Going back to DC

It's time to gear up for Overseas Americans Week. Time to make appointments, revise the position papers and all that. It's also time to visit family. This year I'll stay with B & T in Bethesda and commute into DC each day.I'm looking forward to that, the idea of "going home" in the evening.
When the week is done, I'll head down to Florida for more family visits. I didn't write about it before, but in mid-January I and all my kids went to Orlando for MLK weekend for a surprise party! It was a surprise, already, that we were all able to go. After all, they had to get time off from work. It's not a holiday in Europe. We all converged on Orlando on the same day along with more family coming in from London, California, Oregon, New York, the midwest -- when we were all together, on Sunday, there were 160 family and friends! It was a great party, full of love and energy for R. In March, I'll be able to pay a calmer visit.
I'll even get to see my brother and his wife because they'll be in Florida, too. T will be in a training program for her rowing club.
The main subject in DC, this year, will be taxes, again. Yes, again. As FATCA rolls out, more and more people are being discriminated against. Personally, I'm fed up with proposing a compromise position. The only real solution is for the US to adopt what the rest of the world does: residence-based-taxation. Then the OECD exchange of banking information would be the worldwide system -- reporting foreign accounts to the country of residence. I see the logic of that. I live in France and think it is normal that France knows of any accounts I might have elsewhere. France, yes, not the US. The US, with its system, treats my accounts in France as foreign accounts and the reporting of that information, on the part of the banks, is so cumbersome and expensive, they prefer to do without US customers.
Enough!