Posted on 12/02/2021 5:04:13 AM PST by USAF1985
The U.S. Air Force's top enlisted leader, after getting bombarded with pleas for help from military community members fighting the German government's attempts to tax their pay, said Wednesday she will advocate for the affected airmen and their families.
For more than a year, the U.S. military in Europe and the American embassy in Berlin have made no tangible progress on resolving a dispute that has forced some to pay six-figure amounts in German income taxes and penalties, even after they've had their military income taxed by the United States. At issue is a disagreement over how to interpret the Status of Forces Agreement, which is designed to put military pay off limits to foreign tax collectors. "It was pretty concerning to hear some of the stories," said Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass during a stop at Ramstein Air Base, part of her first official visit to Germany since assuming her role in August 2020. More at Link
It's a diplomatic issue, Bass said, but "any hardship to our airmen is disappointing to all of us, so we really have to get to the root of the matter and do our best to help influence the Department of State and the German government to come to a resolution to help families."
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
I think Trump would have left NATO had the coup not occurred. We’re finally safe from the Warsaw Pact threat after 30 years. Bring them home now.
How many airmen make enough to pay 6 figures in taxes?
Is the German tax withheld from their pay or are they getting a bill in the mailbox?
Bill in the mailbox gets wadded up and tossed in the trash.
“I think Trump would have left NATO had the coup not occurred. We’re finally safe from the Warsaw Pact threat after 30 years. Bring them home now.”
The problem with leverage gained through a threat is if you perform whatever action the threat was about, you lose the leverage. The threat to leave NATO was leverage in a wide range of issues. Some of which were military, but the majority of which were for getting political support, forcing better trade deals, etc. It’s too effective to actually pull the lever on leaving.
The American public, however, is finished with NATO, but we’re not the ones who negotiate for votes on this or that, and how about buying more of our (fill-in-the-blank.)
This should not be handled by an E-9. It should be handled by an O-10, preferably the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
This is outrageous.
Because this isn’t about the military. It is about keeping the support service contract bonanza going. Eff the troops.
This shouldn’t be a dispute at all. In a world not run by the MIC, the troops would have started flying home the second the idiots in Berlin made that claim. Oh, and Germans in DC would have started getting letters giving them 48 hrs to get their affairs in order before they were put on a plane out of the country.
Politicians are the same all over the world. They want your money, all of it, no matter what.
You could take a bureaucrat from Russia and one from the USA and swap them into each others jobs and it would be a seamless transition.........................
Poland has never gone to war with us.
Time to pack up our crap and move.
It isn’t like the AF doesn’t have standard work on how to close a base.
No foreign aid to ANY country.
No loans to ANY country.
No USA troops in ANY country.
(Let THEM fight it out and pay for it, especially Germany and France.)
I think the SACEUR has a lot on his plate at the moment.
Brandon seems to have experience at pulling troops out suddenly, let's see him do it for a good reason.
Actually, one easy way to blunt the effect of this would be to exempt US servicemen stationed overseas from paying any US taxes. But I suspect the PTB don’t like the precedent that would set…
That’s the military’s way of saying they don’t care. Send an E-9 to listen like a mommy.
Pull the troops out of Germany. Problem solved.
Get out of Germany; bring our troops home.
If the U.S. needs troops in Europe, base them in Poland. At least the Poles adhere to Christian values and are not reflexively anti-American. No doubt the young, single, straight men will appreciate the move eastward.
Except for notable examples of Poles in the American Revolutionary War (Thaddeus Kościuszko and Casimir Pulaski) and Poles in World War II (The Polish Armed Forces in the West fought under British command ).
That’s the military’s way of saying they don’t care. Send an E-9 to listen like a mommy.
It's not just an E-9. It's the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, the CSAF's Senior Enlisted Advisor.
I'm sure there are others involved.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.