A writer for Huffington Post nails it with an article Around the World America’s Taxman Cometh.
Wendy N. Powell writes:
Who can argue with a process to catch tax shelters in the proverbial Swiss bank account? Not many, but this includes a world-wide dragnet that snags innocents resulting in little known serious consequences for hard working Americans and their families living and working overseas.
She then quotes Mark Mazur, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for tax policy who said: said:
The government’s new enforcement was intended to help make sure all taxpayers pay what they owe “regardless of where they live.”
Rather than just accepting the tax cheat fair share rhetoric like so many journalists do, Ms. Powell tries to see some of the real issues:
But “What they owe”, how they can invest, and do their banking is the resounding question.
The U.S. is the only industrialized country that taxes its citizens on their world-wide income, no matter where they live And FATCA has been referred to as a range of: protection from tax shelters, a net to catch people who don’t want to report their income, all the way to pure fascism.
It is hard to fathom walking in the shoes of an American abroad experiencing the effects of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) Friends from social media have shared stories of serious difficulties handling their finances and investments and “divorce overseas style” with quite literal gut-wrenching effects.
There is bitter resentment of new U.S. tax laws but lasting affection for their homeland. This includes many American veterans that are renouncing their citizenship because they cannot conduct their financial business any longer; bank accounts, retirement accounts closing, mortgages rescinded and denied. And no American veteran should ever consider renouncing American citizenship due to invasive tax and reporting obligations.
Bitter resentment. Yeah, you might say that. I call it something else that I won`t post here. And I and many others do not have lasting affection for the U.S. It is not even the homeland for many caught up in this mess!