Here’s an update on S. 1813, the “highway bill” which would ban credit cards and wire transfers from non-FATCA banks and confiscate passports of U.S. Persons abroad who refuse to pay thousands of dollars per year to accountants to file forms like 3520, 8621, and 8858 that no one in the Homeland has ever heard of.
In the past few weeks, while we’ve all been distracted by Eduardo Saverin’s renunciation and the Ex-PATRIOT Act, Congress has been quietly continuing its efforts to gnaw away at the other rights of U.S. Persons abroad. On 8 May, the House and the Senate held the first meeting of their joint Surface Transportation Conference. The conference aims to achieve bicameral agreement on a “highway bill” before the 30 June expiration of existing transport funding measures. According to an article in The Hill, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the author of the passport-confiscation amendment (S.A. 1761), is “cautiously optimistic” that the Conference can make that deadline.
