compliances by central govts and banks are found. USD being the reserve currency is the issue here as all financial institutions use USD as currency of choice and everyone rich enough all over the world is invested in US stock market, bonds and securities so therefore the financial institutions are falling head over heels to comply with the US law.
@Edwina Henriquez (International Human Rights and Democratization Lawyer/Journalist/passionate about human rights; international politics and international relations), says:
Before I gave you an advise I would like to look into the case more thoroughly to see which UN- body has jurisdiction in this case or that the case has to be litigated nationally first due to the clause that all the national remedies must been exhausted. I will come back to you.
https://twitter.com/mmehenriquez/status/983195878767972352
@Edwina Henriquez:
If the plaintiff can prove that he/ she can not get justice for its case before the national courts then it will be possible to bring the case to the attention of the UN-body. My first line of thinking is that if this case is already 3 years at the UN maybe this case must be
brought before the Interamerican Court for Human Rights in Costa Rica; that is the Court for case concerning citizens of the US and Latinamerican countries but tomorrow I will look into the case; its now past midnight over here. Good night.
So its now May 2018, well June 2018. What has the UN said about CBT,FATCA, FBAR?
I’d also like to know if the UN has given a response.
Will the US pulling out of the UN human rights council positively or negatively impact the complaint that was filed? I can’t decide whether it’s good news or not. Maybe the remaining member nations will no longer feel obliged to cower to america and will actually condemn the abusive behaviour of the US gov’t against its citizens.
@Petlover: This is my hope as well. The hypocritical empire which claims that “America is great because we’re good” (a Hillary Clinton quote blatantly stolen without attribution from a European, Alexis de Tocqueville), which routinely mows down black people in the streets, which maintains its Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, which refuses adequate health care to its people, which places the right to a gun over the right to life, with some of the highest incarceration and child mortality rates in the developed world, and which treats its diaspora as criminals until proven otherwise, should have quite a few human rights prosecutions against it. But I’ll settle for taking the USA to task over CBT.
@Mike
Late in responding to your post but …..
The US has already threatened the banks of other countries and call it “de-risking”. In the case of the Caribbean … they have been threatening to “de-risk” by closing ALL correspondent banking accounts for all banks. Utter garbage but a real threat. If no Caribbean bank can pay or accept US Dollars they (and the countries they are in and those populations) will be isolated. Worse yet if no quick adjustment could be made to using Pounds, Euro or Yuan as alternatives since those banks operating those accounts would then be deemed to be contaminated and also cut off from the New York Banking system. IMF and Caribbean countries have been fighting this and “seeking solutions” …. of course by jumping through higher and higher hoops at greater and greater costs which of course get passed though to the poorest in the society by inflating the cost of goods and services that they require to consume.
The answer has to be a new financial system located outside the US and NOT using the US Dollar for any purpose whatsoever. Putting the US into the position whereby they will have to export or be denied goods and services from outside the US. The Chinese have been leaders in this and are well on the way to achieving this BUT they play a long game.
Here’s an idea for those of you in Europe.
Why not file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights over the fact that literally all countries signatory to the European Charter on Human Rights enforce FATCA. I see this as a viable path given that the US is pulling out of the UN charter on Human rights. And even then you could file a specific complaint to the UN over a specific country enforcing FATCA on its residents.
From a quick 30 minutes internet search I have not found any reason to believe any complaint has been made over this matter in the European court of human rights yet.
Any thoughts?