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The characteristic mark of a tyrannical regime is that
it eventually finds it necessary to erect walls to keep people from leaving.
This is why we should be troubled by the "Ex-PATRIOT Act," an
egregiously offensive bill recently introduced in the Senate. Following a
long line of recent legislation and regulations attempting to expropriate
more and more wealth from hard-working Americans, this new bill spits in the
face of overburdened taxpayers and tramples on the Constitution.
Current law already dictates that Americans with a net
worth of over $2 million who expatriate must be assumed to have sold all
their assets and must pay a corresponding punitive exit tax on those assumed
sales. The Ex-PATRIOT Act goes even further than current law by assessing a
30% capital gains tax on all future earnings of expatriates. Not
content just with this additional tax, the bill also grants the IRS the sole
authority to determine whether individuals have expatriated for tax purposes
and allows the IRS to bar those individuals from ever re-entering the
United States. Finally, the bill blatantly violates the ex post facto
provisions of the U.S. Constitution by extending all of these provisions to
anyone who has given up their U.S. citizenship within the past decade.
This bill, and other similar legislation, casts a
chilling effect on saving, investment, and entrepreneurial activity. The bill
was introduced in response to news reports about one of the founders of
Facebook who might save millions of dollars of taxes by renouncing his U.S.
citizenship. But in their blind envy towards successful entrepreneurs, the
bill's sponsors ignore the fact that they will ensnare many ordinary
middle-class Americans who work hard, save and invest wisely, and benefit
from rising home values. These Americans may easily find themselves pushing
past the $2 million mark by the time they retire, especially as inflation
continues to seriously accelerate. If they wish to escape the Federal
Reserve's inflation by emigrating to lower-cost
countries so their dollars will go farther, as many Baby Boomers are starting
to do, the federal government will penalize them, and continue to penalize
them for the rest of their lives as long as they hold any money in the United
States.
Unfortunately, the mere consideration of such
legislation, even before it has passed, has made American banking customers a
potential future headache for banks around the world. They don't want to deal
with the IRS any more than Americans do, and if American account holders
become a Trojan horse for the IRS to insinuate themselves into their affairs,
there may be more cost than benefit to extending banking services to
Americans.
We live under a federal government that has eviscerated
our Fourth Amendment rights, that can detain U.S. citizens indefinitely based
solely on the President's word, that assaults toddlers
and grandmothers at airports in the name of security, and regulates virtually
every aspect of our economic lives. No wonder increasing numbers of Americans
feel this government is engaged in outright warfare against its own citizens.
Every day the noose grows tighter, yet anyone who sees the writing on the
wall and seeks to leave must pay exorbitant taxes just for the privilege of
leaving, and increasingly the possibility looms of never fully breaking away
from the government's tentacles no matter where they go. Ultimately, the
Ex-PATRIOT Act proposes to control people by controlling their capital, and
it has no place in a free society.
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