I forgot to do my blog post yesterday, so here it is:
The most exciting part of my day was definitely the FATCA hearing. FATCA is an act that Obama signed into existence that authorizes unconstitutional privacy breaches of American citizens living abroad–over 9 million of them. It forces any bank with American clients to comply with stringent IRS investigations. It costs each individual bank over $200 million to comply. As a result, banks won’t take American citizens as clients anymore. In Switzerland, 410 out of the 420 major banks will not even consider an American as a candidate to hold an account.
Because of this, Americans have been renouncing their citizenships in record numbers because they have no other way to achieve financial stability. One man who testified described himself as an “economic refugee”.
The hearing was really interesting–both sides of the story were presented but the argument for repealing FATCA clearly won. It was something that I care about, which was cool. It would’ve been a huge problem for me next year (trying to get an account in Scotland), but it looks like it could be repealed before I get there.
FATCA was created to combat tax evasion. Did the people in opposition of FATCA present any plan to continue to combat tax evasion while not forcing Americans to renounce their citizenship?
That was the original purpose, but it’s costing more money to implement it than it makes back in finding hidden money. Also, it’s unconstitutional because Obama signed it into existence as a treaty but it was never put to Congress to ratify.
FATCA was passed in the House and Senate in 2010 the signed by President Obama. I actually had’t heard anything about it being unconstitutional until you brought it up the only thing I found was that Rand Paul filed a suit claiming it exceeded the power of the President but the case was thrown out for “Lack of Standing.” Maybe I’m missing something, which part is unconstitutional?
I agree that it isn’t cost effective I’m asking are the people in opposition proposing another way to stop tax evasion using offshore accounts?
That’s really cool that the government is reevaluating what they have done in the past and changing it if it has problems. I know it’s not perfect, but it’s cool that our government and laws aren’t entirely static but are capable of a certain amount of change and amending.