Lobby the New US Government!

96 thoughts on “Lobby the New US Government!”

1. Just contacted the tech support, and there is a server upgrade in process. fatca.eu.pn should be up again within 48 hours. May I suggest to anyone who may want to make use of this resource for the above lobbying effort: download each and every PDF from this site once it’s active again.

   My thoughts on whether it’s ethical to submit all these letters, I would say that each person submitted them in the full knowledge that they would be placed online in the public domain. Not only that, but all contact information–address, emails, phone numbers–has been blacked out. Therefore I would have no qualms in sending these to the Trump Transition Team, the House Ways & Means Committee, and whichever goon is appointed the new Treasury Secretary.

2. I ran into this twitter stream (saved on storify) about how to get the attention of your elected representatives:
   https://storify.com/editoremilye/i-worked-for-congress-for-six-years

   I no longer have any elected representatives in the US, but those who are registered to vote should consider calling theirs – especially if the incumbent was re-elected. Skype or Google Hangouts can be used to make free phone calls to US phone numbers.

3. Tricia et al, RE: re-sending the House Ways & Means/Senate Finance Committee Letters:

   Thank you for taking this in hand! I am not a lawyer but I have to agree with Barbara on the legality issue. These letters became public the moment they were posted on the Committee’s website and were accessible by anyone. As Barbara mentioned, any personal I.D.s were redacted. Moreover, the letters would be re-sent to the same Committee(s) that originally received them in the first place.

   Perhaps you could run this idea past John, or contact Alison Christians for her take on it. I certainly wouldn’t pass up the opportunity. The fact that all those powerful statements were completely ignored the first time they were received is a story in itself.

   Again, thanks for your work on this!

   P.S. Why not just send a covering letter that includes the link to the whole package rather than sending out individually PDFs?

4. These are the links I have for the letters:

   https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fapp.box.com%2Fcitizenshiptaxation/browse/3414062298
   https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fapp.box.com%2Fcitizenshiptaxation/browse/4060221313

5. Pacifica has added links above that cover it very nicely. A lot of people cannot open those links.

   I don’t think we’ve decided upon who is doing what yet. It would be extremely helpful to me not to be involved other than providing information for others to use. Since there is no immediate hurry (we have to at least wait until we know who is doing what), let’s work on building a team.

6. @Bubbles

   My most heartfelt thanks to those who’ve renounced but continue to fight on behalf of justice and equality, when you could easily walk away in relative peace. What keeps you going?

   Thank you for noticing………..I cannot answer the question. Other than to say that the folks I work with are part of my life now and I still have some energy. That is unlikely to be the case unless this somehow does work out with the proposed Tax Reform. What I mean is, there is no way I have the energy for endless years of doing this. There are other things I want to do with my life before I leave.

7. fatca.eu.pn is back online! In case anyone wants to copy these to send. Please ignore any warnings that this is a possible malware/bad guy site. There are probably other, less savoury sites also using eu.pn, but that has no effect on this one, I promise!

   I’m tempted to print out all 260+ submissions and send a thick packet to every Senator, as well as the Trump administration. But that would be an expensive exercise. An e-mail version will likely have no impact, but a big, fat envelope arriving on the desk will.

8. “a big, fat envelope arriving on the desk will” [have an impact]

   Who told you that?

9. @Norman: No one told me that. But long experience dealing with bureaucrats and elected politicians and their minions in three countries tells me that despite all the new technology, paper still has a greater impact on such people than pixels. A stack 100-pages thick will be less likely to be ignored than a 2 megabyte e-mail. Whenever I have a choice, I send paper letters rather than electronic communication.

10. @Barbara

    I wonder if it might but just as effective mailing a high impact letter that makes reference to your cache of submissions instead. All paper mail is examined for threats, which could cause significant delays in delivery.

    Only my opinion, but I think a letter as I’ve suggested followed up with a phone call might be more effective than a pile of paper that for its enormousness alone might just be ignored.

11. “An e-mail version will likely have no impact”

    I didn’t ask who told you that. We already know that. (Except when the e-mail comes from a big campaign donor.)

    “a big, fat envelope arriving on the desk will” [have an impact]

    I asked who told you that. (I bet that even from a big campaign donor, a big fat envelope will have less impact than a small envelope containing a cheque and an appointment for a phone call or breakfast meeting.)

12. @ Norman Diamond and Barbara
    The trick is to attach many small cheques to the pages you most want the recipient to read (made out to the campaign, of varying amounts and not totalling any more than you can reasonably afford). As he/she is peeling off the cheques something should catch his/her eye. Many of the SFC stories are extraordinarily compelling for even a person with a empathy deficit. Accentuate key passages with highlighter pens, of course. 😉 😉

13. Speaking of causing impact…

    Not sure if this is a good idea, not sure if this was covered on another post or if it was already suggested. But here it goes.

    I keep thinking that the true effects of FATCA and CBT on average Americans abroad (and many other non-USpersons of course) are severly under-reported in the US media, and thus not on the minds of the average person or politician holding a position of power, and this certainly doesnt help our cause. Even on Youtube the typical videos you find don’t go into depth about it’s actual effects, but spend more time talking about how to become compliant. I vaguely recall one rather popular progressive channel critizing anti-FATCA arguements, basically implying that having “foreign” accounts (you know, the “foreign off shore” account in the bank just a few blocks away from your house in the country you live in) equates to being a tax cheat. The point is, I hardly see anything in the mainstream media discussing how it affects us and all the problems associated with the US tax laws in regards to Americans abroad. And if there has been, it’s always minimal and still has not been enough to generate interest into what is happening to us.

    What if in addition to writing/calling the new US government, we could also consider writing to a mainstream News media outlet asking them to consider covering our issue? Granted , I know nothing about how that all works and if it would even work, but if large numbers of people wrote to say, Fox News which clearly sides with the Republican party, and explained the true situation of FATCA and CBT and how the RNC aims to change these things, I see a potentially good spot light for us. If we Explain how this was enacted (in a very fishy way nonetheless) during Obama’s time through a Democrat platform; how it violates US constitutional rights, UN declaration of human rights and forces other nations to change their own laws backed into a corner of compliance; how we are suffering the same taxation without representation that sparked the war of independence; how we are essentially left in the dust so politicians can appear tough on “tax cheats” etc.

    Regardless of our political view points and our feelings about this new government, the truth will always be that our issue is beyond political party’s agenda, but unfortunately only one of those parties has specifically said it promises to repeal it and support RBT. Even worse, the other party is essentially responsible for the “they’re tax cheats!” mentality. I think you get what I am trying to say. I feel enough has been propagated against our cause, perhaps its time we take advantage and turn the tables.

    Assuming a news outlet would even consider making a report out of our issue, I definitely can imagine something like Fox news seeing this as an opportunity to create a dialogue about how FATCA is bad, un American, destroys competitiveness overseas, generates no tax revenue, only meant to punish people, punishes accidental Americans, an invention of Democrats, Obama’s bad, and so on…. and how the Republican party is the only one supporting change, supporting the “forgotten Americans” against the worst law no one has ever heard of. It might urge Trump to speak up and at least announce that he supports us and will fulfill the promise of the party platform. This could go along side a report on the tax code overhaul and might be used to make Trump look better in the face of all the negativity he recieves / puts on himself. I say this only as speculation of what a mainstream pro-Republican media might want to promote, not as a personal objective. Perhaps appealing to their bias might make an interesting story to report on.”Repeal FATCA” alone is not exciting, but we have the context of a Republican majority and a Republican president who is receiving negative attention.

    See where I am going with this? The politics means nothing to me, I simply dont care about the politcal message that would be weaved in a story about an issue such as FATCA repeal and RBT support. All I want is FATCA to die and it’s CBT roots to die along with it. Another thing I don’t want is our fellow ex-US citizen’s and future ex-US citizen’s renounciations due to FATCA to be incorrectly attributed to Donald Trump taking the eyes off FATCA and CBT, which can easily happen.

    As we all know, we already have a window of opportunity, perhaps this might be another way to get our message across. Mainstream media is usually biased, maybe using that bias to our advantage might bring our issue onto the stage and at the very least get people talking about it. When people recognize how seriously messed up the reality of FATCA (CBT) is, I feel it might encourage congress, senate and the president to put it on their immediate agenda.

    I don’t mean to sound desperate by all this, it’s just an idea stemming from too many years of hopelessness. Hopefully it is of some use…what do you think?

14. An interesting and amusing interview between CBC’s Sunday Edition host Michael Enright and Washington political establishment critic, Thomas Frank.

    Among other things, Frank claims the election was all about class issues, and how Clinton was the absolutely wrong candidate to run against Trump.

    “Hillary walked right into the buzz saw”.

    Liberals botched the election and put Donald Trump in the White House, says Thomas Frank:

    http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/sunday-edition/segment/10773719

15. FYI, Trump/Repubs want to know what to prioritize in new administration,

    https://gop.com/100-day-plan-action-survey/

16. Also this,

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/21/us/politics/what-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days-and-how-difficult-each-will-be.html

17. Does anyone have anything other than pointless Twitter addresses to contact any of the above? I mean especially any official mailing address for the transition team? I found Paul Ryan’s home state office address and have been sending off snail mail letters.

    Congressman Paul Ryan
    Janesville Constituent Services Center
    20 South Main Street Suite 10
    Janesville, WI 53545 USA

    Using Twitter is like shouting inside a noisy stadium crowd and expecting to be heard. We need to send paper letters and, as a second resort, e-mails.

    Does anyone have a suggestion as to the best place to mail Trump and/or his transition team?

18. @Barbara –
    I agree that little notice will be taken of all the tweets. Snail mail and phone calls are best.

    https://twitter.com/wholemilk/status/800945257730883584

    This doesn’t help with the transition team, but does list snail mail, email and phone numbers for congressional leadership, Senators and Representatives. The link inside the tweet goes to a Google spreadsheet filled with talking points for a bunch of other issues (not ours) as well as the contact details.

    You can phone US numbers for free with skype or google hangouts.

19. Thanks, Barbara and Karen. I added Congressman’s Ryan’s mailing address and a link to the Congressional Leadership, Senators and Representatives Contact Info Spreadsheet to the list in the original post.

20. “You can phone US numbers for free with skype or google hangouts.”

    Skype lets you phone US and Canadian free-dial numbers for free (800, 888, 877, etc.) but others cost money.

    I think Google Hangouts lets you call all US and Canadian numbers for free but I haven’t tried it.

21. That list of Congressional contacts is excellent! I assume they’re for the current Congress and not the incoming one, which makes me hesitant to blitz them all with letters. I hope this will be updated.

    I use Google Voice (through the Hangouts dialer) to make and receive free calls to any number in North America. The sound quality is better than regular phone lines too. Only trouble with Google Voice is that, to get a free number that you can use for this purpose, you need to be physically present in the USA (or Canada, I suppose) and temporarily change your Google account registration to a USA address and USA phone number (or Canadian, I’m guessing). I did this a couple years ago by getting a temporary SIM card with a US number, and using a relative’s Homeland mailing address, then changed back the instant my Voice number was assigned. You can be sure I’ll use it to phone many of these esteemed elected officials, once I’m sure whom to call.

22. If anyone out there votes in Connecticut:

    FWIW, I am no longer an US citizen, so will just point out that at least one Congressman already knows very well (or should) about the effects of extraterritorial FATCA, FBAR and CBT because at least one of us tried to school his office about it previously, and he was born, raised and worked outside the US. His wife is a Canadian:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Himes
    http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/connecticut-house-district-4-himes-shaban
    https://www.himesforcongress.com/about/

    You’ll see that he was born and lived abroad – in Peru, educated at Oxford in England, and worked in Latin America. His wife went to McGill in Montreal, and was probably born and raised a Canadian citizen, they were married in Toronto,ON, where her father was a banker.
    http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/style/weddings-mary-l-scott-james-a-himes.html

    He would be acquainted firsthand with the ordinariness of people’s local banking ‘abroad’. And is a member of the Americans Abroad caucus.

23. “at least one of us tried to school his office about it previously”

    Tried? So failed, right?

    I once read about a US president who had lived abroad, had a father from abroad, and had a stepfather from abroad. Maybe someone tried to school him but failed, right?

24. I’ve used the hangouts dialler (from inside my gmail account in the browser rather than through the hangouts plugin, but I’m not sure whether that matters) without having a Google Voice number.

25. This article explains why it is better to call a senator/congressman

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/politics/heres-why-you-should-call-not-email-your-legislators.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

    Some excerpts:

    A phone call from a constituent can, indeed, hold more weight than an email, and far outweighs a Facebook post or a tweet.

    To understand why, it helps to know what happens when someone answers the phone at a legislator’s office.

    Even if you don’t speak directly to the lawmaker, staff members often pass the message along in one form or another.

    “……the way your points reach a lawmaker depends on how many calls the office is getting at the time and how you present your story.

    In some cases, it’s a simple process. When a caller offered an opinion, staff members would write the comments down in a spreadsheet, compile them each month and present reports to top officials, she said. If the lawmaker had already put out a statement on the issue, the staff member would read it to the caller, she said.

    But a large volume of calls on an issue could bring an office to a halt, sometimes spurring the legislator to put out a statement on his or her position, Ms. Ellsworth said. She recommended the tactic in a series of tweets shared thousands of times.

    “It brings a legislative issue right to the top of the mind of a member,” she said. “It makes it impossible to ignore for the whole staff. You don’t get a whole lot else done.”

    While scripts found on the internet can be useful for people uncomfortable talking on the phone, she suggested making the phone calls as personal as possible. In some cases, if she was moved by a call, she would pass on the comments to her district director, she said.

    “What representatives and staffers want to hear is the individual impact of your individual story,” she said. “I couldn’t listen to people’s stories for six to eight hours a day and not be profoundly impacted by them.”

    Representatives in Congress may not be able to respond to individual phone calls, but your odds may be higher if you contact officials at the local or state levels.

    A New York State Senator, Phil Boyle, a Republican, said that one of his staff members would contact him after a constituent called his office, and that he would try to call everyone back. That’s a perk exclusive to those who call in, since he sometimes gets more than 300 emails per day, he said.

    “I couldn’t possibly do that for emails,” Mr. Boyle said.

    “…..said that first-time callers often fear they will be quizzed or interrogated, but that they generally just need to offer their opinion and basic personal information, like name and city.

    She implored people to be courteous, since the staff members might be getting many calls.

    “Communicate in a way that someone can’t ignore,” Ms. Waite said.

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