Mark Meadows and Rand Paul Letter to White House and Treasury Urging Executive Action to Nullify FATCA Is a “Landmark Moment,” Says deVere CEO
Nigel Green: The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act “has only rolled on because of legally unauthorized ‘intergovernmental agreements,’” so cancelling them would “doom this terrible, toxic law.”
WASHINGTON – April 5 – Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group and Co-Leader of the Campaign to Repeal FATCA, today lauded a letter from Rep. Mark Meadows and Sen. Rand Paul to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney urging actions to “mitigate the ongoing damage” caused by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act pending its anticipated repeal.
FATCA
“This is a major landmark moment,” said Green. “FATCA has only rolled on because of legally unauthorized ‘intergovernmental agreements’” – known as IGAs – “but if the White House and Treasury overturn the previous administration’s power-grab, that alone would doom this terrible, toxic law.”
The full text of the Meadows-Paul letter, dated April 3, can be found below:
Meadows and Paul introduced FATCA repeal legislation in the previous Congress and plan to file the same bill tomorrow, with expectations that repeal will be included in any tax law sent to President Trump. A House hearing on the damaging impact of FATCA, especially on Americans living abroad, will take place on April 26.
Rand Paul
OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay
The Meadows-Paul letter urges four interim steps the Trump Administration can take on its own to reverse what they call “the previous administration’s inclination for abusing its Executive power”:
“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.”
“This goes right to the jugular,” comments Campaign to Repeal FATCA Co-Leader 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.”
For more information on FATCA and the Campaign to Repeal FATCA, contact GSCG, below.
www.RepealFatca.com
Twitter @RepealFatca
See also: “Dumping Obama’s faux foreign tax legislation should be high on Trump’s to-do list” http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/306446-dumping-obamas-faux-foreign-tax-legislation-should-be-high 11/16/16
deVere Group is one of the world’s largest independent advisors of specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass affluent, and high-net-worth clients. It has a network of more than 70 offices across the world, over 80,000 clients and $12bn under advisement.
