An America-first economy is the goal of the next conservative administration. But a prosperous economy cannot exist alongside a taxation policy that parallels North Korea’s.
A return to economic excellence through common sense must include allowing Americans to recapture the economic agility to operate globally, which fits the innovation and hope for the future that our culture is based upon. A commonsense tax policy must put our economic engines of growth in a position to succeed by allowing economic participants to run in response to the market, meet challenges internationally, and thrive around the world.
The State Department estimates there are more U.S. citizens living overseas than living in the state of Virginia. These Americans are the tip of the spear of American foreign trade as they work and live around the world.
From Hollywood intellectual property to Ohio-made footballs, billions of dollars in U.S. goods and services are exported around the world monthly. American citizens are involved in managing these trade flows, from the point of origin to the final buyer around the world, opening up new markets to American companies and new American jobs everyday.
In 2010, the Obama-Biden administration passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, doubling down upon an outdated citizenship-based taxation scheme implemented during the Civil War and subjecting Americans overseas to warrantless search and seizure of personal financial information. In reaction to this bill, many international financial institutions became compliant with U.S. law by discontinuing services to American citizens, resulting in Americans living and working overseas losing access to business opportunities, bank accounts, retirement accounts, mortgages, and other financial products. Only Eritrea and North Korea have similar taxation policies.
The United States cannot recover its economic edge by implementing North Korean economics.
Congress has been briefed by Americans from across the political spectrum who oppose the current situation but have yet to act. The courts have been presented with legal challenges to the constitutionality of these laws but have yet to consider the challenges “on the merits.”
Meanwhile, Americans are becoming less competitive, less wealthy, and less secure. Resulting barriers initially unforeseen by Congress, a common outcome of government intervention, have now been seen, identified, and discussed, with solutions put forward. One such solution is a detailed proposal put forward by Republicans Overseas that would resolve this matter by completely severing citizenship from residency when determining how to tax income.
It is time for action. It would be lunacy to allow the self-imposed damage caused by America’s taxation policies to continue. The U.S. is not going to win the game of building the greatest economy in the history of the world if it keeps scoring on itself.
Common sense tells us that America should be implementing a tax policy that provides equal treatment for all its citizens. It should not silo a group of up to 9 million citizens and implicitly impose North Korean taxation policy upon them while simultaneously expecting historically positive American economic outcomes in international trade.
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The keys to American success are not a mystery. They are time-tested traits woven into American culture — rugged individualism, the pursuit of the common good, innovation, and the freedom to try, fail, improve, and try again.
Building the greatest economy in history means running on all cylinders. It means empowering American domestic manufacturing. It means empowering American exports. It means establishing American paths for our products to be sold abroad. Let’s not outsource this chain of events to non-Americans. Let’s put Americans in a position to be involved in every link of the chain.
Mark Crawford is an American citizen, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, and an active member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Crawford is the pro-bono global vice president for legislative affairs for Republicans Overseas and has worked in international entrepreneurship for over thirty years.
