Economic isolationism: Taxation, FACTA, and the Fall of the American Empire

[Lucille]

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/12/01/usa-is-it-time-to-turn-off-the-lights/

We have a very serious problem with taxation. Only the United States and Japan regards its citizens as state property. Taxes are normally owed based upon the concept that you are paying your “fair share” predicated on use. But the United States views it simply owns anyone born in the United States or overseas if they had even one American parent. This is in reality slavery that no state should own its citizens as property.

The Washington Post has reported the plight of the Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s remains in a major dispute with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. It would be very nice to see everyone come together and challenge this to the Supreme Court for those are the pro-government judges that ruled all Americans belong to the state and that paying your “fair share” has nothing to do with taxes – just hand over whatever you have.

The mayor’s dispute with the US tax-collectors was brought to light when he traveled to the United States and did a blitz of interviews with the American news media. He explained that the U.S. government was forcing him to pay the capital gains tax on the sale of his Islington home. “Can you believe it?” When asked by Rehm if he intended to pay the bill, he said that he would not. “I think it’s absolutely outrageous.”

Boris Johnson was born in the USA but returned to England with his parents at the age of 5. He has never lived in America, but that means nothing to the IRS. They are hunting everyone everywhere. They have been sending letters to people in Canada who they figured out had one American parent but have never lived in the USA. I previous wrote about a couple in Switzerland where the wife was American living there with her Swiss husband for 20 years. When their 14 year-old son was ready to open his first bank account, he was told no way because he was America. Even foreigners married to Americans are being compelled under FATCA to disclose they are married to an American and the risk of being denied the right to have a bank account. I use to have American Express cards in USA, Britain, and Japan. That way, I paid my local bills in the local currency. Today, no credit card can be issued to an American outside the USA.

Congress NEVER directed that Americans pay taxes worldwide simply because they were born in the USA or had one American parent. This whole scheme was crafted by the Supreme Court who merely ruled that Congress did not exclude foreign income, so it must be included. The way this is being applied is outrageous. Americans are unable to do business outside the USA with local accounts because no bank will deal with Americans thanks to FATCA. These idiots cannot grasp that this is reversing the US economy into isolationism and is paving the road for China to take the lead. It is time to turn off the lights.

Americans are being prejudiced everywhere. What is most revealing, Obamacare notes the distinction between living in America and overseas. Ex-pats are exempt from Obamacare for they are assumed to have healthcare where they are. Otherwise, they would have to buy health insurance in America that would never cover them outside the country.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Taxation via regulation without representation.

 

[Lucille]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-14/it-begins-irs-launches-international-data-exchange-service

Yesterday, the IRS announced the International Data Exchange Service.

If you’ve not heard of it, it’s is an outgrowth of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which requires every single bank in the world to get in bed with IRS to share information about customers.

We’ve said this over and over, FATCA is probably the dumbest law in the history of the United States. And I don’t say that lightly, because there’s definitely stiff competition.

Like any other bankrupt government, the US government has taken to intimidating its own citizens and the entire world in an attempt to make ends meet.

Their hope was that the minority of people committing tax evasion would come clean and that it would result in some huge boost in tax revenue.

But the fact is that tax revenues actually haven’t improved at all.

Looking at tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, the numbers haven’t budged at all from their long-term average. Not a single bit.

So in actuality, FATCA has done nothing positive for America.

That said, FATCA has managed to destroy what little remaining credibility the United States government still had.

Bear in mind these people have spied on their allies, dropped bombs by remote control, and force fed people negative real interest rates and $18 trillion in debt.

But if that weren’t enough, FATCA goes after foreigners with absurd logistical challenges, commanding every single bank on the planet to comply.

[...] the US government has turned its banking system into a weapon with which it threatens the entire world.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the rest of the world is one day going to create its own alternative system. One that would no longer rely on the US dollar.

Oh wait– they’re already doing that.

With FATCA, the US has shot itself in the proverbial foot. They’re practically begging the world to please take away its last remaining financial advantage.

And the rest of the world is listening.

Thanks to the contemptible slimeball Reid and his ignoramus friends in Mordor on the Potomac!

 

[Madison320]

I think there's a good possibility that the trigger for the dollar collapse is going to be some sort of foreign economic "attack". Maybe China will dump treasuries or something like that. Then all the Keynesians will blame the attack for the dollar collapse when in fact it was inevitable.

 

[Zippyjuan]

Of course if China does dump their Treasuries they will lose one of their best customers which will crash their economy (which has been slowing) and lead to potential political unrest which they want to avoid. (Dumping the Treasuries would cause their currency to soar relative to the dollar which would make their exports to us no longer cheaper but ridiculously expensive so we will quit buying from them. If the US dollar collapsed, most other economies would also collapse making the problem even worse for them). They would harm themselves as well.