Yeah, because it's designed to keep us in.
While the article is about an administrative exit fee, that's small potatoes compared to what FATCA does. It financially locks Americans into the US, unless they either renounce, or at least get a second passport.
No foreign institution even wants the accounts of Americans. It not only causes great hardship to US citizens working abroad; it is a stealth capital control that affects everyone.
If you want to renounce, you have to pay up any gains taxes (strict, but perhaps justifiable); but if you have undeclared overseas funds, or if you have declared overseas funds and make some reporting mistakes, the penalties and seizures are draconian.
When I was younger, we in the US used to point at the Nazis and the Communists as being so tyrannical that they would strip anyone exiting of their assets. I don't know how many WWII stories I read about people sewing diamonds and other valuables into their clothing; or of funds they couldn't reach either at home or in Switzerland. We were different from those countries who acted as if their governments owned their citizens' wealth... but now we are no longer. And, if that's not enough, there's always the civil asset forfeiture program.
Yep. Like all socialists, everywhere, it’s “you can’t run away with that stuff; we haven’t stolen it yet”
To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in "Batman": "And where...are...the Republicans?"
Aside from Rand Paul, they seem totally absent on this issue - meaning they approve.
The “IRON CURTAIN” - 0bama style.
I had a professional Cuban friend that managed to immigrate to the US in the early 60's.
He was allowed the clothes on his back. Everything else was confiscated.
He did sneak out a $50 bill folded up and tucked in his Zippo lighter.
Those caught trying to leave the country were often hanged, but many of the men (some men as young as 14 years old) were instead sentenced to a lifetime of slavery in the galley ships, since the State needed oarsmen for its navy.
The Protestant religion was outlawed, though it had been well established in France for 200 years, had once been the religion of one quarter of the French nobility, and had been the religion of the powerful Bourbon family.
Protestants were persecuted brutally.
One of the most brutal acts was the quartering of Dragoons (an army of thugs) in the homes of Protestants, where they were free to rob, rape, beat, destroy, or even kill with impunity. Though rape and murder were technically not allowed, the thugs in fact had a free reign. They routinely sold or destroy property, and had did whatever they wanted.
Many Protestents had no alternative but to escape.
The word refugee was originally applied to Protestants fleeing France.
Escape was very dangerous. It required stealth, money, maps, knowledge of safe-houses and who could be trusted, and most of all luck.
Plans to escape had to be kept secret. It was necessary to leave on short notice--usually at night--carrying whatever could be taken.
Often refugees met on a beach at night, with their children and whatever possessions they could carry--to take a small boat to rendezvous with a British or Dutch ship in deep water--trusting that those who helped them would not rob, murder, or betray them.
Escape was very dangerous!
Yet thousands escaped.
The Protestants tended to be wealthy, and many managed to smuggle their wealth out of France.
Those who escaped tended to prosper in other lands. Many came to America.