Pushback to #FATCA from Europe & Israel, Canada & U.S.https://t.co/kmORiImPtg #AccidentalAmericans
— Patricia Moon (@nobledreamer16) June 27, 2016
I am reproducing a post by Jude Ryan from the Facebook group Accidental Americans” in the event some may not be aware that there is movement in countries outside Canada and the U.S. against FATCA.
I know there has been a lot of work done by the Australians and wish to mention it even though it was not included in the post I am reproducing.
A recap on ongoing domestic actions
To the extent we have have other nationalities present on this page (I know we do) please feel free to use this information to put pressure on your domestic politicians.
FRANCE
The lower House of Parliament, the Assemblee Nationale, has set up a fact finding mission to investigate the extraterritorial reach of US laws and in particular the invidious position French “Accidental Americans” find themselves in.
The mission statement of this commission is as follows: The commissions for foreign affairs and finances of the French Parliament (Assemblee Nationale) decided to form a joint fact finding mission regarding the extraterritoriality of certain US laws, which held its inaugural meeting on Wednesday 2 March 2016. The president of the mission is Mr Pierre Lelouche (Republican Party, Paris) and his rapporteur is Ms Karine Berger (Socialist Party, Hautes-Alpes). Several recent events have highlighted the propensity of the US courts and the US administration to purport to impose sanctions against foreign corporations and foreign individuals in respect of events occurring outside of US territory: these range from the record penalty one of France’s largest banks agreed to pay to the US administration (for a failure to comply with a US imposed embargo) to the acquisition of Alstom by General Electric against a backdrop of anti-corruption claims brought by the US authorities against senior managers of Alstom and including the US IRS pursuing French citizens living in France but born on US soil and therefore “Accidental Americans” for US income taxes. Based on the feedback of a wide array of experts, the fact finding mission will attempt to define the contours of US extraterritoriality, exhaustively identify all cases of extraterritorial application of US laws, assess their impact and in particular their impact on fair competition and the economic losses suffered by French companies as a result, and to study ways in which to counter such practices both at a national and European level. The mission hopes that its findings will lead to concrete implementation measures. The longstanding and deep ties that exist between France and the US in no way justify that the US should seek to assert legal imperium outside of its borders.A hearing of French “Accidental Americans” was held on 8 June 2016 and at which issues raised by FATCA and the US practices of
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