64 thoughts on “Canadian FATCA Fact Sheet”

1. @WhiteKat…

   Re: Is this a ‘fear’ sheet or a ‘fact’ sheet? You don’t We don’t want to be accused of making up things and giving Stack O’ Lies more fuel for debunking us as myths

   I appreciate your concerns and take your point, but these guys, the FATCAnatics, are NOT playing a fair game. Everything the IRS does, is to trigger the FEAR button. Also remember you are being accused of illicit activity and you are all Tax Cheats that have to come clean! Just remember the street fight you are in, and the other guy plays dirty, so taking a high road gets you nothing other than mugged.

   You have to consider that in this case FATCA FACTS will elicit FEAR without needing additional hyperbole to make the point…

   You could say, current FATCA regs require accounts being closed for those who refuse to allow their information to be sent by their bank to the IRS. It is not a myth, it is not hyperbole, it is factual, and if it elicits Fear, well, maybe it should. That is my only point.

   Again, just my opinion, and I want your FACT sheet to have as much impact as possible, but do agree, that it is easy to take the hard work you have done, and modify slightly for each persons use depending on the amount of fear one wants to trigger. Maybe that is the best way to leave it that way.

   So you don’t need to include it, no big deal, and if other wish to, they can.

   Currently it is a FATCA FACT, and with your government negotiating with the FATCAnatics in secret with no one knowing what is happening except maybe CBA, then you just go with the published information you have in the 544 pages of regulations and 36 pages of amendments that are in the Federal Register.

   However, and conceding your point, if they follow the current UK IGA, then I do agree, it is possible that there will be a Suspension of account closure rules relating to recalcitrant Accounts as spelled out in the original Statues and rules. However, the reporting will still be required, if I read the UK agreement correctly.

   According to Article 4 (2) the closing and withholding rules are suspended, but only

   , if the U.S. Competent Authority receives the information set forth in subparagraph 2(a) of Article 2, subject to the provisions of Article 3, with respect to such account.

   Article 2 (a) says….

   a) In the case of the United Kingdom with respect to each U.S. Reportable Account of each Reporting United Kingdom Financial Institution:

   (1) the name, address, and U.S. TIN of each Specified U.S. Person that is an Account Holder of such account and, in the case of a Non-U.S. Entity that, after application of the due diligence procedures set forth in Annex I, is identified as having one or more Controlling Persons that is a Specified U.S. Person, the name, address, and U.S. TIN (if any) of such entity and each such Specified U.S. Person;

   (2) the account number (or functional equivalent in the absence of an account number);

   (3) the name and identifying number of the Reporting United Kingdom Financial Institution;

   (4) the account balance or value (including, in the case of a Cash Value Insurance Contract or Annuity Contract, the Cash Value or surrender value) as of the end of the relevant calendar year or other appropriate reporting period or, if the account was closed during such year, immediately before closure;

   Article 3 address the phasing in of what is reported to the U.S. in years 2014, 2015, 2016.

   So, the U.S. Person in Canada would NOT get around the reporting, even if by self selection they closed their account accordingly. It would still could get reported unless it was done before the IGA went into effect.

   So, effectively, the ‘self selection’ route is the same result as having your account closed. And, if you if you close it after the IGA is in effect, you are going to get reported anyway, and you have little choice in the matter.

   Now, that is the UK agreement, and we don’t know what the CA agreement would look like, but either way, if the idea that either “forceably” closed, or “self selected” closed triggers the “rotten bastards” response, then so be it.

   Keep up the good work!

2. @Em…. so now I had an edit Oops moment. I should have ended the “quotes” after…

   if the account was closed during such year, immediately before closure;

   For the umpteenth time, it would be very nice to have the comment edit function added back to Isaac Brock like it had originally. 🙂

   And, remember, printer settings and differences can also change how a document presents to you versus someone else opening it. We each just have to tweak to make it work with what we have.

3. @Just Me,

   I added the point about account closure but referred to it as ‘possible’ so as to scare, but not confuse fact with fiction since we do not know for sure what will be in the IGA yet.

4. Nicely done, WhiteKat.

5. @ All, I believe everyone’s changes (just me, em, bubblebustin, atticus) have been incorporated into the Word and PDF versions posted here. If I have missed anything let me know.

6. @All, please note that if you printed off any versions prior to this post you may have noticed some discrepancies in the shading of words in black. I did not notice this in the word version when viewing it online, but it became very apparent when I created the pdf version. Time for new glasses I think. Anyway the colours are uniform now in both versions.

7. All’s happy here … except we’ve got 4 inches of snow to shovel and it isn’t near to stopping yet. 🙂

8. @Calgary, not trying to be nitpicky, but visually it looks better I think, if you have the red parts not spread out over two lines. Notice that in the versions I posted they do not span lines.

   Also the two red lines under ‘Why should I care’ are aligned exactly over each other. Once you change the fonts, this is lost, so maybe you might want to try to line them up in your versions for more visual appeal. I only say this because my husband does ‘visual management’ at work and this is what he suggested.

9. Thanks, WhiteKat. I will have a look at that before I print lots of copies for hand-outs!

10. @Calgary411,

    Re: the line, ‘Who are US persons’, my version says ‘Who are US persons living in Canada’. I added the ‘living in Canada’ because often when people hear this issue is about ‘Americans’ they close off and don’t care. I was trying to emphasize that these are people who live in Canada, not people living in the US or elsewhere in the world, so that they would want to read more.

    I noticed you dropped all the underlined points, which are points that I thought needed to visually jump out at people (again hubby suggested this as a way to focus people’s eyes into the key points. There is A LOT of information on this one page document, so having a way to draw people in to first notice the stronger points, engages them so that they actually might want to read the whole document. Someone, I think Em, said she doesn’t like underlining. Perhaps there is another way to draw attention to these points. For example, the list of Who are US persons, is long and wordy, highlighting (via underlining, different colour, whatever) makes the key attributes of a US person jump out right away:
    born in USA
    hold a green card
    regularly visit the USA
    American parents
    naturalized American citizen

11. @calgary,

    Under I’m not a US person, the last line has only one word on it. You can eliminate this line If you change the wording as in my version from
    “…subject to FATCA reporting. If you refuse to allow reporting, your account could be closed”
    to
    “…subject to FATCA reporting and may result in closure of your account'”

    Under ” I don’t have any US connections…”, if you want to eliminate the last line and keep all the red on one line, check out the wording I used. I had something similar to what you had originally, and dropped “Canadian” from “Canadian bank customers”, and changed “It is” to “it’s” to fit it all on one line. This also made the whole document smaller.

    Both these changes will give you two more white lines to distribute wherever you see fit in the document to make things more appealing. I put my extra lines at the top of the page, and before ‘FATCA can be stopped” Contact your MP….” at the bottom so that that message stood out.

    Hope this helps.

12. Just Me wrote:
    “And, remember, printer settings and differences can also change how a document presents to you versus someone else opening it. We each just have to tweak to make it work with what we have.”

    That’s right. Part of my problem was that our computer, despite having a huge list of available fonts, is missing 3 that WhiteKat used. Calgary411 will be able to tweak it to suit I’m sure. It’s easy to read and that’s the main thing. People don’t want to be presented with complexity when they are just becoming aware of an issue. Anyway, I’ve got bigger things to sweat out right now — like a ton of snow!

13. Em, WhiteKat, Just Me,

    Thanks to all of you, I have my version. I’ve got the snow to cope with too — just walked to dog and took my turn at shovelling. It has almost stopped now, so that’s good. Weather should improve, though may be damp on Thursday — but, here the forecast changes from one day to another. I may be able to drive to get poster supplies this afternoon or tomorrow morning and put together my FATCA sign and I now have the two documents I will print and then make many copies of for hand-outs.

    My main wish is for more than a one-person “demonstration” in Calgary.

14. A fellow Brocker (whose real name I know, yet I cannot remember his Brocker name :)) emailed me to suggest emphasizing those accidentals who were BORN OUTSIDE USA to one or more American parents, yet NEVER LIVED IN USA. I thought that was a great idea, so I made the following change under ” FATCA considers you a ‘U.S. person’ if you:?”

    “were born outside U.S.A. to one or more American parents!”

    is changed to:

    ” were born outside U.S.A. to one or more American parents, even if you never lived there!

    @Calgary and Em, please keep the snow where you guys are!! It has been all around Ottawa, but so far we have not had any here. It sure is cold outside though!