July 5/22: An Opportunity To Educate Resident Americans About The Horrors Of Citizenship Tax

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Updated July 5, 2022 …

Great discussion with Bob Paxton and Bob Scarborough:

An Opportunity To Educate Resident Americans About The Horrors Of US Citizenship Tax

First a special thanks to Joe Howard who arranged for this opportunity.

On Tuesday July 5, 2022 at 8 pm EST (20:00) I (John Richardson) will appear on the Fair Tax Power Radio Show. The Fair Tax Power Radio Show is hosted by Bob Paxton and Bob Scarborough. The show is for the purpose of educating US residents about the (1) the problems of the U.S. income tax system and (2) the solution by moving to the Fair Tax. You can learn more about the Fair Tax in my recent blog post found here and on the Fair Tax site. I suggest that you follow their Twitter feed at @FairTaxOfficial.

The Topic: How The US Tax System Disables Americans Abroad From Financial and Retirement Planning and How The Fair Tax System Would Solve This Problem

You understand the problem. You understand the pain. You understand the fear. You understand that you may be forced to renounce U.S. citizenship.

You also understand the difficulty of getting the attention of either U.S. legislators or even your friends and family in the United States. They think you’re crazy. They believe (incorrectly) that the problems (if they exist) are solved by either the FEIE or the FTC rules. In short, it is very hard for Americans abroad to even “participate in a meaningful” conversation. For the most part Americans abroad are caught in an “echo chamber” of social media that makes meaningful engagement difficult.

Five Ways Americans Abroad Can Use This Interview As An Educational Tool

1, You are invited to participate in the conversation directly!

The FairTax Facebook page has more than 150,000 followers. Tuesday’s show will give the opportunity to comment during the interview. This is a great opportunity to explain how citizenship taxation hurts you and why it is unfair. It’s also an opportunity to explain how Americans abroad are subjected to a tax system that is different from what resident Americans must endure. You can explain how/why citizenship taxation makes life so difficult for Americans abroad.

In short: this is a way for you to directly become part of the conversation!! You will be able to leave comments as the discussion unfolds.

Action Plan: Please do what you can to watch this interview live!

It will stream live on both Facebook and Youtube…

https://www.facebook.com/events/1143778959500105

https://www.facebook.com/FairTax

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFairTaxGuys

2. You can and should ask that your friends and family in the United States watch this!

This event takes place at 8 pm EST on Tuesday July 5/22. It is at at time when most people in America can watch. Therefore, I urge you to forward this information to your friends and family in the United States AND ask them to forward it to people they know!

Action Plan: Email this blog post to them and ask them to tune in at: https://www.facebook.com/fairtax/videos on Tuesday July 5 at 8 p.m. EST. Or just email them this link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1143778959500105

If they can’t make it they CAN watch it later.

It will stream live on both Facebook and Youtube…

https://www.facebook.com/FairTax

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFairTaxGuys

3. You can and should do what you can to get this message delivered to all Facebook Groups, Twitter Handles, Instagram, etc.

The greater the exposure the greater the potential to get the message out! Citizenship taxation is a completely non-partisan issue. All Americans abroad – regardless of race, age, sex, income level – are discriminated against by the Internal Revenue Code. Do what you can to get this message to ALL political parties and organizations. It has been very difficult to get the message into the United States.

If each of us does a little, we can all do a lot!

Action Plan: Please work on distributing this opportunity to all people you know personally. Use your email lists and all of your social media connections. Remember that when it comes to U.S. citizenship taxation: this is a problem that unites ALL Americans.

4. You may want to send a copy of the interview to your Congressperson

A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth a three hundred page book. Mr. Paxton and Mr. Scarborough are experienced interviewers. Although we have only 30 minutes, I think the basic point can be made. This is also important because so much of the discussion with Congressperson(s) revolves around FATCA. FATCA is a symptom of the problems of citizenship taxation. Abolishing FATCA will NOT solve the problems of citizenship taxation.

Action Plan: Write your member of Congress. Tell your story. Explain how hard citizenship taxation makes it to life a “normal” life abroad. Make it about you. Use the video as an example of the problems.

5. Express Your Support For @FairTaxOfficial Through @FairTaxAbroad

The FairTax group is fighting for tax justice for all Americans. Americans abroad would be huge beneficiaries of their efforts. If the FairTax came to be, the U.S. would no longer claim taxing jurisdiction over income earned outside the United States. Please follow and support both @FairTaxOfficial and @FairTaxAbroad!

Action Plan: Express your support for @FairTaxOfficial by also following @FairTaxAbroad. Make sure you like the FairTax Facebook page, etc.

Remember: Why Citizenship Must Be Severed From U.S. Tax Residency

The community of Americans abroad has trouble speaking with one voice. U.S. citizenship taxation affects different people in different ways at different times in their lives. Whether your immediate problem is FATCA, PFIC, FBAR, GILTI, CFC, Foreign Trusts, 3520A penalties or the uncertainty surrounding your Australian Superannuation, there is ONLY ONE THING thing that will solve the problems of all people, all the time under all circumstances.

The United States must sever citizenship from tax residency! In other words, U.S. citizens should never be subject to taxation because and only because they are U.S. citizens!

Adopting the “FairTax” would solve the problems of Americans abroad. They could remain U.S. citizens!

In closing …

FairTax and Americans abroad are each (in their own way) fighting extremely unjust U.S. tax policy. On this Independence Day weekend it seems appropriate to close with the words of Steve Hayes:

We must persist for the sake of the little girl in the picture and all the others like her. Our children, our grandchildren, and all the children yet to be born deserve better than the current income tax system.

Thomas Jefferson was the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence. He said, “A majority is one man with courage.”

Please join us in our efforts. Just as the colonists were subjects of the King of England, the income/payroll tax system makes us subjects of the Ruling Class and their minions in DC. The patriots of 1776 freed themselves from the tyranny they were under. We can do the same today.

John Richardson – Follow me on Twitter @Expatriationlaw

2 thoughts on “July 5/22: An Opportunity To Educate Resident Americans About The Horrors Of Citizenship Tax”

  1. Juan Valdez

    Great post. A simpler and fairer tax system is what Adam Smith laid out centuries ago. He believed taxation should be based on what you can afford. Law philosophers (believers in the study of jurisprudence, which lawyers today do not study) believe taxation should be simple, transparent and easy to comply with. What citizens abroad are confronted with is very bad tax policy that is designed to ruin their lives.

    A Californian who is fed up with taxation there can vote with his feet and go to Texas. An American, on the other hand, who decides to live abroad is confronted with unique circumstances that are different than the Californian. Federal law wrongly ‘implies’ consent for citizens abroad and he/she is escaping the plantation because he/she is ungrateful and evading taxes. Their ‘consent’ reasoning falls apart when people expatriate. The minute the American is born they have a looming expatriation tax.

    The federal government believes in ‘hardship’ for immigrants to support swifter visa processing. The same government dismisses any ‘hardship’ for its citizens abroad. They do not acknowledge government culpability to any problems abroad.

    Forgive my language but there is no other way to put it. White trailer trash Blumenauer and white crackers Wyden and Warren stubbornly are not swayed by any citizen abroad hardship arguments. They present the federal government as the aggrieved party. They see no point in simplifying the tax code to make it easier to comply, let alone a RBT.

    To better understand CBT and why the federal government insists on keeping it, one will have to understand how slavery worked and the laws created to sustain it. Slavery was not some distant past tragedy. The government and society was built on extracting ‘something’ from others.

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