Campaign to Repeal FATCA
November 14, 2017
The Honorable Steven Terner Mnuchin
Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220
Dear Secretary Mnuchin:
The Campaign to Repeal FATCA (www.RepealFATCAcom) was launched earlier this year with one purpose: to get rid of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. FATCA is a textbook example of a badly conceived, badly written, and badly enforced law that doesn’t achieve its stated purpose but does inflict an excess of harmful consequences on citizens, American taxpayers around the world, the global financial and investment sectors, and the principle of national sovereignty.
As Co-Leaders of the Campaign, we are writing to you on the supposition that in a democratic country elections should have consequences. When a political party stands before the electorate on declared principles and makes specific promises, those principles and promises should be reflected in how that party governs under its mandate from the voters.
The 2016 Republican Platform reads in part:
“The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Foreign Bank and Asset Reporting Requirements result in government’s warrantless seizure of personal financial information without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Americans overseas should enjoy the same rights as Americans residing in the United States, whose private financial information is not subject to disclosure to the government except as to interest earned. The requirement for all banks around the world to provide detailed information to the IRS about American account holders outside the United States has resulted in banks refusing service to them. Thus, FATCA not only allows ‘unreasonable search and seizures’ but also threatens the ability of overseas Americans to lead normal lives. We call for its repeal and for a change to residency-based taxation for U.S. citizens overseas.”
This Republican pledge to repeal FATCA rests on the deepest and most cherished American principles, not least a decent respect for the privacy of citizens who are not engaged in lawbreaking and are not even suspected of doing so. Even the IRS’s own Taxpayer Advocate Service has criticized FATCA’s “enforcement-oriented regime with respect to international taxpayers” with its “operative assumption [that] appears to be that all such taxpayers should be suspected of fraudulent activity, unless proven otherwise.”
Continue reading
Hi everyone,
Last night I saw a statement of Brady published in Politico on his latest on tax reform. The last sentences is truly encouraging. The article is below. I understand “letting them pay taxes only where they live” to indicate RBT. Since the Ways and Means has announced that it will publish its legislative draft next week, the language is most likely already determined. There have been several proposals for tax reform of Americans abroad from various organisations. Let’s all get behind whatever Congress comes up with and show a united front. This is a one chance in a lifetime to improve the situation of Americans abroad. Please activate your networks in this sense.
Best,
Jackie Bugnion
This was at the end of a POLITICO e-mail, sent 25 October.
He[Brady] said the committee is considering an issue dear to U.S. citizens living abroad — letting them pay taxes only where they live — though no decision has been made.
Some additional e-mail trail, I will not disclose sender:
Just listening to Ari Fleischer on TV about the tax reform bill and he said something that I wasn’t aware of, but some of you might be: He said that once the bill comes out of W&M Committee it goes directly to a floor vote. There are no floor amendments or changes permitted. Thought this is something to look for.