Sometimes people you don't like do things you do like. Senator Rand Paul is someone in that category.
He has introduced some legislation that could help 7 million overseas Americans who are suffering from lack of banking facilities and draconian tax requirements.
For example, children born of Americans in another country are automatically considered American even if they are never registered and must pay tax on everything they ever earn any where in the world even if they never, ever set foot on U.S. soil and none of their money ever comes from the U.S.
And if their banks find out they are American, they won't be able to open accounts, make any investments, have a loan, a credit card, etc.
Paul doesn't want to change the CBT (Citizen Based Taxation) part of the attack on expats, but he does want to do something about the banks all over the world that have succumbed to US pressure to report on their American account holders. As a result the banks are slamming the door in American faces.
I'd put banks in the same category as Paul. Sometimes they deserve sympathy even if they are usually not likeable.
For example, children born of Americans in another country are automatically considered American even if they are never registered and must pay tax on everything they ever earn any where in the world even if they never, ever set foot on U.S. soil and none of their money ever comes from the U.S.
And if their banks find out they are American, they won't be able to open accounts, make any investments, have a loan, a credit card, etc.
Paul doesn't want to change the CBT (Citizen Based Taxation) part of the attack on expats, but he does want to do something about the banks all over the world that have succumbed to US pressure to report on their American account holders. As a result the banks are slamming the door in American faces.
I'd put banks in the same category as Paul. Sometimes they deserve sympathy even if they are usually not likeable.
Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator and 2016 Republican presidential
hopeful, is leading an effort to repeal a tax law despised by millions of Americans who live and work outside the United States.
Paul formally
introduced legislation this month in the Senate to reverse the main
requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, (FATCA or as many call it FATCAt because it is designed to catch the rich expats. Contrary to homeland belief, most expats aren't rich, but ordinary middle class people) saying the law has
wrongly deprived American ex-patriots of access to banking services, violated
their privacy and forced many to renounce their citizenship.
“Not only is FATCA dangerous with respect to the privacy protections
owed to every American — home or abroad — it has threatened the livelihood of
millions of Americans working or living overseas,” Paul said.
Likewise the Washington Times, is not a paper whose political stance is one I often agree on, but I'm glad they covered this story.
Likewise the Washington Times, is not a paper whose political stance is one I often agree on, but I'm glad they covered this story.
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