Another step closer to saying farewell to FATCA
Excellent news! Our Campaign to Repeal FATCA is reaching new heights. A letter has been sent to the White House by Rep. Mark Meadows and Sen. Rand Paul, urging action be taken to “mitigate the ongoing damage” caused by FATCA.
This is a landmark moment. The Foreign Account Compliance Act has only rolled on because of legally unauthorized intergovernmental agreements. However, if the White House and Treasury can overturn the previous Administration’s power-grab, this would doom this toxic piece of legislation.
Mr Meadows and Mr Paul introduced FATCA repeal legislation in the previous Congress, and now plan to file the same bill. It’s hoped that FATCA repeal will be incorporated into any tax law sent to the President.
Indeed, a House hearing on the negative, devastating impact of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is taking place later this month, April 26.
The letter, sent to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, contains four interim points the Trump Administration can adopt to reverse FATCA, namely;
• Issue a Statement of Administration Policy to the effect that the Trump administration is committed to the repeal of FATCA as promised in the Republican Platform, welcomes inclusion of repeal provisions in any tax reform bill, and is reviewing administrative steps to limit FATCA’s damaging effects pending its repeal.
• Instruct the Treasury Department’s Office of International Affairs and other elements of the Department that may be involved to cease all efforts to negotiate, sign, and implement IGAs. Continued signings of new IGAs – most recently with Ukraine in February 2017 – send a false signal that the new administration is committed to this destructive law as matter of policy.
• Announce that the IGAs are under legal review of their authority and that if they are found to be legally infirm – as we believe they will be – they may be declared invalid ab initio with immediate effect or terminated upon expiry of the one-year’s notice specified.
• Under the broad authority FATCA grants the Treasury Secretary, deem all impacted foreign institutions compliant on a temporary basis pending outcome of the legal review of the IGAs. The IRS should also be instructed to suspend enforcement of provisions impacting individual taxpayers; and, on an urgent basis to help decrease the spiking increase in U.S. citizenship renunciations, suspend imposition of penalties for FATCA filing errors by individuals.”
According to the co-leader of the Campaign to Repeal FATCA, Jim Jatras, a former longtime Senate GOP leadership staffer: “President Trump has moved swiftly to negate the Obama legacy of Executive abuse. If the steps urged in the Meadows-Paul letter are taken, FATCA becomes totally unviable. Repeal will then be mostly cleaning up the sorry mess it left.”
I look forward to the ongoing success of the Campaign to Repeal FATCA, and eagerly anticipate the day this onerous, burdensome law is abolished once and for all.