The Washington Times is reporting that Senator Rand Paul is standing up against the Treasury Department’s illegal implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act!
The Senator is suing Treasury and the IRS for using “intergovernmental agreements” to circumvent his Constitutional right as a Senator to vote on treaties.
As CF&P has consistently argued, FATCA was poorly written and unlikely to work without the agreements. Treasury has used the intergovernmental agreements to circumvent FATCA’s poor design, but in so doing has acted beyond its legal authority to implement an awful law.
Senator Paul’s suit is significant because the IGA’s not only facilitate an invasion of the privacy of millions of overseas Americans, but without authorization from Congress also obligates that American banks bear the high costs of collecting and reporting similar information on their foreign clients.
Paul has proven a leader on the issue, having already introduced legislation to repeal FATCA. We will watch closely his new lawsuit and keep working to undo FATCA’s numerous invasions on taxpayer privacy.
