Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Tag Archives: national origin discrimination

Social Security Totalization Agreements fail to cover more than half of Americans abroad

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TotalizationAgreements

Sources of data: Social Security Administration, U.S. State Department via American Citizens Abroad
  United States
  Totalization agreement in force by 1978–1999   No agreement, 100,000+ U.S. citizens in 1999
  Totalization agreement in force by 2000–2014   No agreement, 10,000+ U.S. citizens in 1999

 

In 1999, among the estimated 4.2 million U.S. citizens residing outside of the U.S., 1.7 million lived in countries which had Totalization Agreements with the U.S. at the time, while 280,000 lived in countries for which Totalization Agreements with the U.S. would come into effect by 2014. The remaining 2.2 million lived in countries where they would have to pay U.S. Social Security taxes on top of any similar local taxes if they worked for U.S. companies or for themselves — without any credits to prevent double taxation.

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American Samoans’ lawsuit against Washington over “U.S. national” status

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In July 2012, Leneuoti Tuaua and four other plaintiffs filed suit in the D.C. District Court against the U.S. government and three State Department officials, claiming that American Samoans should be entitled to U.S. citizenship rather than their current “U.S. national” status. The lawsuit was dismissed in June 2013, but the plaintiffs appealed to the D.C. Circuit in February.

A number of legal scholars have filed amici briefs for the appellants, including Michael Ramsey of the the Tenth Amendment Center. More recently, the Department of Justice filed its own amicus brief attempting to rebut the appellants’ claims. Marianas Variety reports:

On Tuesday, the Obama administration on filed a brief before the District of Columbia Circuit Court arguing that Americans born in U.S. territories have no constitutional right to citizenship. Relying on a series of controversial Supreme Court decisions known as the Insular Cases that have been compared to Plessy v. Ferguson, the Obama administration defended a federal statute that expressly creates two classes of American nationals: those who enjoy the protections of U.S. citizenship and those who do not.

One of the more obscure consequences of this two-class system is a corner-case interaction between the Immigration & Nationality Act and the Internal Revenue Code: U.S. non-citizen nationals abroad are not “U.S. Persons” for tax purposes under 26 USC § 7701(a)(30).

This has no effect on American Samoans at home, since they — like every else — pay taxes to their local government for the services they actually use. It does make things simpler for American Samoans who move to Apia or Auckland or Australia or beyond. Due to the U.S.’ strange system of non-resident taxation — shared with only one other country on the planet, Eritrea — U.S. citizens (including Puerto Ricans and U.S. Virgin Islanders) and green card holders who live in other countries must spend thousands of dollars on professional assistance checking in with the IRS every year to prove the obvious fact that they’re already paying taxes to the country where they live and owe no U.S. tax. However, non-citizen nationals abroad are exempt from the IRS’ requirements.

But for the far more numerous American Samoans living in the fifty states, who pay the same taxes as their neighbours, this exemption is useless — and nevertheless, they pay a high cost for it: they cannot enjoy the same voting rights as people from other U.S. territories, nor many other rights enjoyed by other Americans, such as sponsoring a foreign spouse for a non-quota green card. Under Washington’s bizarre ideology, the price for freedom of emigration is your right to vote and your right to family life.

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Hong Kong government signs TIEA (not FATCA IGA) with U.S., proposes strengthening anti-discrimination laws

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Coincidentally, two separate news items which have the potential to collide in a very strange way came out on the same day here in Hong Kong. The bad news first:

Hong Kong and US sign tax information agreement

The Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Professor K C Chan, signed today (March 25) in Hong Kong on behalf of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government an agreement with the United States of America (US) for exchange of information (EoI) relating to taxes. The Consul-General of the US to Hong Kong and Macau, Mr Clifford A Hart, Jr, signed on behalf of his Government.

The South China Morning Post cuts through all the government euphemisms in its headline: “Hong Kong agrees to hand over financial details of Americans working in city to US tax authorities”. However, this is not as bad as it sounds, for reasons I’ll discuss after the jump; the very existence of this TIEA, rather than jumping straight ahead to a FATCA IGA, has some interesting implications for Hong Kong and Beijing’s larger strategy towards FATCA.

In addition, there’s another seed of hope for “U.S. Persons” here who have the crazy idea that they deserve the same rights as any other Hong Kong residents, even if the government doesn’t yet realise its implications:

問人「來自何地」或涉歧視

Asking people “where are you from” may become discrimination
《星島日報》，2014年3月25日 Sing Tao Daily, 25 March 2014
中港矛盾持續，港人辱罵內地人亦時有發生。平機會主席周一嶽昨表示，暫未收到有內地人在港受歧視的投訴，但有收到小量查詢，今年第三季檢討是否修訂四條歧視條例，專家正構思加入「個人的來源地」及「入境年份」等字眼，杜絕無理行為。 With the ongoing conflicts between mainland China and Hong Kong, there have sometimes been incidents of Hong Kong people abusing mainland people. Equal Opportunities Commission Chairman York Chow stated, although the EOC has not yet received any complaints from mainland people about discrimination they have suffered in Hong Kong, it has received a small volume of enquiries. In the third quarter of this year, the EOC plans to review whether or not to amend the four discrimination ordinances, and experts are considering adding language such as “person’s place of origin” and “year of immigration” to eliminate unreasonable behaviour.

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U.S. State Department: “We cannot make India look at you as an American” (unless there’s money in it for the U.S. government)

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Salman Nouman (Twitter: @ImFilmmaker), a U.S. citizen based in Dubai, recently tried to apply for a student visa to attend film school in Bollywood, only to find that the Indian government does not permit naturalised U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin to apply for Indian visas on their U.S. passports. In an Outlook India article about his experience, he mentions the reaction of the U.S. government when he asked them for help dealing with his problem:

After working through the maze of departments within the DOS, I was finally routed to the American Citizen Services and India Desk. They asked me to email them the details, which I did, expecting a quick resolution. Surely the all-powerful Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton would get Consular Affairs to immediately ask India to not discriminate against US citizens based on their origin and treat all Americans uniformly for visa applications?

American Citizen Services told me that India has a right to deny my visa – to which I replied, of course, that that was not the problem. I would accept a denial on my US passport if I was put through the same process as any British, Irish, Italian, Arabic or other origin US citizen. As a US national, I wanted equality, and to be able to travel as a US national without my origin playing any part in that. It is the State Department’s job to ensure that US citizens are not discriminated against. And yet, they told me: “We cannot make India look at you as an American”.

Isn’t it great to see that US$1.20-per-American-abroad American Citizens Services budget is bringing us so many “great benefits of American citizenship”?

If Mr. Nouman’s story has a happy ending and he makes it to India with a visa in his Pakistani passport instead of his U.S. passport, he’ll find in fact that the U.S. has been putting out all efforts for more than three years to make India and every other country on earth look at him as an American. The U.S. is so intent on achieving this that they’re threatening (through FATCA’s provisions on gross proceeds withholding) to confiscate 30% of U.S. assets owned by residents of other countries if those countries don’t look at you as an American for tax & banking purposes — even if that violates their own laws, and even if you have another passport and emigrated from the U.S. long ago.

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It’s official – Renouncing US citizenship saved our home

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To be honest, scan0024I wasn’t sure if I was making the best decision.  Some people advised against renouncing US citizenship while others recommended it.  Yet, after unsuccessfully warning American politicians, I elected mission safety and handed in the blue passport.

To the left is a picture of my buddies and myself on the right, loading a ship to bring us to Somalia.

Now, it is official. I could hardly believe it when I read it, but it is true.  Renouncing US citizenship saved the mortgage for our primary residence.  Two days ago, the provider of my mortgage stated the following in press:

“In the mean time, we have distanced ourselves from almost all of our American customers.  Currently, the bank has 5 investment accounts and 39 bank accounts belonging to US citizens.  The only thing in the path of reducing that down to zero is that we haven’t been able to contact the clients yet.”
Sourcescan

To the right is a picture of my grandfather who fought for America during WWII.

There is no guarantee that I would have been able to refinance my mortgage with any other service as a US citizen and neither the US Veterans Administration nor the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are willing or able to assist Americans living outside of US jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) does not have jurisdiction to handle complaints outside of the United States.

STATUTE – It is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States.

Sec. 802. [42 U.S.C. 3602] Definitions

(g) “State” means any of the several States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any of the territories and possessions of the United States.

FHEO administratively enforces federal statutes, executive orders and regulations designed to afford all persons an equal opportunity to live in housing of their choice and to participate in HUD-assisted programs and activities without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, familial status (families with children under 18), disability, or age.
Source

I volunteered to fight for America in the US Army, yet which American politician fought to save the home of an American veteran living abroad?  I could care less about banking secrecy as long as the innocent are protected and I’m all for combatting money laundering.  Yet, America needs to do much more to ensure that its policies do not cause harm to innocent Americans living overseas in violation of US federal laws prohibiting national origin discrimination.

Federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on your race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.
Source

A residency-based tax system would prevent national origin discrimination against Americans for having a mortgage on their primary home or local checking account, and fighting for such would not violate US federal laws.  Maybe it is time to fight for America and Americans like how my family and myself have done so.