Ottawa MP Paul Dewar (NDP Foreign Affairs Critic) is hosting a FATCA information session at Tom Brown Arena, 141 Bayview, Ottawa, Monday, 26 March, 7 pm. Other speakers include the NDP National Revenue Critic, the NDP Finance Critic, an accountant, and a lawyer. Full details on Mr. Dewar’s website. Thanks to Schubert for bringing this to our attention.
Here is a link to a writeup by the lawyer from Gowlings attending the event:
http://m.gowlings.com/knowledgecentre/article.asp?pubID=2469
I wonder if anyone will be going and taking some notes to pass on to us?
@All
I will be there along with a couple of other Ottawa-based Brockers. We’ll report on the event for sure. Could get interesting.
@Deckard1138, That is great!! Wish I could be there also! Thank you!
@Deckard
Great! Look forward to hearing about it!!
I’ll be there as well, taking notes and maybe ask a question re privacy and banking legislation and legal recourse, if those points aren’t raised in the presentation. As Deckard mentions, no doubt several of us will chime in on this forum about anything we hear, especially if it’s new or difference from what we’ve all heard already.
Irony of ironies (fans of Carl Levin will just love this), we’ve been advised that there will be representatives of Democrats Abroad in attendance at the meeting. No doubt some of the Ottawa-area members of that organization are also affected by this issue and of course are welcome on that basis, but I’ve been assured by Dewar’s office (in response to my rather angry email to his office when I heard about this on the weekend) that those reps will NOT be speaking at the meeting. They will be there in case anyone wants to speak with them afterwards and privately about voting in the US primaries (waste of time for Democrats, are they even having primaries?) or in November. As if that will make a tinker’s damn of difference to any of this, no matter which party wins.
And for the record, Democrats Abroad weren’t invited to attend, they contacted Dewar’s office and asked if they could be there with voting information for anyone interested. Dewar’s office said yes. (I very much doubt Dewar himself was aware of any of this, given his focus on the leadership campaign up until Saturday afternoon.)
To avoid creating public disruption I’ll steer clear of the Democrats Abroad folks after the meeting … I would find it difficult to speak civilly to them (or Republicans if they showed up), given what I’ve read about Gestner, Levin, and that whole crowd, all of them Democrats. I’ll be there for information, not to get into angry debates with anyone. Besides, the US isn’t my country and I can’t vote in their elections anyway …
@shubert1975
To help dramatize this situation, I wrote up this “FATCA parable” – it may be a useful query to a banker ow lawyer or example for discussion…
———————————————————-
Consider Joe and Sam: brothers, friends and Canadian citizens. They live in Ontario, and bank and invest at the same major Canadian bank.
However, Sam was born in Michigan while his parents were students. Sam moved to Canada as a kid, became a Canadian Citizen at 18, and has not lived or worked in the US. In fact, he was warned he would lose US citizenship by intentionally becoming a Canadian, but did so anyway. As far as Sam’s concerned, he’s as Canadian as brother Joe.
Our brothers live, work and invest in Canada. Now they each have similar RRSP’s, TFSAs and Canadian mutual funds. They opened these accounts 20+ years ago, and bank has no record of Sam’s US birthplace or Joe’s Canadian birthplace (why would they).
Suppose bank now asks “where were you born”? An odd question after a twenty-year relationship – and they say so! Bank says that if Sam is born in one certain foreign country, it will now serve Sam in a very different, adverse and restricted manner then his brother Joe.
So both Joe and Sam refuse to provide the information, and advise their bank that it’s actions constitute discrimination based on “nationality, origin or place of birth”.
What happens next?
@Everyone
If anyone wants to they can go over to the following blog and fight with author over FBAR and FATCA. The woman in question is professor at the Wayne University School of Law in Detroit(under 10 minutes from Canada) and a big fan of FBAR and Carl Levin. She says she has no sympathy for anyone renouncing their citizenship to avoid FBAR and FATCA.
http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/2012/03/still-havent-filed-your-fbar-dont-wait-til-you-get-hit-with-forfeiture-like-this-alaska-plastic-surg.html#comment-6a00d8341cf2a753ef016764452ee1970b
@Everyone
By the way if haven’t already guessed she is a big time “progressive.”
That woman is an outright communist!
@Col Kurtz
I say this in no ill will towards the NDP but much of the US Democratic Party is now to the LEFT of most NDP MP’s. I get tired of fighting with her(I have posted comments there in the past but up to now have never suggested to anyone here that they go visit her blog). However, in the past few days certain commenters here such as JustME have expressed a desire to engage US “progressive” voices so I want to bring her blog up.
Most US Democrats are to the right of Stephen Harper and this is the truth!
And that includes OBAMA!
@ Joe Smith
I would have once agreed with you but not any longer!
@tiger
I kind of like Col Kurtz comment about that tax law blogger from Wayne State University in Detroit I keep fighting with. She is totally unmoved by the idea we might show up right on her doorstep in Windsor. Wayne State University is literally like a five to ten minute drive after going through customs at the Ambassador Bridge.
Well, I am that tax prof at Wayne State in Detroit. I find it almost amusing that my views in support of various taxes–the duties we pay as privileges of citizenship for the good of society–or of specified reporting requirements from citizens to their governments should result in my being labeled (by people who haven’t bothered to read my entire blog or other scholarship) as a “communist.” Just shows how blatantly un-factual such rants are…..
Now, most progressives do hold that government is neither inherently good or bad–our goal is for it to operate as a means for us to achieve collectively what we cannot do as individuals, such as controlling pollution of major corporations or ensuring quality standards in respect of food products or providing funding to support basic, non-commercial research that may (or may not) significantly contribute to improved quality of life now or in the future.
Hello Professor Beale and welcome to the Isaac Brock Society blog. I note your comment:
“TimThe reporting requirements pre-exist the current furor over FBAR. It is just now that enforcement is catching up with long-term nonreporters. I don’t see much cause for sympathy for those who are suddenly so pissed off about finally actually having some likelihood of enforcement for their non- reporting of foreign bank accounts that they plan to renounce their US citizenship”
You are misunderstanding the problem. The problem is NOT the issue of “enforcement of FBAR”. The issue is the threat to use FBAR to levy fines for past non-compliance when:
1. People did not know about FBAR;
2. There was no reason for people to even suspect FBAR
As a tax prof, I imagine that you would bring a lot of value to this conversation. I invite you to read the following and then comment:
http://isaacbrocksociety.com/2012/02/22/ambassador-jacobsons-70-year-old-grandma/
http://isaacbrocksociety.com/2012/02/15/looking-for-mr-fbar-in-search-of-fbar-fullfilment-and-consciousness/
(Particularly the links in the second article)
I am sure that I speak for all contributors to this blog when I say that we look forward to your continued participation on this board.
Thanks again,
@Linda I want to thank you for your comment here. I am a former USA citizen who has relinquished his citizenship because he pays enough taxes here in Canada and the extraterritorial taxation of the USA doesn’t make any sense for me since I am no longer part of that collective. Resistance is not futile.
We do know what we are talking about here because we have to live with the stupid decisions of progressives in the USA. So now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me ask you what a “tax professor” is. Is that part of the law faculty or the political science faculty?
@Petros
Tax law I believe is part of the School of Law generally in both Canada and the US
@Everyone
One point I want to make clear there is literally no one in Canadian Politics that supports the application of FBAR or FATCA. If you look at the list of who has come out against FBAR and FATCA you talking about people such as Denise Savoie, Megan Leslie, Hoang Mai, Peter Julian, Don Davies, Paul Dewar, Elizabeth May, and Libby Davies. Many of these people’s views on taxation, economic policy etc would make them totally unelectable in a US Democratic Party Primary for being too “left wing”. The likes of Libby Davies or Megan Leslie are no friends of the rich, big business, or Wall Street.
@Petros
She is a law professor and I believe a rather distinguished one a that. See here:
http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/about.html
“I am a law professor at Wayne State University Law School who teaches various courses in the area of federal income tax, such as introduction to federal income tax, corporate taxation, partnership taxation, international taxation and perhaps in the future a course in statutory interpretation focussed on tax. I think that the tax system should reflect the values of ordinary Americans and our long-held belief in principles of liberty, equality and community. I fear that we have instead tended to give too much credence to purportedly “objective” ideas about taxation based on the rationales of law and economics and unverified theories about economic growth and too little credence to human needs for community that require allocating the burdens and benefits of the tax system fairly among the people and entities that make up our system.”
It is encouraging to see her emphasis on the relationship between tax policy and the principles of “liberty, equality and community”.
@Linda Beale
Would you be willing to elaborate on the following comment on your blog:
“I don’t doubt that there are a bunch of US citizens living in Canada who would like the best of both worlds—US citizenship for its perceived advantages and otherwise just look at the Canadian residency. But it is eminently reasonable for a country not to allow that kind of rule arbitrage. Again, I don’t see much cause for sympathy.”
http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/2012/03/still-havent-filed-your-fbar-dont-wait-til-you-get-hit-with-forfeiture-like-this-alaska-plastic-surg.html
What specifically do you mean when you say: “not allow that kind of rule arbitrage” – perhaps with an example or two?
@Prof Beale: Well, welcome to our humble abode. May I suggest that you equally are misunderstanding the position of all the bloggers here? We are non-resident US citizens with little connection to the US besides our passports, and we pay taxes in the societies where we live to support the efforts of our governments towards the relief of poverty, the education of our neighbours’ children, and the maintenance of the rule of law.
Some of us are from the left and others are from the right. What we all agree on is that there are only two countries on earth which tax non-resident citizens on their foreign income: the US and Eritrea. (Burma formerly fell into this category as well). I would not describe these countries as “progressive”, especially in comparison to their peer groups. That in itself should suggest to you that not everyone — whether progressive or conservative — agrees that taxes are “duties we pay as privileges of citizenship”. The most common understanding of taxation is that it is the duty of those who live in a civilised society (whether as citizens or non-citizens) or who draw income from one. This is a fairly standard European progressive position. See this quote, for example:
Kind regards and hoping for a productive discussion.
Obviously prof Beale hasn’t read our blog and that is why she has no sympathy. I’m not going to suggest that she is just a heartless progressive, but that is possible too.
@ Lynda
Thank you for participating. Sorry for any ad hominem comments on this blog – that’s certainly not my style of participation, which is based on research, facts, and logical argument.
By way of background, here is the situation from a Canadian perspective….
This is NOT about US residents evading taxes by hiding their assets offshore.
To Canadians, it’s about a foreign state suddenly asserting an unusual extra-jurisdictional tax and penalty claim on hundreds of thousands of law abiding Canadian resident citizens. This is not based upon US-based assets or earnings, but simply upon birthplace – a kind of indentured serfdom. In fact, a challenge in explaining this to to most other people in Canada is how wrong, illogical and immoral it all sounds
Canadians affected by this are mostly law-abiding tax paying Canadian citizens who earn, bank and invest their lawful incomes locally in their home country of Canada. Many are long-term Canadian citizens with no US assets or other ties. According to existing US law they relinquished their US citizenship by swearing the Canadian citizenship oath, only to be covertly repatriated ex post facto. Some of these are senior citizens and retirees who see their life savings jeopardized.
Some are Canadians who never actually worked or lived in the US. They were simply born there; their parents were visiting for travel or education or because of cross-border hospital arrangements (common in our Eastern Provinces).
Also affected are Canadian-born children of US-born Canadians who were literally “born into sin” and are now US “tax evaders” simply because of their lineage.
Especially distressing is the application of obscure US money laundering law to effectively criminalize the everyday Canadian banking and investing activities of long-term US-born Canadian citizens. Their local bank accounts are now “undisclosed offshore accounts” and penalties can actually exceed the balance of the account – potentially a Canadian citizen’s entire life savings. This results in widespread distress.
Yet it is essentially a campaign of fear, because there is no conventional legal mechanism to actually collect these extra-jurisdictional tax and penalty claims from Canadian citizens within Canada. And the Canadian government confirmed repeatedly that it would not collect US taxes or penalties from Canadian citizens – as have other legal experts in Canada.
However, under FATCA Canada’s banks are being enlisted – under coercion and with much protest – in a extra-jurisdictional program to identify their US-born Canadian citizen customers (and their legal Canadian bank accounts) and to send their private financial information to a foreign state… or withhold their funds… or close their accounts. All in possible violation of Canadian laws governing banking and anti-discrimination provisions of the Human Rights Act and Charter.
Canada’s banks have no clear legal path to comply with FATCA – the concept of “US person” has no standing in Canadian law (just substitute “African person” or “Chinese person” to dramatize the fundamental issue of discrimination). And our banks don’t know their clients’ birthplace, and have no clear legal reason to ask.
Meanwhile, thousands of Canadian citizens are suffering panic, distress, confusion and even suicidal despair as forces beyond their control suddenly jeopardize their life savings and personal security. Again, many of these are older Canadian citizens who immigrated from the US decades ago, have no US assets, income or other economic ties, and have paid high Canadian taxes dutifully.
@Professor Beale: Welcome.
I hope you can understand one of the huge issues here is that many of us were told by US Consulate that we were “permanently and irrevocably” renouncing or relinquishing our US citizenship when we voluntarily became citizens of Canada and other countries three, four, five or even six decades ago.
Now that we are in or near retirement, the US suddenly wants to reclaim us and our money. Yet, our allegiance is to the country where we have studied, worked, raised families, volunteered, voted, contributed, owned homes, saved, invested and paid taxes for decades. We are at a total loss to understand why we have any obligation–financial or other–to a foreign country (U.S.) which we left long ago.
The US is now using financial bullying tactics through FATCA to try to force our banks to to report on our savings and assets, which were totally earned, saved and invested in Canada or in other countries. The US says if our banks refuse to determine who are US persons and refuse to report to IRS, our banks must close our long-standing accounts. This is a violation of Canada’s Bank Act and Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In addition to a foreign intrusion into our personal lives, it is an affront to Canadian sovereignty (and to that of other countries around the world).
If FATCA proceeds, Canadians of American origin will be second class citizens in their country of citizenship and residence.
In fact, some European, South American and other countries are already closing accounts of residents or citizens of their countries just because those individuals were born in the U.S. Canadian law prohibits banks from gathering information about place of birth.
To date, Jim Flaherty, our Minister of Finance (a Conservative) has shown no interest in changing Canadian law to meet the demands of a foreign government. In addition, Mr. Flaherty has repeatedly stated that Canada Revenue Agency will not collect FBAR penalties for failure to file a report for any Canadian resident and will not collect tax liability for any tax owing to US by a Canadian citizen, even if that person was also a US citizen at the time the tax liability arose.
I do not consider you a communist. In fact, I think the example in your article of the plastic surgeon hiding money from his wife, the courts and the IRS is an example of the type of individual the IRS should be pursuing.
However, as Mr. Flaherty has said repeatedly, “Canada is not a tax haven…People do not flock to Canada to avoid paying taxes.” In fact, we pay high taxes (both income tax and GST and either HST or PST). We believe we should pay taxes to the country where we live.
Are you able to explain why those of us were told clearly and firmly decades ago we were terminating our American citizenship by becoming Canadian citizens should now have any financial obligation to the U.S.?