Copious thanks to Jim Jatras for calling the following to our attention.
The government of Russia, and more specifically the Foreign Minister (and not, please note, their Finance Minister), has weighed into the FATCA discussion with this very forthright statement that any agreement between the US and Russia on FATCA must be fully reciprocal and must respect Russian sovereignty and must not impose foreign extraterritorial legislation on the actions of Russian institutions.
Here is the article from Russia Beyond the Headlines:
Moscow wants tax information exchanges with U.S. to be mutual, balanced
I urge everyone to write Flaherty, Harper and your members of Parliament along the following lines (please use your own words or modify mine, I don’t want this to become boilerplate text). I sent this to Flaherty with copies to Rankin, Brison, May and my MP Paul Dewar (also Foreign Affairs critic). Others might wish to send this as well to Harper (who’ll just bounce it to Flaherty if his office replies at all) and to Baird (who has never even acknowledged anything I’ve sent him, nor has his ministerial correspondence unit).
“Please note in the following news item today, that Russia has made it very clear that any agreement between the US and Russia over FATCA must be fully reciprocal and must respect Russian sovereignty. The statement also mentions that FATCA as currently formulated is an extraterritorial violation of the sovereign equality of other countries.
“It would be utterly unacceptable for Canada to accept or insist on less than what Russia does, in any agreement with the US over FATCA. As it is highly unlikely the US can respect or even get full reciprocity, which would require US Senate approval not yet forthcoming in even one IGA the US has signed, I think the most rational approach for Canada to take is to walk away from negotiations with the US over this, to insist on Canadian financial institutional compliance with current Canadian law and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and to contemplate protections or retaliatory sanctions against the US should it ever actually enforce the threatened sanctions against Canadian financial institutions that have branches in the US.
“Canada’s sovereignty is no less important than Russia’s, and I expect that my government will stand up for Canadians as forthrightly as the Russian government does for its own citizens and sovereignty. It would be a very sad, pathetic commentary on any Canadian government that would not do so.”
CNBC Africa covers the FATCA “machine”:
“Our topic of the week focuses on the proposed foreign account tax compliance ACT or FATCA which will come into being on the 30th June 2014. The legislation brought on by the US government’s Internal Revenue Service will force other countries to report on US citizen’s assets that are held outside of the borders of the US. Although this has a direct impact on US citizens, what impact does this hold for residents of other countries? Joining ABN’s Samantha Loring to give clarity to Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is Anthony Markham, founding partner at Maitland and as per usual at the desk Our 2 strategists Cobie Legrange, Strategist at ClucasGray Investment Managers and & Roland Rousseau, Equity Strategist at ABSA Capital.”
South African banks told their government that they needed their help to comply.
Also discusses FATCA’s mini-me, the G5 Pilot.
Worth listening to just to hear his views concerning privacy and constitutional rights.
http://www.cnbcafrica.com/video/?ytid=XCN3LLf0J48
oops, meant to put that on the FATCA thread…
From article:
Sad world we live in when Russia is the beacon of common sense.
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