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Posted on 05/22/2012 11:30:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week, the universally stupid brainchild of US Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey known as the Ex-PATRIOT Act inched a bit closer towards becoming law.
‘Ex-PATRIOT’ is an absurd acronym that stands for “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy”. I call it the Tax Slave Act… and it proposes three key provisions:
1) Individuals who are deemed, in the sole discretion of the US government, to have renounced US citizenship in order to avoid US taxes, will be permanently barred from re-entering the United States.
2) Such individuals will also be required to pay a 30% capital gains tax to the United States government on ALL future investment gains derived from the US. Currently, non-citizens who do not reside in the US pay no US capital gains tax.
3) These proposals are RETROACTIVE, and, if passed, would apply to anyone who renounced his/her citizenship within the last 10-years.
During a Sunday interview with ABC News, House Speaker John Boehner threw his support behind the bill… certainly a big step towards its eventual passage.
Let’s pause briefly for a little history lesson–
Dart Container Corporation was founded in 1960 by William F. Dart, the man who first perfected the design of styrofoam. Dart Container is today a multi-billion dollar family-owned company with thousands of employees and operations around the world.
In the early 1990s, brothers Kenneth and Robert Dart, heirs to the family fortune, renounced their US citizenship and became citizens of Belize and Ireland, and set up residency in the Cayman Islands.
Around the same time, several other wealthy Americans renounced citizenship, including Carnival Cruise Lines founder Ted Arison (who obtained Israeli citizenship), Campbell Soup heir John Dorrance (Irish citizenship), and fund manager Mark Mobius (German citizenship).
President Clinton was furious, and in 1996, he pushed Congress to pass a series of financial penalties for people who renounce citizenship. At the time, a ‘renunciant’ had to continue filing US tax returns for 10-years after renouncing.
Effectively, though, this penalty was a tax on worldwide income, not an exit tax on assets.
Fast forward to the mid-2000s, a time when the asset bubble was at its peak; the stock market was at its all-time high and real estate prices kept going up.
The Bush regime passed a series of changes to expatriation rules, dropping the income tax filing requirements in lieu of charging a one-time exit tax on assets.
In this way, the government was able to derive a much larger payment up front based on total assets rather than chasing around a former citizen for a piece of annual income.
In the years since the exit tax on assets was established, two things have happened:
1) The number of Americans renouncing US citizenship has risen steadily, from 235 people in 2008 to 1,780 last year (according to Schumer’s office).
2) The asset bubble has burst, and assets are worth much less than just a few years ago. As such, the government isn’t collecting as much revenue from the exit tax.
My sense is that the government has been watching the number of expatriates rise over the years, and simultaneously watching the value of the exit tax fall… and they’ve been looking for an excuse to make sweeping (i.e. retroactive) changes.
Eduardo Saverin is the perfect excuse. The Facebook co-founder’s recent renunciation of US citizenship has become a rallying cry for politicians to go back in time and steal money from former citizens retroactively…plus establish a larger base for future tax revenues.
This is a truly despicable thing to do considering that these former citizens followed the appropriate rules at the time, paid the tax, and moved on with their lives. Now Uncle Sam wants to go back in time to unilaterally change the deal, and expect everyone to abide even though they’re not even citizens anymore. The arrogance is overwhelming.
More importantly, this bill is also a major deterrent for people who are thinking about renouncing US citizenship today.
The passage of this law will undoubtedly cause many people who were considering expatriation to abandon the idea altogether as the thought of being permanently barred from entry is too much to bear.
It’s truly extraordinary that the Land of the Free has deteriorated to the point that the government must now resort to threats, coercion, and intimidation in order to keep its most productive citizens inside.
My country is dying. She is being brutally murdered at the hands of the enemy within.
There simply must be a breaking point.... I don’t know what it looks like or when it will be here, but it must be on it’s way.
There must be a point when country loving patriots all stand at the same time and shout, “NO! ENOUGH! NO MORE!
Just as sure as the sun is hot, THESE ATTACKS CAN NOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE.... our once great country can not survive much more of this.
Our Constitution was written by man, yet it was a gift from God. How long must we stand still and watch this gift be torn to pieces?
God Save the Republic....
Is this about people moving somewhere, or renouncing America and their citizenship.
If it is renouncing citizenship, then what do we care what happens to them, they are hostile foreign nationals, anti-American foreigners, traitors?
Way back in 1798, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution's ban on ex post facto laws only applied to criminal laws, not civil ones. (Calder v. Bull.) Retroactive tax laws have sometimes been upheld and have sometimes been struck down as violations of the Due Process Clause; this proposal way well be found unconstitutional, but that is not a sure thing.
The Schmuckster's bill still stinks.
I don’t recall the old “Love it or Leave it” expression having an addendum “after we seize your assets”
I'm not following the story closely.
Is this done after renouncing citizenship, or before someone has renounced America and their citizenship?
Won’t hold up in Court. The SCOTUS would strike it with 6,7 or even all 9 voting it down.
RE: Won’t hold up in Court. The SCOTUS would strike it with 6,7 or even all 9 voting it down.
First things first, SOMEONE or SOME GROUP, ORGANIZATION or LEGISLATORS will have to file suit. Who’s going to do it?
Firstly, if people are leaving the country to avoid confiscatory taxes we need to question the taxes first. From day one, America has kept its people in by being the best country to live in, not by force or fee! It’s no accident that Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and the communist manifesto all have these emmigrant taxation policies. It’s outrageous beyond the pale! When you hear people talking about building a fence to keep you in, it might be time to get out.
Slaves aren’t permitted to leave the plantation. The Communists know this and shoot those who try to escape from Communist nations.
RE: Yes but having renounced these people are no longer citizens, get it?
In the United States, the federal government is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 3 of Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution and the states are prohibited from the same by clause 1 of Article I, section 10.
_________________________
So, Article I section 9 applies only to American Citizens and NOT to non-citizens?
I just haven’t figured out where to go yet.
Some say, “you have to stay and take this country back”.
How did that go for the Germans, Russians, Chineses, Cubans, Italians, French, Iranians...?
What are you talking about?
No one is restricting Americans travel, or talking about putting up a wall.
This is about scum renouncing America and American citizenship, a totally different subject, and one that conservatives have always agreed was about the lowest thing on earth.
These are the most disgusting form of foreign scum, not Americans.
RE: The Schmuckster’s bill still stinks.
What really surprised and disappointed me was Speaker John Boehner throwing his support behind this bill.
I thought he had better sense and a greater love of freedom than that.
Who called him a conservative again?
RE: These are the most disgusting form of foreign scum, not Americans.
I’ll agree that they are scum IF they purposely DO HARM to America.
What harm have these people done to America other than prevent the government from taking their hard earned money?
Making laws (fences) to keep citizens in...Shades of the USSR.....what makes those arrogant SOB’s think they can steal money from non-citizens.....greedy bunch of old geezers and witches....
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