Telling your Congressman or your media contact that you are “Collateral Damage” has no effect. Your Congressman doesn’t give a sh_t—because you are not collateral damage—you are the target.
This article is a cross post from: http://samuelclemmons.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/the-real-intent-of-fatca-you-are-not-collateral-damage-you-are-the-target/
The term “collateral damage” shows up in all the articles, all the pleas to Congress, and in the Talking Points of Lemmings Abroad. It’s not really a damaging label—unless you believe it to be true and don’t plan otherwise.
Let’s stop talking about FATCA’s “collateral damage” and start discussing real intent. FATCA is the enforcement tool to collect IRS taxes and penalties from non US residents receiving no standard government services (schools, roads, education, or social welfare). FATCA talking points contradict the administration’s own statements upon FATCA intentions.
FATCA funded the 2010 Jobs for Mainstreet Act–a domestic jobs bill. It purports to collect $8.5-$8.9 billion of tax and penalties over ten years, by identifying previously-undertaxed US citizens overseas. It demands the world’s banks to aggressively identify their residents who are US citizens, forwarding their identities to the IRS for taxation and penalties.
FATCA aggressively enforces the US’ globally-unique taxation system, which uniquely taxes-up its non-resident US citizens to the highest of the tax rates of their residence country or US. This includes any previously under-taxed non-US retirement products, unemployment benefits, home sale gains, and anything above $95,000 earned in countries like UAE (UAE’s high corporate tax eliminates personal tax).



The above tweet references a separate article by Mr. Berg on this topic. He explains this comment in more detail. The article includes:
I recommend the complete article. It’s a valuable contribution to the discussion. I would also recommend rereading some of the other interesting and insightful comments to the original post of October 7.