Dear
Thank you for your email following the recent Toronto event held with my colleague, MP Craig Scott. I appreciate your perspective on the meeting. I am glad to have this opportunity to address FACTA further.
I share your concerns that FATCA’s sweeping provisions on financial disclosure will have significant consequences for dual Canadian-American citizens and Americans with landed immigrant status lawfully living here in Canada. Please know that New Democrats have consistently challenged the over-reaching aspects of FATCA and have urged the Conservative government to negotiate protective measures for those citizens who would be affected by FATCA’s onerous regulations.
We are also troubled that the secrecy of these negotiations with the US is detrimental for citizens facing privacy and financial pressures. They must rely on media reports for developing news and have no opportunity to have their views considered in a meaningful way.
In discussing this matter with my NDP colleagues, we felt that it was important to reinforce how serious and unfair the consequences of FATCA could be for Canadians if unilaterally imposed. In taking the lead on this issue, Official Opposition critic for National Revenue, Murray Rankin, has written to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty calling on his government to reject any agreement that may violate the privacy rights of Canadians, erode Canadian sovereignty, or fail to offer Canada equal benefits to those provided to the United States. Please see the attached copy of Murray Rankin’s letter to Minister Flaherty.
Going forward, please be assured that New Democrats will remain vigilant on this issue. We will continue to pressure the Government to help address the above-mentioned concerns and ensure the rights of Canadians who hold dual citizenship with the United States are protected.
Again, thank you for writing. Please know that your steadfast support for our Party is greatly valued.
Best regards,
Tom
Thomas Mulcair, M.P. (Outremont)
Leader of the Official Opposition
New Democratic Party of Canada
Follow Tom on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr
www.facebook.com/ThomasMulcair
www.twitter.com/ThomasMulcair
www.flickr.com/photos/ndpcanad
September 25, 2013
The Honourable James M. Flaherty, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Finance
Department of Finance Canada
140 O’Connor Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G5
Dear Minister,
As Official Opposition Critic for National Revenue, I am writing to express my serious concerns regarding negotiations with the United States over the implementation of the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
Currently, Canada is engaged in closed door negotiations with the U.S. over an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) for the implementation of FATCA in Canada. Such an agreement could oblige Canada to enact laws and regulations requiring Canadian financial institutions to comply with this U.S.-based legislation. New Democrats have serious concerns about the lack of transparency and consultation during these negotiations and the potential for such an agreement to infringe on the rights of Canadians and fail to offer reciprocal benefits to both parties.
Reports suggest that if implemented, an IGA may require Canadian banks, investment funds and other financial institutions to disclose annually to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) information on accounts held by American citizens, including dual citizens in Canada. Failure to disclose account information could result in a withholding tax applied to U.S. income earned by the institution or by the account holder. We are concerned that these negotiations may allow the United States to bypass the established exchange of information between the IRS and the Canada Revenue Agency and instead get information directly from Canadian financial institutions. Concerns have been raised that such a system could potentially violate existing Canadian privacy laws. Furthermore, at this time it is unclear if reciprocal information would be granted in return.
New Democrats are concerned with the prospect of a foreign nation unilaterally imposing obligations on Canadian banks to disclose personal information. The Canadian Government has a responsibility to protect Canada’s tax base, and while we understand the United States’ desire to protect their own tax base, this should not come at the cost of the rights of individuals residing in our own country. Cracking down on tax cheats should occur through international cooperation rather than unilateral action.
Room 524, Confederation Building, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Tel: 613-996-2358 Fax: 613-952-1458 Email: Murray.Rankin@parl.gc.ca
What’s more, the secrecy of the negotiations over this agreement has left Canadians in the dark as to the integrity of their personal banking information. The Canadian government should be standing up for the civil liberties of Canadians. Furthermore, the Conservative government must ensure that any agreement reached is fair for Canada.
In the interest of transparency, fair taxation and respect for privacy rights, we are asking the government to reject any agreement that violates the rights Canadians or that fails to offer Canada equal benefits to those provided to the United States.
In light of the important issues at stake, we urge the government to bring transparency to this process and inform Parliamentarians on the state of negotiations.
I appreciate your time and look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Murray Rankin, Member of Parliament for Victoria
Official Opposition Critic for National Revenue
cc: Peggy Nash, Official Opposition Critic for Finance
Well that is interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Now if we can just get the Liberals to take a negative position on FATCA maybe the sitting government will feel safe enough to share what is going on with the general public.
It’s important that FATCA and the IGA negotiations are made public and the sooner the better. Secrecy only aids the USG.
There you have it, an official party position. Excellent work, Joe Smith!
McQuaig will toe the line, of course.
At last!
However, I do object to term “dual Canadian- American citizens”
Many do not consider themselves dual citizens, having obtained Canadian citizenship many years ago with the intention of giving up U. S. citizenship.
Now to get it to the press…
“However, I do object to term “dual Canadian- American citizens””
Agree with you on that one!
@Hazy and JoeSmith
I hate being called dual Canadian-American also. I prefer Canadian with a US birthplace.
NDP must be catching up on some unfinished business. Just received a very similar letter from them this afternoon via e-mail.
Imagine the cognitive dissonance among Canada’s Obamaphiles, mostly NDP. I can almost smell the smoke! And Diane Francis in her interview with the CBC said that all Canadians would vote Democrat if Canada negotiated a surrender to the US. I wonder how her book sales are going?
I think a lot of us both at Isaac Brock and at Maple Sandbox can pat ourselves on our back for finally having smoked Mulcair out. I also received this email, as did Blaze, and as did IRSCompliant. No doubt others who have written to Mulcair also got this.
On September 21, I and I believe several others sent emails to Mulcair challenging him on his “no policy” statement in Toronto, and I at least copied to him the BC Caucus September 2011 letter to Flaherty. I, and I believe several others, also blitzed the BC Caucus members on that day or thereabouts reminding them of the letter they’d sign (I even attached a copy to my email) and asking why their leader was saying there was no NDP policy on FATCA.
So, to repeat what I said over at Sandbox a few minutes ago, sometimes these email campaigns do bear fruit. Not unlike a steady drip of water on the forehead …
So, Justin and company, where are you on this issue?
The federal and provincial parties are different animals, but I wonder what this means for FATCA and credit unions in Manitoba, as provincially-regulated financial institutions under an NDP government?
Does anyone have a good recipe for baked crow that we can share with Linda McQuaig? She’s going to have to eat a crow or two over this, methinks.
@JoeSmith, schubert1975, Blaze, IRScompliant, Marie, and others who did the smoking out of ‘Mulclair’,
GREAT JOB BROCKERS! 🙂
It is so good to start seeing some results from all the effort people have been putting into getting our voice heard! Its only going to get louder, and more unrelenting, and our politicians know it. The smarter ones are coming forth now.. Trudeau, where are you?
@schubert1975, Yup. Linda screwed up. She deserves to eat baked crow.
If McQuaig’s worth her salt as a politician, she’ll slither out of this one. After all, she never really referred to FATCA by name in one instance, and in her book she wrote about FATCA, but in both instances she stated her support or preference for a Tax Justice Network proposal.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/04/09/linda-mcquaid-burn-in-hell/
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/09/22/linda-mcquaig-and-neil-brooks-traitors-to-canada-on-fatca/
To be charitable to TM, perhaps one reason Tom used the term’ dual Canadian-American citizen’ is because he himself is a dual citizen, as many know.
From a CBC story early last year:
“Mulcair’s wife, Catherine, was born in France and is a citizen of both France and Canada, as are their two children. As the spouse of a French citizen, Mulcair, who was born in Ottawa, was entitled to apply for French citizenship himself.
Mulcair said he did so 20 years ago after an unsettling incident at Spain’s Madrid airport, where he was separated for 30 minutes from his wife and two then-young children because he was travelling on a Canadian passport while they had both Canadian and French passports.
“Frankly, it sent a shiver down my spine not to have the same travel documents as my kids and my wife.””
Considering all the work it has taken all of us to really understand CBT and FATCA, and it’s import, as well as Just Me’s DATCA and GATCA, I think that many of those here at IBS know quite a bit more about all this and how it fits together than many politicians, journalists and authors.
It is possible that once forcibly confronted with this letter from Mulcair, and from Rankin, and more public debate, some who embrace FATCA unquestioningly will see that as designed and intended, it will really hurt only minnows and krill abroad, while US residents deliberately hiding money, and US corporations with specialty US accounting and US tax law firms on retainer will find other ways to get around US taxes http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/corporate_tax_dodgers .
I would like to ask Linda McQuaig and the Tax Justice Network what they think of the US Ambassadorships for sale to the highest bidder – rewarding all the big political fundraisers http://taxpol.blogspot.ca/2013/09/how-to-buy-us-ambassadorship-and-how.html . And, all those political appointees who were Goldman Sachs executives? What does she think of having had a previous tax cheat for a Treasury Secretary – Geithner, http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexspillius/8174427/Tim_Geithners_tax_evasion_/ presiding over the FATCA and FBAR persecution of Canadian minnows, and now, his successor Jack Lew with offshore investments in the Caymans http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/08/jack-lew-citigroup-and-the-ugland-truth/ , and Penny Pritzker new Commerce Secretary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritzker_family with that huge offshore family trust?
There are ‘none so blind as those who will not see’ http://www.bartleby.com/100/204.html that FATCA is NOT at all what the US pretends it is, and it is NOT designed nor intended nor going to help the rest of the world, including Canada, because the US is trying to make ALL the world ‘US taxable persons’. FATCA will not bring Canada and the rest of the globe rainbows and unicorns.
Those who are NOT US politicians (with US vested interests and worldview), who laud FATCA as a way of attaining some kind of ‘tax justice’ for the globe should study up on the inherent conflicts between the US system of taxation and the systems of the rest of the world. The US wants to rake in all the global chips – while still allowing loopholes to favour US corporations, and any other US persons who can afford their own personal lobbyists.
I cannot believe that Linda McQuaig truly understands what is at stake for Canada and over 1 million Canadians if Harper enables the US extraterritorial system via FATCA, overlaid on top of the many serious and unresolved problems that we have already identified with the US treatment of our ordinary legal local post-tax Canadian accounts, registered savings, sale of our principal residence, Canadian mutual funds as PFICs, punitive treatment of our estates which pass to non-US spouses and family, and refusal to allow minors and those deemed incompetent to renounce, etc. We are NOT protected from double taxation by the US, nor are the rights of our Canadian-only spouses, family and employers under the BSA FBAR. I want Canadian FATCAnatics confronted with this – and forced to debate it in public here in Canada.
‘A wise man changeth but a fool never will’.
@badger
I now laugh about the letter I wrote to Canada’s former ambassador. I’m so much less naive now as to believe that a Obama supporter would have any concern at all for US citizens abroad, taking your last line to heart.
Hazy, not to have the same travel documents as my child is a huge concern for me once we are finally Canadians b/c I plan to relinquish and she won’t be able to as a minor. No way is she traveling on a passport that isn’t identical to mine or her Dad’s.
However, as it stands now, we regularly have to travel on documents that don’t match my husband’s and I understand completely how Mulcair feels about that.
I’ll be a bit of a buzz kill here, but if you’re interested in learning about the TPP Trade Pact, it’s described as “NAFTA on steroids”, and a “corporate Trojan Horse” that would require foreign countries to change their domestic laws. Sound familiar? And it’s being pushed by Obama even though he promised to dismantle NAFTA. Oh and it brings SOPA back again. The good news is that many countries are saying “no”.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/4/a_corporate_trojan_horse_obama_pushes
Treasury says to foreign governments ‘Take it or leave it’
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N0HU0TS20131004
That’s the US idea of a ‘mutual’ ‘exchange’ and
bilateral’ process:
….”From the U.S. perspective, “it’s ‘take it or leave it’ for foreign governments,” he said of the IGA negotiations.”….
Doesn’t leave any room for PR spin if the Harper government hopes to sign on to FATCA and justify it to Canadian voters as ‘just’ an ‘extension’ of an ‘already existing tax treaty’.
@KalC
Trust someone who’s probably a member of the FCC to say that. If negotiations are being frustrated, they should ‘leave it’.
@bubblebustin, it’s been a steep learning curve, and we’re only able to see shadows, not what casts them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave
US Ambassadors to Canada are an obvious fraud http://taxpol.blogspot.ca/2013/09/how-to-buy-us-ambassadorship-and-how.html and everything they and the US says to us is a deliberate and manufactured script.
We should not be fooled into believing that the same forces aren’t at play here at home as well. Watch out for that bus.
We uncover only a tiny amount of how much is being decided about laws that will bind us and our families, and Canadian taxpayers , citizens and residents – without any public debate or input. This is overwhelmingly true on the US side, but leaves an even more bitter taste when practiced on behalf of US interests – extraterritorially on the Canadian side.
And we need for some formal public recognition of the extent of this – ex. the US entirely willing to extort taxes and penalties from those who relinquished/renounced decades ago. And making them and us prove we’re not US taxable via a US issued CLN. A FATCA IGA and enforcement and reporting rests on that onus forced by the US onto ALL people in Canada – proving to their bank and the US satisfaction that they’re NOT US taxable. Every single one, Canadian citizen or not. That is just insane that Harper would even consider it. And the CBA and its partners has my lifelong contempt for their cowardly and craven behind the scenes lobbying for a Canadian IGA.
I always considered relationships of ordinary consumers with banks an essentially parasitic and adversarial one, with the banks being the parasites, but this confirms it. They never even bothered to spend some of those record profits http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/how-are-canadas-banks-doing-profits-at-a-glance/article14018474/ on newspaper ads to rouse the Canadian public to resist FATCA – because they decided that to cut their losses, they’d directly lobby Harper and throw their account holders under the bus with an IGA instead. I hope that results in a lasting severance of relationships with banks by those of us who know how they have behaved re a FATCA IGA in Canada.
And on the point of how to react to being called a dual, or an American-Canadian? How to react to being put in a category that is different – and suspect, and with less rights than the rest of Canadian citizens – at the behest of the US – a foreign power? And for those who renounce and relinquish now, but whom under FATCA, Canada will treat as second class Canadians – those ‘AMERICANS in Canada’ until the US chooses to certify that we are not? We need to make very clear that in Canada we are all CANADIANS first and foremost. And that legal Canadian permanent residents are entitled to Charter and Constitutional protections too. The US can react by making it even harder to renounce or relinquish. We need Canada to express public censure of that treatment of its citizens. And to do something to help publicly embarass the US for keeping minors and those deemed incompetent as taxable prisoners for decades, or for life.
badger, I totally agree. In Canada, we are duals that err on the Canadian side not the American. When the Canadian govt and the leaders of our political parties start spewing the same nonsense about the American trumping the Canadian, we’re in trouble.
And I find it frustrating that people assume that the Charter only protects citizens. It protects legal residents too.
Canada-US relations to be discussed in twin-city Sault Ste Marie, Ont Fri Oct 4th.
http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/details.asp?c=62305
Re:above post, I was pleased to see the anti-FATCA comment to the news article.
I know I am not the only Brocker with a ‘Soo’ connection, and it was good to see that we have many Canadians with a ‘US connection’ in the Soo who are paying attention!