Call for American expats around the world to sign tax-law change petition

Greg Swanson is a sales and marketing executive originally from the U.S. state of Oklahoma, who has lived abroad for 30 years, the last seven in St Gallen, near Switzerland’s borders with Austria and Luxembourg.

In addition to running Swanson Global Marketing, he also oversees a website he launched earlier this year for Americans living outside the US, called Purpleexpat.org, which seeks to be a voice on behalf of American expats with respect to citizenship issues.

Swanson says he posted the petition in June in hopes of getting at least 2,000 signatures, in order to add to the chorus of deep concern even then pouring in to Washington from American expats around the world.

Thus far it has been signed by “just over 900”, which he admits is “a bit of a disappointment”, although he notes that “the potential of few signers had been anticipated when we put up the petition.”

“But we went ahead with it anyway, because we knew it would give us a database of people who we might later call on to make their voices heard, and also because we knew that their comments would be very powerful and potentially persuasive if and when we might present them to members of Congress,” Swanson told  The American Expat Financial News Journal.

With legislation expected within days that would give expatriate Americans the option of replacing the U.S.’s current citizenship-based tax (CBT) regime, as it applies to them, with a “territorial taxation for individuals” (TTFI) system, Swanson adds, “we will need more people stepping up and being vocal.

“Everyone needs to be an activist now. In the long run, if the American diaspora simply sits on its hands and does nothing, Congress will assume that the majority of U.S. citizens abroad are okay with the raft of new laws that effectively punish them --  severely -- simply for living overseas.

“This, in turn, will mean that the only option for an ever-growing number of expats will be renunciation.”

The legislation Swanson was referring to is a bill said to be in the final stages of being readied for introduction in Congress by North Carolina House Rep. George Holding. As reported,   the Holding bill, which thus far has not been given a name, had been expected to be unveiled before the end of September.

To see Swanson’s petition (and, if desired, to sign it), click here.