A well-researched article by Alex Newman today in The New American:
New U.S. Tax Regime is “Devastating,” Experts Say
Mr. Newman quotes from many familiar sources, including Andrew Quinlan, ACA, Rand Paul and James Jatras. He also interviewed Roger Conklin, who again provides excellent historic context by linking today’s FATCA campaign with the Tax Reform Act of 1976. That earlier disastrous initiative forced thousands of US expats to return to the homeland, ceding fragile foreign markets to overseas competitors and ushering-in America’s monumental, decades-long trade deficit, which persists to this day. To say that cause and effect is not well understood in Washington is a major understatement.
A crying shame that such a good article comes from a publication which includes The John Birch Society at the top of its list of Affiliates and Friends. That is where we part ways.
The best I have read to date and I hope it gets widely distributed. If any IBS members have contacts in major media it would be worth sending it as well as to the usual suspect politicians and to each member of Congress.
this article is fantastic
Deckard,
Good article.
Do you have an email at which you can be reached that is public?
More good news please….
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Good article. Same old story Congress will only engage in crisis management. FATCA probably won’t be repealed until the real damage to the US is fully realised if ever. Countries will pay lip service to FATCA spending the least amount of resources possible to keep the US’s mouth shut.
Having been in Florida recently you see Canadian cars all over the place and plenty of banks. Where is all the money coming from? Abroad? Florida doesn’t need FATCA. What if foreigner’s decided to move their money out of Florida or sell their properties and somewhere outside of the US because of FATCA?
If it happens it’ll probably be a accelerating trickle once people wake up to FATCA. Sometimes people have to get their fingers burnt to realise fire is dangerous. FATCA is the same.
I see Alex Newman has been covering this story for quite some time – as his first link was to an article he wrote in 2009, when USP’s first began receiving “pariah” status in Switzerland. I especially like his Brockish sounding term “pseudo treaties” to describe IGA’s.
Those curious to who might be reading the New American’s may want to check out what organizations they associate themselves with at the bottom left corner of the article’s page.
It shouldn’t surprise us that this isn’t covered by the main stream or that Congress is just as clueless as it was in 1976. Politics is a short goal game for most who practice it and economics baffles the press – just look at the idiotic pumping of stock bubbles over the last few decades. It’s all about the quick and the easy.
It’s good news but only if someone with power to do something constructive reads it and then actually does something good. Otherwise, it’s just more preaching to the hyper-aware choir.
Great article. Understands the POV of expats.
@Deckard
The John Birch Society is misunderstood by many. They embrace traditional American values and are against big government which means they are against socialist and fascist systems alike, each of which puts the state before the individual.
@FromTheWilderness
Their associates are varied – from libertarians to Christian fundamentalists. I suspect that the political profile of the US person living abroad is about to change as a result of the FATCA jihad. As an American emigrant with a vote in the US, I’ll be spending mine on someone who gives a hoot about us – and perhaps holding my nose on some of his other policies. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, doesn’t it?
@FromTheWilderness
I stopped by the JBS site already. They lost me at “The World Honors Nelson Mandela, A Communist Terrorist”.
Super article. I just finished reading an article printed in Newsweek entitled “I Too Have Become Disillusioned.” https://plus.google.com/102256508973742547591/posts/bkhidTNu8fF#102256508973742547591/posts/bkhidTNu8fF
Duff Conacher has revamped the Democracy Watch Website with a campaign to abolish the senate, protect whistleblowers, establish proportional representation and much more. Please check it out.
http://democracywatch.ca/
@Disgusted
Just to clarify, that article was never printed in Newsweek but rather in the American Thinker in August of 2011. It also had a different title: “The Affirmative Action President”.
Snopes explained how this story was falsely associated with Newsweek:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/affirmative.asp
Here is the correct link to the original article:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/obama_the_affirmative_action_president.html
Stan Warren simply copy/pasted the article from who-knows-where without checking the source. A good reminder to take everything we come across on the net with a grain of salt.
@Disgusted
Forgot to add that Stan’s accompanying picture is from a completely different article by Niall Ferguson:
http://www.newsweek.com/niall-ferguson-why-barack-obama-needs-go-64419
Some helpful readers of Stan’s blog called him on that one.
@Deckard & Bubblebustin
I don’t embrace everything from JBS. Every organisation has its share of boneheads. But I find them to be highly supportive of individual liberty and consistently sympathetic towards the plight of American expats.
@FromTheWilderness
I can appreciate that.
Happy New Year everybody. I wish everyone the best in 2014! Never stop believing.
To all the Wonderful Brockers
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!!!!
@Deckard 1138
Thanks for keeping me honest. I am admittedly a bit of a loose cannon. I’ve spent my New Years Eve watching “Dreams from My Real Father.” I need to get a life!
Wishing Fellow Brockers A Happy New Year!
We are watching “African Queen” to end the year. There might be an analogy to FATCA etc. I am so impressed by the writing of everybody on this blog. I wonder if NSA has a network of us. Happy New Years (first year I have been free of USA!).
To all so-defined “US Persons” (past, present, accidental, green card holders, spouses, business partners, signatories, etc.) who wish for common sense to someday prevail:
Best to You and Your Families. Continue to speak up for what you know is right — I respect you all for that!
After watching African Queen, the swamps they encountered are like the 15,000 pages of USA tax rules. Also one need a good tax lawyer, like either Humphrey Bogart or Katherine Hepburn. Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all!
RE New American article
American politics are so polarized that an anti-FATCA article, even a good one, maybe especially a good one, in a right-wing publication will confirm liberals and progressives that FATCA is good. It tells them that the legislation is goring the right bull. In terms of convincing the people who count — the people who sponsored the legislation — the article may be perversely unhelpful.
Conservatives and right-wing are just as bad in the other direction.
Happy New Year to all of you in this wonderful community and to your families and friends. I pray that 2014 will be the year that FATCA dies; the year that the USA remembers its roots and purges itself of those (on both sides of the ideology spectrum) that are seeking to enslave the world.
Somewhat old, but I find that I need to remind myself from time to time to never judge the message by the messenger. Judge the message on its own merits (or demerits as the case may be).