19 thoughts on “March 10, 2014, closing date for Your, My, Our opportunity to voice concerns / propose changes for the ‘signed’ IGA between Canada and the USA, to enforce US citizenship-based taxation law”

1. Thank you for the reminder, Calgary411.

2. Here’s my contribution:

   Minister of Finance,

   The IGA reached for implementation of the US FATCA rules in Canada is a disappointment to me, and thousands of other Canadians like me.

   I am a Canadian, born in the USA. I have resided in Canada without interruption since the age of 1. I have been a naturalized Canadian citizen since 1991. And yet because of my place of birth, the USA considers me a delinquent taxpayer: I have no SSN, I have never filed a tax return with the IRS, I have broken their laws.

   I would have hoped that, in return for the extraordinary benefit of applying US laws within Canadian territory under the IGA, Canada would at least have been able to extract some benefit for the thousands of Canadians that are subject to prosecution as “US persons” under US tax laws. Despite living a life as an ordinary Canadian, growing up, going to school, getting a job, paying my taxes to Canada every year, I am and remain a tax criminal: subject to the thread of life-altering penalties and potentially jail.

   We are doing the US a huge favour by enforcing their laws on our territory. They should do us a huge favour in return, and provide a real path for dual citizens to leave the US tax regime without threat of penalty. The current system requires that I file, at great personal expense, five years of tax returns, and three years of reporting on all my financial holdings, and then HOPE that an IRS examiner approves it all WITHOUT deciding to apply the penalties and legal sanction THAT ARE THEIR RIGHT UNDER THEIR LAW.

   Would you willingly enter such a fraught process, at your own expense, not knowing what the outcome might be? Is so, you are a braver man than I.

   My country should be working 24/7 to negotiate a clear path to freedom from IRS threat for me and the thousands of other Canadians like me. I’m disappointed that this IGA gives away so much, for so little.

3. Thanks Carol for your determination to correct this grievous wrong. I will ensure to send off my comments prior to March 10.

4. Go, Tango girl. Go. Get a submission in because as “Hail Mary” as all this may seem to us, it is still a chance to try to pound some sense into someone somewhere. We might have missed this Fin. Can. “invitation” to comment, buried as it was in their website, buried as it was in the Olympic distraction, if it hadn’t been for Allison Christians’ sharp eyes and the alert she posted on her tax blog.

   @ PYYJ
   Now THAT was a very gutsy submission and I really believe it will be words like yours which will imprint most at Fin. Can. Good work!

5. @PYYJ
   I agree with you.
   The end could be as….
   I AM DISSAPOINTED that this IGA GIVES AWAY ALL OUR LIVES, ALL OUR WORK, ALL OUR EFFORTS OF YEARS OF CONTINUOUS WORK, AND SAVINGS FOR NOTHING IN RETURN BUT TO BE PROSECUTED, REMOVED FROM OUR BANKS,TAKE YOU TO THE STREET PRACTICALLY, AND BE SUBJECTED TO DEVASTATING PENALTIES AND EVEN JAIL. WHY? FOR BEING HONEST, HARD WORKER, FOR SAVING YOUR MONEY, FOR WANTING A BETTER AND DESCENT LIFE, A PLACE TO LIVE AND FEED YOUR FAMILY, FOR PAYING YOUR TAXES IN YOUR COUNTRY OF RESIDENCY -CANADA . That’s what FATCA is. So wrong called “legal law”.

6. Oh, goody, more fodder for Kevin Shoom’s bottomless circular filing cabinet. It must be important, so I’m sure he’ll ignore it immediately.

7. In addition to the list of politicians on Calgary411’s submission, suggest for FATCA IGA comments submission also copy to: LIberal MP Irwin Cotler, who apparently has an interest in the FATCA file.

   The Hon. Irwin Cotler is a Professor of Law and leading legal expert who was Attorney General and Minister of Justice in the Paul Martin Govt. He is a leading expert in human rights law.

   Political Affiliation:Liberal Caucus
   Constituency:Mount Royal
   Province / Territory:Québec
   Email:irwin.cotler@parl.gc.ca
   Web Site:irwincotler.liberal.ca
   Preferred Language:English

8. In addition to Irwin Cotler, Ted Hsu is also deeply involved in this.

   Murray Rankin is the lead on FATCA for the NDP, so it would be worth sending them copies of your submissions.

9. Thanks, Wondering. You’re right; I should have cc’d mine to Irwin Cotler as well — and I’ll forward it on to him.

10. I’ve forwarded to Irwin Cotler, Blaze. Murray Rankin and Ted Hsu were originally cc’d my submission. Thanks!

11. What is Abby Deshman’s e-mail address?

12. Abby Deshman = adeshman@ccla.org

13. Thanks calgary411. I’ll do some more forwarding too. (I’ve already done the opposition leaders.) I’ve never needed an MP before all this FATCA mess and now, drat it, mine has resigned so I’m currently unrepresented.

14. @Calgary, Thank you for the reminder, I haven’t started mine yet. I am thinking it will be a variation of email I sent to CARP recently. Hopefully, the Finance Department will be inundated by submissions. They can’t say we didn’t warn them over and over and over again. Dumb asses!

15. @PYYJ. This country has been taken over by Nazis. Don’t vote for anyone in my opinion. They don’t care. I went to the seminar today and interestingly the speaker likened our fearless leaders to Nazis as well. I’m not going to stop comparing Harper and Obama to Hitler, NO WAY will I stop. I call it as I see it.

    BTW Blaze…..where are the charter challenges? Do I have to name names of the wimpy constitutional lawyers who you think are going to launch a challenge? BLAH BLAH BLAH. In my opinion they are full of hot air and from what I see they stand for nothing and may in fact be as corruptible as any politician. Maybe they have learned to say mit deutschem Gruß Heil, mein Führer! as well? They have let us down. We have done nothing to deserve this Hitler style persecution. Yes apathetic Canadians have let their guard down. One consolation for me is at least these same so called constitutional lawyers will have to live in a fascist terrorist continent just like the rest of us because of their cowardice. SHAME!

    Did anyone see this movie on YouTube. I think it is great, I think it is true and I think the comparison to Nazis is 100% valid and I’m Jewish so I have the right to make this comparison. N America is the modern day Nazi controlled Europe. Who will rescue us? The Chinese I hope who are stepping closer and closer to war with the USA. I hope I live to see this.
    

16. Now here is a shoe for the other foot. Texas Senator Ted Cruz wants to run for President in 2016. Oops, he was born in Calgary to an American mother and a Cuban dad. “That doesn’t matter”, he says because his automatically American by his mother’s nationality. He has consulted lawyers to relinquish his Canadian citizenship. He didn’t know he was dual. Imagine that? Well now let’s see what happens with his run for top dog. He might even be Cuban for that matter.
    Just had to post!

17. @Ann

    One if our Brockers has covered Cruz’s Canadianness in a couple of published articles you might find interesting.

    http://www.opednews.com/populum/pagem.php?f=Cruzing-in-Reverse-by-Lynne-Swanson-Taxes-140108-477.html

    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/318061-nothing-against-the-united-states-until-now-

18. Here is our submission to Finance Canada (not that it will do any good):

    We are dismayed over the Government of Canada’s signing of the FATCA IGA with the United States. We simply cannot believe that Canada would sign an agreement with a foreign government to turn over the private financial information of a certain subset of its citizens and residents. It makes no difference that the information will be provided by the CRA instead of the financial institutions themselves – this agreement is a violation of the privacy and Charter rights of “US persons” residing in Canada and, thereby, creates a second, lower class of Canadian citizenship that discriminates on the basis of national origin.

    We strongly disagree with this statement from the FATCA FAQ posted on the CRA website:

    “Canada respects the sovereign right of the U.S. to use citizenship as a basis for taxation.”

    Does this mean that Canada also respects the sovereign right of Eritrea to use citizenship as a basis for taxation of its citizens residing in Canada? Did Canada respect the sovereign right of the US by returning its draft dodgers during the Vietnam War? Did Canada respect the sovereign right of the former USSR by returning defectors during the Cold War? The answer to these questions is most obviously a resounding “No!” So, why, in this case, is Canada allowing a foreign power to affect the lives of its former residents while they are on Canadian soil? I think it is clear to anyone who has followed this story that the answer is simply money. The Canadian government has sold out the rights of a subset of its citizens and residents in the name of money. This act greatly diminishes Canada as a free nation that respects human rights and the rule of law. Immigrants and refugees to Canada have always expected and enjoyed protection by the Government of Canada from abuse by their former countries of citizenship. This recent action clearly signals that Canada no longer guarantees this protection and that immigrants and refugees may one day be at the mercy of their former governments. Remember that all immigrants to Canada are legally entitled to these protections, whether they come to this land from a third-world dictatorship or the United States of America.

    Our tax obligations to the US are solely our concern and not Canada’s business in any way. For Canada to become involved as a middleman in this issue is wrong and should not be happening.

    When legal challenges to the IGA-enabling legislation wind their way to the Supreme Court of Canada, they will most surely be victorious. At that point, Canada must admit that its obligations to its own people will supersede any attempted obligation from a foreign power, and the US FATCA requirements must be thoroughly rejected, as they should be now.

19. @ RefugeeFromAmerica
    I don’t remember seeing a comment from you before but thank you for sending that submission to Fin. Can. I’m not American or a “refugee” here but the Canadian government has made me feel like an alien in my own country because of a long-past and tenuous (to me at least) tie to the USA. So in one fell IGA signing swoop Canada has made Americans (dual citizens too) here into rejected refugees and some Canadians, like me, into aliens in their homeland. In fact, I said something to that effect in my submission. No doubt, thanks to this IGA, we will all live with varying degrees of uncertainty because there is quite a bit of ambiguity written into that “negotiated” agreement. Two years ago Flaherty was using the words of a rational and courageous man and now he has regressed into using the all too familiar weasel words which seem to be the wordage hole of choice for all politicians.