Litigating FATCA: Rand Paul And Financial Privacy     全文連結

起訴 肥伽條款 FATCA：蘭德保羅和財務隱私     (摘要)

不是每天美國參議員，更不用說總統候選人，要求政府中止執行聯邦稅法。 不過這正是肯塔基州的蘭德·保羅（Rand Paul Paul）正在做的。 他是七名原告質疑“外國帳戶納稅合規法”的合憲性之一。 該訴訟，克勞福德訴美國，目前在美國俄亥俄州南區地區法院。 由於政府的金融犯罪執法網絡的管理，原告人對於外國銀行賬戶報告製度的合法性也很有挑戰性。

It’s not every day that a U.S. senator, let alone a presidential candidate, sues the government to suspend the enforcement of a federal tax law. Yet that is exactly what Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is doing. He is one of seven plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. The lawsuit, Crawford v. United States, is currently before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. For good measure, the plaintiffs are also challenging the legitimacy of the foreign bank account reporting regime, as administered by the government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

如果保羅認為稅收條約令人厭惡，他必須對FATCA感到厭煩。   FATCA類似於類固醇的第26條。 它將信息交換到一個全新的前所未有的水平。 在FATCA下，納稅人信息的轉移是以程序方式完成的。 外國銀行必須分享他們在美國賬戶持有人擁有的所有相關賬戶資料，或者面對嚴厲的扣留措施。 美國國稅局不需要列出特定的利益相關者或說明其懷疑的基礎。 銀行數據自動在IRS網絡上大量出現，外國銀行或政府向我們發送信息。 這是一個避稅者最糟糕的惡夢。 因此，許多觀察家認為FATCA是銀行保密結束的開始。

If Paul finds tax treaties distasteful, he must be apoplectic about FATCA.   FATCA is like article 26 on steroids. It takes exchange of information to a whole new and unprecedented level. Under FATCA, the transfer of taxpayer information is accomplished programmatically. Foreign banks must share all the relevant account data they possess on U.S. account holders, or face onerous withholding measures. The IRS need not single out particular persons of interest or state the basis for its suspicion. The bank data automatically shows up on the IRS network, in bulk, courtesy of foreign banks or governments transmitting it to us. It’s a tax dodger’s worst nightmare. For this reason, many observers view FATCA as the beginning of the end of bank secrecy.

FATCA避開了“權利法案”所規定的隱私權利，有利於效率和遵守情況，要求機構向國稅局報告公民的賬戶信息，即使國稅局沒有理由懷疑某個納稅人違反稅法。

換句話說，就是要求外國銀行收集和分享有關收入的信息，FATCA會違反個人基本的隱私權。 類似的聲明是針對FBAR和FinCEN的。 政府堅持不存在這樣的隱私權。

FATCA eschews the privacy rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights in favor of efficiency and compliance by requiring institutions to report citizens’ account information to the IRS even when the IRS has no reason to suspect that a particular taxpayer is violating the tax law.

In other words, the argument is that FATCA violates individual fundamental privacy rights by requiring foreign banks to collect and share information about income. A similar claim is made against FBARs and FinCEN. The government insists that no such privacy right exists.

記住：FATCA不是自我執行的。最好被視為一個雙邊關係的網絡，每個網絡都需要正式的IGA來實現。到目前為止，美國已經簽署了大約115個IGA。實際上，沒有IGA意味著沒有FATCA的執行機制。

與稅收協定不同，政府間組織不需要參議院外交委員會批准。這就意味著保羅無法對政府間安全監管機構進行程序凍結，就像凍結稅收條約一樣。對於FATCA的興起以及類似的信息交換機制（例如經合組織的常見報告標準）的全球傳播，這個令人討厭的小細節已被證明是至關重要的，可以被認為是已知宇宙其餘部分的FATCA。

如果訴訟存在政府的簡易判決動議 - 這仍然是一個懸而未決的問題 - 一個令人著迷的問題將是這些政府間協會的奇怪的地位。在許多方面，它們似乎與納稅人信息交換協議類似，也不要求參議院批准，理由是它們表現為行政部門執行外交政策的能力。但實際上，TIEAs和IGAs與您的平均稅收條約第26條沒有太大差別。而後者則要求參議院批准，而前者則不得批准。

Remember: FATCA is not self-enforcing. It’s best viewed as a network of bilateral relationships, each requiring a formal IGA to give it effect. To date, the United States has signed about 115 IGAs. As a practical matter, no IGA means no enforcement mechanism for FATCA.

Unlike tax treaties, IGAs do not require ratification by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That means Paul is unable to place a procedural freeze on IGAs the same way he’s put a freeze on tax treaties. That pesky little detail has proved vital to the rise of FATCA and the global spread of similar information exchange mechanisms, such as the OECD’s common reporting standard, which can be thought of as FATCA for the rest of the known universe.

If the lawsuit survives the government’s motion for summary judgment -- which remains an open question -- one fascinating issue will be the odd-duck status of these IGAs. In many ways, they seem to resemble taxpayer information exchange agreements, which also don’t require Senate ratification on the grounds that they are manifestations of the executive branch’s ability to conduct foreign policy. In practice, however, TIEAs and IGAs aren’t so different from article 26 of your average tax treaty. Yet the latter requires ratification by the Senate while the former do not.

FATCA: A Tool of the Electronic Surveillance State