Monthly Archives: January 2014

Democrats Abroad has just released a new report from its FBAR/FATCA Taskforce. Overall, it looks like most of its policy ideas have been cribbed from ACA without any attribution.  Most unfortunately, the report’s authors can’t resist turning a disaster which cuts across party lines for all U.S. Persons abroad into just another excuse to take cheap partisan pot-shots as it concludes:

Republicans Abroad has been conspicuous by their absence in lobbying for reforms to FATCA.  Political operatives at the RNC have woken up to the issue and have formed a new entity called Republicans Overseas to make political capital out of a FATCA repeal effort.  They hope the movement will stir sentiment and drive overseas votes to Republican candidates and raise money.  Their plan is at best quixotic and at worst a blatant political ploy – in either case it is likely to fail given the commitment that regulators have demonstrated to implementing the law and the recognition in the US and globally that tax dodging must be stopped.

Here, then, is the text of this new missive:

Democrats Abroad marks the start of tax season (woo hoo) with a new report, copied below, from the Democrats Abroad FBAR/FATCA Taskforce.  This Task Force examines financial reporting requirements affecting Americans with accounts in foreign financial institutions and works to lessen their unintended adverse impacts on overseas Americans. We hope this report is helpful. Democrats Abroad supports government efforts to block and catch Americans avoiding tax through illegal means.  We also urge the government to recognize that most overseas Americans are honest citizens, not tax cheats or money launderers.

Important:  Please be reminded that we do not provide personal advice on US tax issues and obligations.

Please also go to the Task Force webpage on www.democratsabroad.org for more information on the Task Force and an archive of past communications about their work.  This is the link:  https://www.democratsabroad.org/group/da-international/fbarfatca-task-force-page-updated.

If you log in to www.democratsabroad.org you can join the FBAR/FATCA Task Force Group (See Email Notification Settings in the right hand column and click on “Notify me of postings of this group”) to post comments.  We welcome your comments on the website.

Katie Solon

International Chair

Democrats Abroad

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I wonder when the arses that are leading the various nations of the world will stand up to the United States. For one, the Canadian government has claimed that they are powerless to change US law, and so they are working on an IGA to sell out Canadian citizens to the IRS. Why don’t they invoke international law?  Because they don’t have the balls, and until our leaders each get a pair, they are not worthy of our support.  The law in question is the Master Nationality Rule.  Here is an excerpt from a blog which shows that both FATCA and citizenship-based taxation are illegal according to international law (emphasis mine):

While nationality laws can be rather straight forward to those who lived in their native countries and never emigrated it can be confusing to those whose families had emigrated to different places over the generation or in a few cases those who marry people from different countries.

What many are unaware of is that there is something under International treaties called The Master Nationality Rule. It is listed under Article 4 of The Hague Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws of 1930. In terms of practical effect, it means that when a citizen is in the country of one of his two or more nationalities, that country has the right to treat that person as if he or she were solely a citizen or national of that country. This includes the right to impose military service obligations, require the person to enter and or exit the country using the country’s documentations, or to require an exit permit or other restrictions to leave the country. If any of the above is an issue there is little if anything the consulate of the person’s other country of citizenship can do as the Master Nationality Rule states that “a State may not afford diplomatic protection to one of its nationals against a state whose nationality such person also possesses.” The UK Home Office explains this rule as “the practical effect of this Article is that where a person is a national of, for example, two States (A and B), and is in the territory of State A, then State B has no right to claim that person as its national or to intervene on that person’s behalf.

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Anti-FATCA Campaign Picking Up Visibility in U.S., Canada!

As noted previously, one of the key advantages of proponents of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) have had going for them is that almost no one in the United States knows much about FATCA. That’s why the “worst law most Americans have never heard of” continues to make headway, slow and uncertain though it is, despite its numerous fatal defects.

This “under the radar” advantage makes it all the easier for the U.S. Treasury Department to sell the supposed “inevitability” of complying with it to foreign governments and institutions, who wrong assume FATCA is a “done deal” in the United States.

Some recent developments put that advantage in doubt.

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