FATCA (the “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act”) was passed in 2010. With the stated purpose of catching “fat cat” tax cheats who hide their money abroad, FATCA instead would have the effect of:

• - violating Americans’ constitutional protections;
• - overstepping the limits of Executive power at the expense of Congressional authority, especially the Senate’s advice and consent to the ratification of treaties;
• - disregarding the mutual respect of sovereignty among nations;
• - draining money from the federal treasury under the guise of replenishing it;
• - punishing Americans who work abroad bringing business to the U.S.;
• - setting up a global financial fishbowl, with personal financial information “shared” among governments worldwide;
• - leading to higher taxes and, eventually, international taxation;
• - imposing expensive regulatory mandates on foreign and U.S. business, with costs passed on to consumers;
• - threatening American jobs and the American economy by scaring off foreign investment in the United States;
• - violating trade agreements; and
• - injuring America’s global competitiveness.

All this supposedly is justified by FATCA’s claim to “recover” lost taxes of less than $1 billion per year – enough to run the government for about two hours. (In fact, the way the U.S. Treasury plans to enforce FATCA, it would probably lose more money than it would take in!)

Senator Rand Paul introduced a bill to repeal FATCA. Senator Jim DeMint and Senator Mike Lee stand with Rand Paul on this. For more info see here.

Knowing how corrupt the IRS is, do we really want them to have more power?