Bopp FATCA Case Update: Plaintiff’s Opposition to Government’s Motion to Dismiss

6 thoughts on “Bopp FATCA Case Update: Plaintiff’s Opposition to Government’s Motion to Dismiss”

1. Wow! This is why our lawyers are paid the big bucks … a masterpiece of research and sound reasoning, and a great New Year’s present! Thank you for posting this, Jefferson D.!

2. Bravo!

3. @Muzzled. There are several lawsuits filed or to be filed, they cannot do it without our support. Here is a short list that we all know about at IBS, I wonder if there are others:

   Alliance for the Defeat of Citizenship Taxation: Team Being Formed for Lawsuit Against Citzenship Based Taxation (CBT)

   FATCA Legal Action: Bopp Lawsuit filed in the USA against FATCA IGAs

   Alliance for the Defense of Canadian Sovereignty: Sponsors of a Lawsuit in Canada against the Canadian FATCA IGA

4. All of the time, energy, money, sweat & tears spent trying to fend off the indefensible money grab of this from honest, working people, when reading this story, shows FATCA/IGA as the scam it truly is:

   http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-wealthiest-private-tax-system-saves-them-billions.html?_r=0

   So much for the IRS/DoT wanting to catch “tax cheats”???

5. Horizontal and vertical equity and the value of Americans abroad:

   U.S. Taxation of its Citizens Abroad: Incentive or Equity, 38 Vand. L.Rev. 101 (1985)

   …”To examine horizontal equity, a comparison must be made between the
   expatriate American and other taxpayers who, it might be argued, are
   similarly situated. [FN18] The domestic taxpayer, for example, finds
   that it is fair for him to pay tax because his neighbors also are
   paying tax under the same system to the United States. [FN19] In
   contrast, if the nonresident taxpayer looks at his expatriate
   neighbors from most other countries, he finds that they are not being
   taxed by their home countries. [FN20] This lack of taxation enables
   the third country national to work for less than the American
   expatriate, giving the third country national a competitive advantage.
   [FN21] From the American’s point of view, tax equity can be achieved
   only if his tax burden is no greater than the tax burden of other
   workers in the same country who have similar costs of living. He
   regards the obligation to pay United States taxes on his foreign
   earned income to be unjust.

   Tax equity also can be viewed through a comparison of expatriates to
domestic taxpayers. Those speaking for domestic taxpayers might argue
that the expatriate should be treated the same as a domestic United
States citizen at a similar income level. [FN22] The expatriate,
however, may be carrying a higher tax burden than his domestic
counterpart because of taxation by the foreign state. Although the tax
credit takes the income tax of other countries into account, [FN23]
the expatriate may be living in a country that derives some of its
revenue from taxes other than income taxes, such as the value-added
tax. [FN24] These additional fiscal burdens may weigh *106 heavily in
the expatriate’s overall tax responsibility, yet are not taken into
account by the tax credit. [FN25]

   Furthermore, expatriate families may have to pay for services that
would be provided by the public sector in the United States. [FN26]
Although many of these services, such as education, would be mainly
provided by the states, the federal government subsidizes many local
services through revenue sharing and grants-in-aid. [FN27] This
benefits received approach has intuitive appeal, but is limited to
those government services which produce benefits that are direct in
nature; it does not take into account those services that are *107
humanitarian or social. [FN28] The United States income tax is based
on the principle of ability to pay, not the principle of benefits
received. Because most of the expenditures funded by the income tax
provide general social benefits to all Americans, [FN29] it is
difficult to assert with strong conviction that expatriate workers do
not share in those benefits.”…

   https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/alt.lawyers/Fxh9lJZ_nIg

6. Extensive references to the Bopp lawsuit;
   Tyler R. Murray
   ‘The Eighth Amendment and Tax Evasion: Whether FATCA Non-Compliance Fines and FBAR Penalties Are Excessive’
   Repository Citation
   Tyler R. Murray, The Eighth Amendment and Tax Evasion: Whether FATCA Non-Compliance Fines and FBAR Penalties Are Excessive, 24 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 553 (2015), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol24/iss2/8

   http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1759&context=wmborj