Nothing we didn’t already know. The January 1st deadline has now been blown and supposedly IGA negotiations will continue to a “conclusion” over the next few weeks. Again we need to keep up the fight in the new year. I just wanted to let everyone know in case comments open up on the G&M website. I will be contacting Barrie myself later this evening.
My comment:
Barrie, where were you on the 15th of December for the FACTA Fact
Finding Forum that was held at the University of Toronto? (See Isaac
Brock Society website for info and all the videos). Abby Deshman of the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association said that argued that FATCA will
be a clear violation of Canadian privacy laws. Law professor Allison
Christians of McGill University said that FATCA was a violation of NAFTA
and Canada should not sign an Intergovernmental Agreement and when the
economic sanctions by United States are implemented, Canada should begin
the process of litigating the violations of previous treaties with the
United States. Dr. Peter Dunn (yours truly) spoke of the failure to
protect Canadian residents from the overreach of the IRS, and how FATCA
is already causing severe damage to Canadian families. James Jatras of
Washington, DC, law firm Squire Sanders, spoke of how with the right
kind of resistance, FATCA will fail as a law and a policy. Sinclair
Stevens spoke of the protection of that the Charter rights extends to
all residents of Canada and how the current government is contemplating
handing over Americans to the United States.
We must protect our
residents from the bully nation to the south of us. Your article is
informative, but it is not telling the whole story. Where was the
media? They all received invitations.
*Now that it’s in the mainstream (Toronto) press we might get some traction. M. Wente, Jeffrey Simpson where art thee?
The Local, Sweden’s News in English: “Riksdag wants to halt Eritrean exile taxes”
http://www.thelocal.se/39304/20120224/#.UOEIBkfU6z4
From the article:
“The majority of the Riksdag is against Eritrea collecting taxes from citizens resident in Sweden and MPs from the commitee on justice say that if current Swedish law is not enough to stop it, rules need to be tightened.”
“According to Eritrea, the tax is completely voluntary.” — The US says the same thing (mind boggling).
Interesting. I decided to check out @MaxBaucas twitter account. Notice that he doesn’t follow anyone, which sends the message, “I don’t care what you have to say, I am just broadcasting.” ONE WAY STREET.
*What everybody fails to realize is that “renouncing” is not as simple as it sounds. You have to be “compliant” and up to date to renounce your US citizenship and they still can determine that you are renouncing based on taxes and dock you another 10 years and apply the Reed Amendment. The only safety is in getting your Canadian Citizenship.
Much taken from Allison and Jim but I wrote:
*N Dreamer
11:56 PM on December 30, 2012
It is not at all clear what caused Mr. Flaherty to reverse his position on FATCA. What is very clear is that the US is fully aware that complying with FATCA forces countries to break their own laws and betray their own citizens. If they do not comply, then their financial institutions will be punished with extortion. The solution is for the governments to enter IGA’s (intergovernmental agreements) which simply shifts the reporting burden to the governments’ tax agencies. CRA also has limits has to what they may and may not share about CDN taxpayers to any third party, notwithstanding the current double-taxation treaty with the US. So Canadian privacy laws will be broken, period. Having the government do this instead of the financial institutions solves nothing.
It is also clear that an IGA amounts to a tax treaty override of the current double-taxation treaty. An IGA acknowledges the need to waive rights under ALL treaties; it is NOT a CLOSED agreement; the IRS/US has carte blanche to ask whatever they want, whenever they want. This would include waiving a subsidy claim under WTO or NAFTA or FTAA. No country can afford to put themselves in such a position.
Canada should find the guts to repeat PM Chretien’s refusal to become part of the “Coalition of the Willing” with regard to Iraq in 2003. If Canada refuses, other countries will see that it is not an automatic “done deal” and the movement to force repeal of this law will be set in place. Canada should hit back with law suits, trade actions, etc. Canada should tell the US it will pass legislation after FATCA-we will ask our PFFI’s to collect waivers, withhold 30% on payments to US residents, etc. If we don’t stand up to this bullying, who will?
Imagine the Canadian Bankers Association taking 1% of the amount they are spending to prepare compliance with FATCA and using it instead to fight FATCA. The majority of dual Canadians are not of sufficient financial stature to fight this fight. It must come from the government and the banking industry, who will also gain from resisting.
This is an excellent opportunity for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to write a letter to the Globe explaining the Charter and PIPEDA implications of FATCA. It would also be helpful for Prof Christians to write a letter briefly summarizing her insights. Do they follow this blog? Unless we are confident that they do, I suggest someone with established connection contact them.
The Globe has ghettoized this issue in the business pages; it belongs in the front section. This is an opportunity to make that point.
*Northern Shrike
I am working on that.
@Tim
Thank you. Finance has already heard from the CCLA, but a letter to the editor would reinforce the message that an IGA (at least one acceptable to the IRS) is going to lead to a fight.
*I am beginning to think the Canadian media will be next to useless on this issue. I think people like Barrie have simply tuned out any of our concerns. For a long time haven’t been doing much on the EU front but I have started to send emails out this weekend to try get something going.
I do think there is a head in the sand mentality by many on this. Its like can the US REALLY do this? Well yes they can and they are well on there was to doing so. I actually think we have been quite lucky to string things out this long.
Media: Point out to Carol Goar [cgoar@thestar,ca], Margaret Wente [mwente@globeandmail.com], Diane Francis [diane@dianefrancis.com] and Jeff Simpson [jsimpson@globeandmail.com] that they are next!
McKenna gropes around in the dark as much as we do, but leaves the impression that the Feds are playing their cards closely while leaving US citizens in the balance:
“It’s not clear how far the Ottawa is willing to go to accommodate U.S. demands.”
*bubblebustin
My impression is McKenna’s information is no better than of Arrow’s. I get the impression is that as a journalist if you show interest in FATCA there are people in accounting and compliance communities that are willing to talk but I suspect them or Arrow or Barrie don’t really know what is going on behind the scenes in government. If you want to you can make new facebook friends below and see if you can get any more info through that method.
http://www.facebook.com/kevin.shoom
http://www.facebook.com/frank.rosiers
bubblebustin said: Minister Flaherty’s apparent glee over the latest announcement of ‘streamlined procedures’ was a huge disappointment to me, when anything short of an amnesty program resembling Canada’s should have been met with intense criticism. Message from the Canadian government to the IRS and Canadians: our well developed and fair policies don’t stand for squat when the US comes calling.
Tim said: I am beginning to think the Canadian media will be next to useless on this issue.
usxcanada says: The bootlick love for Flaherty’s supposed “stand,” the unfounded confidence that comprador Canada would stand up for “civil liberties,” the supposition that media won’t continue to ignore the story that their masters instruct them to shut up on – all of these are coming a cropper. Only the direct experience of oppression and repression can “educate” a serf who imagines that if only the government, media, or whatever could “understand” then they would just have to care. The history of groups that held fast to feeble hopes as they went to their slaughters, metaphorical and real, deserve careful consideration. – Surely this will not happen to me as long as I do my good job of staying under the radar, camp out in a closet, or at least wear my yellow star like I’m supposed to. Surely not. – Denial is a powerful tool for dealing with a situation where taking any action seems so dangerous or useless. USCitizenAbroad has today on another thread provided a patient and useful outlining of some practicalities.
*usxcanada
You really want to do something about FATCA. Go to 10516 Stable Lane in Potomac Maryland the home address of the woman in charge of FATCA for the Treasury Department. Its only an 8 hour drive down from Toronto.
Petros: No hard feelings if you wish to delete this message.
*In relation to my previous message there is nothing illegal about holding up a public protest sign on a public street in the state of Maryland. Not to imply I was encouraging some type of illegal activity.
@tim, it’s the chicago way.
*Its not that difficult property ownership records are public information in the state of Maryland. Nothing the woman or any other Maryland resident can do about it.
*@Tim, now this could sound like we’re a terrorist site, listing out private addresses like that…:P
@usxcanada
It was due to an extreme lack of confidence in a white knight entering the scene that I chose to enter OVDI.
@Tim
Thanks for the Fb heads up.
Here is a scholarly article about the global tax system written by Itai Grinberg from Georgetown University. It was posted by Jack Townsend.
http://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/60-2-1.pdf
“The international tax system is in the midst of a contest between automatic information reporting and anonymous withholding models for ensuring that nations have the ability to tax offshore accounts. At stake is the extent of many countries’ capacity to tax investment income of individuals and profits of closely held businesses through an income tax in an increasingly financially integrated world.”
“In just a few short years, the world has gone from assuming that financial institutions generally do not support residence country cross-border taxation to arguing about how they should act as tax agents for residence countries. This represents a remarkable shift in international norms. Focusing exclusively on the contest between the information reporting and anonymous withholding models for a new regime inappropriately obscures the growing consensus. The competing initiatives for cross-border tax administrative assistance put forth by the United States, the European Union, the OECD, and Switzerland, and the response of financial institutions to those proposals, all highlight the development of a new international regime in which financial institutions will be cross-border tax intermediaries.”
It is a long article and I only scanned through it. But the author clearly mentions the desire to tax cross border principle as well as income. He also mentioned several times the importance of “tax morale” but he only refers to “morale” in terms of residency. He never mentioned citizenship-based taxation.
If one were to estimate, “tax morale” among expats would be far below zero at this time.
@John Brown…
A little behind in my reading. Thanks for the alert to that one. I posted a comment on Jack’s blog about this one. I also see a Linda Soninlaw posted a comment that sounds Canadian to me! 🙂
there is a law about protesting too Close to a federal activity–this includes the White house, a political rally, or a US post mailbox.
@Justme
Linda Soninlaw sounds as though she’s a resident American so I did a little investigating. She could be Linda’s son-in-law (which would make her a he), or Linda Sonin on the Board of Jewish Education in Chicago:
http://www.bjechicago.blogspot.ca/2009/10/cjte-faculty.html
…or not!
@bubblebustin
I hope you are right, as we need more Homelanders thinking that way. Still waiting for that blog link to come up for me, so will check it out.