Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 39 Comments

Cross-post from Blaze at Maple Sandbox:

Another significant submission for our side. After I sent him our news release about retaining Joe Arvay, privacy lawyer Michael Power (who was a law school classmate of Elizabeth May) forwarded me a link to an announcement and submission to Finance Canada from the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association on FATCA.

I just posted it at Sandbox and tweeted it.

http://maplesandbox.ca/2014/b-c-freedom-of-information-and-privacy-association-speaks-out-against-fatca-iga/

It’s strongly against the IGA.

Now, I want to know why Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has been quiet since the IGA was announced. I have e-mailed a contact there three times and my messages have been ignored.

Please feel free to cross post at Brock.

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“We oppose (the FATCA IGA) on a number of grounds, but we will restrict our comments to the large scale infringement of privacy rights.”

That is the beginning of a four page Submission by the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association to Finance Canada.

They challenge several aspects of the IGA as well as challenge the authority of the federal government to regulate credit unions.

They also state clearly their agreement with Peter Hogg.

BCFIPA Concludes:

There are considerable difficulties involved in any attempt to implement a FATCA IGA in this country and those will almost certainly result in extensive litigation and damage to people and institutions which are in no way connected to tax evasion in this country or in the United States.

Therefore, we urge you not to proceed with this wholesale infringement of the constitutionally guaranteed privacy rights of Canadians.

Thanks to privacy lawyer Michael Power who e-mailed me the BCFIPA Announcement with the link to the actual submission.

Thanks to Maple Sandbox and privacy lawyer, Michael Power, for the sharing of this submission!

39 thoughts on “B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association Speaks Out Against FATCA IGA”

  1. I have news for you. I just opened a savings account at Alterna credit union and the manager asked me point blank where I was born…on the form there is a field for Country of citizenship(s) and Residence Status. also
    Foreign Taxation (List all countries to which taxes accrue and are payable)

    They are getting ready for FATCA!!!
    Imposed or not. If this is not privacy intrusive what is…makes me fill sick.

  2. @Premierjuillet re;
    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/03/14/b-c-freedom-of-information-and-privacy-association-speaks-out-against-fatca-iga/comment-page-2/#comment-1232449 “I just opened a savings account at Alterna credit union and the manager asked me point blank where I was born…on the form there is a field for Country of citizenship(s) and Residence Status. also
    Foreign Taxation (List all countries to which taxes accrue and are payable)”

    That is disgusting – the enabling legislation hasn’t even been passed yet.

    The Alterna AGM is coming up https://www.alterna.ca/AboutUs/Governance/AnnualGeneralMeeting/ElectionDetails/ . Maybe this is an avenue for complaining about jumping the gun re FATCA? Are they opening themselves up to liability re national origin discrimination under the Charter and Constitution if they demand birthplace? And since when does one have to list potential tax obligations when opening up an account? That doesn’t even make sense to me as one could open the account and only later incur a tax obligation – ex. with snowbirds who stay too long or those who rent US properties out and incur a US tax bill.

    There are other credit unions – maybe another one in the GTA https://www.creditunionsofontario.com/list would serve as an alternative to Alterna. They may not all have the same policies and procedures for opening new accounts prior to July 1st – the effective date of the FATCA IGA if enabled by legislation in Canada.

  3. I remember when I opened up 3 new accounts at a major bank about a year ago I was nervous because this particular bank had a blurb about FATCA on their site earlier which had been removed by the time I opened the accounts.

    I opened 1 personal account and two business accounts of which 1 was in Canadian funds and 1 was in US funds. This particular branch seemed to have a habit of looking up your butt about everything when you opened a new account. We had to be interviewed by 2 different managers taking over an hour, small towns they’ve got nothing but time. They even did a credit check on me which I thought was bizarre, they later said it was because they wanted to give me a line of credit on my Canadian business account. I thought that was odd, I didn’t ask for a line of credit.

    My husband, the accidental American, is not an owner on my business accounts but I did sign a form giving him power of attorney so he could do the bookkeeping and write checks on my accounts. Even though they took forever to open the accounts, there wasn’t even a hint about FATCA in anything they asked. They were just a little too friendly and chatty.

  4. Okay, then from now on I will be recording my interactions at the bank. I will tell them of course I need to do this to have my information clear. FATCA is not implemented here yet and if they are asking you where you were born? I don’t see how they can get away with that.

    AND frankly, I will have a CLN..it’s irrelevant where I was born. If I am asked I will respond with a question? Who wants to know and for what purposes? The question if any should be “Do you have a tax obligation to any other country?” NOT “where were you born.” I will refuse to answer such a question. They will have a copy of my CLN. I”m not going to have services altered or denied to me because of my birthplace and if I do then the next stop will be to my local newspaper and further then to the wider media outlets.

  5. @Premierjuillet

    I just looked at Alterna, they are not a run of the mill credit union.

    They own a bank as a subsidiary and they are into providing investment products.

    I am not saying this is the reason but it may be a reason.

  6. Thanks George for pointing that out. I see this: “…Both CS CO-OP and Metro CU were active participants in the negotiations of 12 credit unions across the country for a national co-operative bank in 1998. Though these negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful, they opened a door for CS CO-OP, under the leadership of Gary Seveny, to secure a bank charter for its subsidiary CS Alterna Bank (‘Alterna Bank’). The new bank was launched in October 2000 to offer service across Canada.”

    Perhaps that is a vulnerability – the bank charter and subsidiary? If that makes a difference to how it has decided to treat current and wouldbe members and depositors, and if that is more intrusive to the procedures of smaller credit unions or those without the bank subsidiary and Quebec operation, then maybe it will lose accountholders (even those who are now no longer US persons).

    If that is so, then perhaps Alterna has a choice to make. Stand up and make a clear anti-FATCA statement as VanCity did, and serve well those in its local community – as Alterna did as a different entity up until October 2000, or lose new potential accountholders and then later, its current ones with a US birthplace or deemed by the US to be ‘taxable persons’. It will certainly anger many current members if it starts demanding what @Premierjuillet reported.

    I don’t see any information on FATCA that is obvious on the Alterna site. No information from Alterna re FATCA has gone out to members – either once FATCA really became an issue under negotiation or now after the IGA was signed.

  10. @badger
    Thanks so much for that… I guess I should be reading the member mail from VanCity instead of tossing it. I’ve been a member there for probably 30 years and they’ve been great.

    On another note, do you think the Bank of Canada, who I believe issues Canada Savings Bonds and Canada Premium Bonds, is required under FATCA to report suspected US persons assets: i.e. persons who have bought CSB’s and CPB’s? Just thinking forward to October .

    H.

  11. @hieronymus,
    Very good question re the Bank of Canada and Canadian Savings Bonds. I had always purchased them through my CU or bank, although it can be done via an automatic regular workplace payroll deduction sometimes too. I see the government has changed some details since 2010. And I see they can be bought directly http://www.csb.gc.ca/canada-savings-bonds-program/how-to-buy/ . My first thought is that if you had a pre-existing acct somewhere, and purchased the CSBs, all they’d need was your SIN#. The CSBs can be bought in smaller amounts – so one can cash them in as needed. Of course, once cashed in, where does the money go to – a chequing or savings acct, or cash in hand? There is more information here, but I did not look through each PDF http://www.csb.gc.ca/resources/forms/ . Looks as if the presumption is that they will be bought primarily by residents of Canada.

    Does the FATCA IGA deem the Bank of Canada compliant or exempt as a “NON-U.S. central bank of issue…” ?

  14. @John

    I guess you can pretty much judge how a country might treat other countries by how they treat their own citizens. US citizens living abroad are being treated like garbage by the US government. For a country that invented the phrase “blowback”, they sure don’t know how it works.

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