@mopsicktaxlaw Great post on”FATCA Feast” think you salivating people mean “stakeholders” – not “steakholders” mopsicktaxlaw.blogspot.ca/2013/03/on-jan…
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) March 19, 2013
@mopsicktaxlaw Great post on”FATCA Feast” think you salivating people mean “stakeholders” – not “steakholders” mopsicktaxlaw.blogspot.ca/2013/03/on-jan…
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) March 19, 2013
lol…..You can take the man out of the IRS but not the IRS out of the man
More of the best and the brightest are now focusing on FATCA compliance.
A great opportunist; who can blame him given his compliance background; I.e.: ‘the gift that keeps on giving’…However, though we’ve all been booted off his blog, hope is not lost because I suspect that we’re actuallu starting to be listened to and are thus a possible wrench in the spokes! 🙂
@monalisa1776 ……. no hope is never lost 🙂 but 30 years is a long, long time.
He must be tired of our comments. We can’t comment on his blog anymore.
we have worn him out – we are just Minnows and he is interested in the Big Whales 🙂
The bankstas are coming to Ottawa on Thursday.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=6039338&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=1
Tax Evasion and the Use of Tax Havens
Witnesses
BMO Bank of Montreal Jean Richard, Vice-President and Senior Consultant
Wealth Management Group, BMO Nesbitt Burns
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
Steven Blackburn, Vice-President and Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer
HSBC Bank Canada
Scott Bartos, Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer
Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer
RBC Royal Bank
Russell Purre, Deputy Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer
Scotiabank
Nanci York, Vice-President
Enterprise Regulatory Projects
TD Bank
Carmina Hughes, Head
Global Anti-Money Laundering Compliance
@Tim
Do you suspect like I do that this is all part of the government’s plan to manufacture a smokescreen rationale for the introduction of a FATCA IGA by linking it to money-laundering, tax evasion and tax havens since even low-information voters know that these are very bad things? And no doubt this will somehow be linked to the new budget. The only thing left to complete this transparent PMO-driven PR assault will be some pretzel-logic joint-statement with the Canadian Bankers Association.
@Deckhard, re; …”all part of the government’s plan to manufacture a smokescreen rationale for the introduction of a FATCA IGA by linking it to money-laundering, tax evasion and tax havens since even low-information voters know that these are very bad things?”..
I think you are right. Remember that Richard Harvey, father of FATCA advised that linking it to terror funding etc. would sell it better and make it more palatable:
…”……….Harvey suggests that Treasury and the IRS may want to increase coordination with Treasury’s anti-money-laundering/terrorist financing arm. Detailed customer due diligence may be easier to justify if it is being done for both tax and anti-terrorist or anti-money-laundering reasons. “…
August 9, 2012
FATCA — a Report From the Front Lines
from http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/7FE9806866554F5985257A5500712E6D?OpenDocument
I may sound Pollyanna-ish, but maybe, just maybe, our government in Canada may be interested in proving that it is already doing a great job combatting offshore tax evasion, therefore is are justified in rejecting what Flaherty calls the “waste of resources” and far too over-reaching FATCA? Hero time!
Deckard1138
It is my belief the Conservatives will not do anything without the direct assurance from the NDP that they will not oppose(as crazy as this seems). A similar dynamic is going on right now with the Canada EU Free Trade Agreement. Basically the EU has given Harper a Take it or Leave it offer which would be a complete sellout and Harper knows this. However, Tom Mulcair has said he would NOT necessarily be opposed to a EU Canada Free Trade Agreement in a shift from the NDP’s historical aversion to ALL free trade agreements. So what is being said is unlikely as this seems Harper is hoping through back channel communication to Mulcair that Mulcair can be convinced to sell Canada down the river too in a bad EU Canada Free Trade Agreement(Harper is notorious for never wanting to talk to the opposition party leaders in person).
So why would Mulcair and the NDP do this. Supposedly the NDP badly wants assistance from the Obama campaign in setting a “backroom” operation in the next election and the Obama campaign is considered to have a very good “backroom” operation. Conceivably if the NDP were to oppose FATCA, or Canada EU Free Trade, or TPP or a bunch of other Obama Administration Obama and his top campaign aides and strategists could refuse to help the NDP in the next election in 2015.
This is where the Greens and Liz May are so important. If the NDP “sells out” on Canada EU Free Trade or FATCA many traditional NDP supporters I suspect would jump ship quite quickly to the Green Party. So Elizabeth May’s media releases in my mind are really about putting the NDP on notice not to cave and if the NDP doesn’t cave I don’t think Harper will jump off the cliff all by himself with a election in less than two years.
Michael Geist had a pretty good piece on how this is playing with Canada EU Free Trade
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6808/125/
CBC, The Current, today: “Getting tough on tax evasion” (Canada-style), getting that concept into our minds: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2350533609
Notice the US style “hardball” negotiating tactics
Canadian officials indicate that progress is being made, but the outstanding issues have remained unchanged for years. Some commentators claim the agreement is being held up by “nickel and dime politics”, but leaving aside the nearly $2 billion cost to health care from the patent reforms alone (which is a lot of nickels), the reality seems to be that the hold up involves more than just political posturing. Given that everyone knew the key issues going in, Canada seems to have hoped that the negotiations would follow a conventional compromise script: the EU would compromise on some key concerns (agriculture, investment) in return for Canadian compromises on issues such as pharmaceutical patents and agriculture.
But with the EU the stronger of the two parties, it doesn’t see any urgency to compromise. In fact, with a growing number of EU negotiations (including talks with the U.S.), compromise with Canada may undermine its position in more economically important deals. If CETA were the only deal on the table, it might be willing to find middle ground, but given the effect on talks with the U.S., Japan, India, and Vietnam, the Canadian deal just isn’t important enough to harm its position elsewhere. That suggests the EU is presenting a take-or-it-leave-it deal to Canada – it wants to win on all its issues in order to make the agreement worthwhile.
If that is the case, that leaves three possibilities. The first is that Canada continues to hold out hope of a compromise. That approach has failed for several years but hope springs eternal, particularly when this is the only option that allows the government to present CETA as a “win.” The second is that Canada simply caves to the EU demands. This gives the government its trade deal, but with an election in 2015, caving on everything from agriculture to investor protection to pharmaceutical patents, is a risky political strategy as a CETA deal won’t win many votes but could prove costly among certain vocal constituencies.
(Tim here: Or you get Mulcair to agree Canada isn’t caving on this basis Mulcair wants to get political assistance from the European social democratic parties who all loath Harper)
Calgary411
FYI, The person interviewed has much closer ties to the NDP than the Conservatives.
I have seen this comment from him previously
.
“These folks were all hard-working, serious, responsible business men and women who were on their way up in their companies. They are motivated by the knowledge that they will be evaluated by their managers in terms of how quickly and effectively they can bring their companies into compliance so that they do not miss a beat on January 1, 2014, when every foreign bank in the world (absent an IGA in place) is supposed to have a system in place to enable them to turn over the names and socials of their American depositors once they enter the FATCA Portal to Mordor which the IRS will open up in July of 2013.”
That discussion had come up as to what kind of ethics these compliance people were adhering to, when they were turning over names and private details of US persons who would be subject to punishment. So now he has copy pasted his comment (and the corresponding question) about how ambitious these Little narcs really are into his own blog.
ps, the internet is lit up with reports that Hillary Clinton is under house arrest for diverting $1.7 trillion to a secret account in China, with the aid of Commerzbank, etc, with collaboration of Chelsea.
God, his praise is all over the page for the Hitler Jugend that he brought in to his Conference.
I think FATCA presents the NDP with a fascinating set of opportunities – something the Tories will be fully aware of as well.
@Mark Twain, what he means to say is that some Americans only think and care about the money and not the lives of those they destroy in the process of chasing after it.
@ SwissPinoy …. sorry but that statement is true for 90% of the human race including the swiss 🙂
@broken man, I hope that the NDP sees and seizes that opportunity. I have been more convinced that the failure to issue an official party wide statement against FATCA was due to either an intent to go along with it, or a reluctance to be in any way – even incorrectly – construed as obstructing the US in closing its imaginary ‘international tax gap’ – because of the NDP work on the federal finance committee looking into Canadian tax evasion and the use of tax havens.
I have been disappointed in Mulcair’s failure to state where he stands on FATCA despite the strong and forthright stands taken by the BC NDP caucus like Denise Savoie, and the brilliant questioning done by MP Mai which put the CRA, Ministry of Finance, etc. on the Hansard record in terms of some of our concerns (ex. enforcement of FBAR, assistance to the US on collecting extraterritorial tax against those in Canada, etc.). MP Mai did not get answers to all of his question, but what he did get was very valuable to have enshrined in the public record.
What I don’t get though is why the NDP do not see that Elizabeth May and the Greens have taken the lead on this – in an assertive and ethical way. NDP supporters among those Canadian voters affected by the US campaign against us may become disaffected and vote Green instead, if they don’t get a firm commitment and stand out of the federal NDP party and leader.
I do think some NDP MP’s like Craig Scott in private seem to have a reasonably clear position. There does seem to be a reluctance to be to public about it. There does also seem to be reluctance on the NDP’s part to hurt any effort by the Obama Administration to close the US “tax gap.” However, again I do think if you read some of the emails from Craig Scott posted here they do in private provide a square position.
This is the Truism I take away from Steven: “The people around the world who stand to profit from FATCA are not thinking much about government intrusions into the private lives of the world citizens.”
“Them’s the
FATCAsFACTs”, as they say.Although, they may think it is a ‘business and growth opportunity’ others see it as a pending financial disaster for the World’s economy. Who is right? I think the latter, but we shall see. I could be wrong.
FATCA and US fiscal imperialism threaten to sink global economy
In all due respect to 30 year IRS vet, I think he may have his perspectives twisted (which comes from his background?) when he thinks that profiting off the backs of the government regulatory tit is “free enterprise/free market system at work.” Rather, it represents the worst of unprincipled and amoral aspects of human nature at work. These actions are not based upon free enterprise/free markets, but on artificial markets based upon dubious legal assertions.
Free markets do not require or accept extortion as their engine of enterprise.
I can think of other examples of so called free enterprise ~70 years ago, where other “hard-working, serious, responsible business men and women who were on their way up in their companies” were probably attending conferences on how to ramp up manufacturing and supply of cattle cars for another freight train in another era that he would not be so willing to celebrate. He would not like that comparison, and maybe it is a bit hyperbolic, but the same human nature principle is at work.
More recently, there was an army of war profiteering “hard-working, serious, responsible business men and women” contractors, attending conferences in Vegas to learn how suckling off the “free enterprise” of ‘War Contracting Gone Wild’ could benefit their companies. They didn’t want to get left out of the ‘business and growth opportunity’ that an amoral and unnecessary war provided. What if the government threw a contractor party to support its misguided war effort at that time, and no one came? I blame the compliant and willing contractors co-enablers as much as the government initiators for the sad legacy we left in Iraq.
Maybe in fairness to Steven, what he is saying, is yes, human nature is responding to an artificial market that would NOT exist, except for US hubris, financial imperialism and extra-territoriality. I don’t think I would be citing the FATCA Compliance Industrial Complex’s (FCIC) “hard-working, serious, responsible business men and women” as an example of ‘supply and demand’ in action that Adam Smith would identity or praise.
@Just me, he is making the most of an opportunity. Perhaps last year when he tried to reassure us, before he fell out with Brock, he was giving an honest estimate of what our real risks were. Perhaps he still privately feels sorry for minnows’ plight but is seizing what he feels is the opportunity of a lifetime to make a great living off laws Congress already created. I’d guess he’s amoral more than immoral, though I find it all repugnant.
Well said, Just me.
BTW, my recent FATCA searches are turning up more and more from the FCC urging FFI’s to get going on FATCA regardless of they notice as the bog down in IGA negotiations.