I’m pleased to learn the latest push by lobby group RepealFATCA to revoke the highly contentious Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, FATCA, and also of their opposition to the Global Account Tax Compliance Act, GATCA.

The most recent drive has seen RepealFATCA.com send newly announced Republican candidates, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, a request for their endorsement of both the 2014 and 2015 resolutions by the Republican National Committee, RNC, calling for the repeal of FATCA.

So far this year, the RepealFATCA.com request has been forwarded to another 11 candidates via their public campaign sites.

The full text of RepealFATCA’s “Statement in support of FATCA repeal and against unauthorised international agreements” can be found here.

In a similar vein, I mentioned earlier this month that U.S. presidential candidates who support this law must now explain to voters their reasons why they do so; whilst those who oppose FATCA owe it to Americans to hammer home why they believe it is fatally flawed and stress the action they will take to see it resigned to the history books.

It is, in my opinion, paramount that candidates reveal their views on FATCA, in order to avoid an even worse predicament should its big brother, GATCA, be rolled out.  It would be, as I have said before “FATCA on steroids.”
GATCA would insist that all accounts opened by foreign nationals would have to report their financial information to their homeland tax authority.  Not only does this infringe upon the Fourth Amendment for Americans, but we would inevitably see tax hikes, sovereignty rights crushed and data protection severely threatened.

Therefore the work of RepealFATCA should be championed, as FATCA will almost certainly be a blueprint for GATCA.

Lawyer James Jatras, a former US Diplomat and Senate staffer, set up the high profile campaign to have the controversial legislation repealed in 2011, when he first became aware of the government’s plans to roll out FATCA.

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