This is the way I see the immediate future.
1. Continue our lobbying and support for the Charter Challenge;
2. Get our personal situations in order regarding the $50,000 thresholds and plans to cross or not cross the border — many solutions are possible;
3. Clarifying the Credit Union story [if they are indeed excluded because of the 2% rule this is a great chance to move the equity agenda forward and nail the banks]; and
4. Sit back and wait to see the storm that arises when 1,000,000 Canadian citizens — most of which are still probably oblivious to all this — are thrown under the bus.
Excellent comments above!!! Thank you all.
@Animal
I hear you. Hey I’m not being “sympathetic” to American folly. Any sympathy is grown cold with anger at the impact this has on my fellow Canadians.
I feel like we’re in a boat – in fog and storm of unknown duration.
It’s time to be tactical. You don’t get “angry” with foul weather; you cope with it; outlast it; outsmart it. Be smart, take it one step at time – and don’t jump overboard. Bad weather sometimes looks worse than it really is.
Tactical is supporting the Charter Challenge to your individual financial means – and getting others on-side for the next steps. The Conservatives are useless on this issue.
Only the Opposition parties and the Judiciary can help now.
Tactical is lobbying opposition politicians constantly. But don’t just complain. Paint this as a BIG opportunity to strike out the Torys. Pledge your support. Convince them there is big group of voters poised to get behind political opposition to FATCA. Never again vote Conservative – and if yr MP is Conservative, express your contempt.
Join one – or a few – Credit Unions. Avoid the big banks – consider of them essentially US banks anyway, that’s where their priorities are anyway.
If you live in Canada, become a Canadian citizen ASAP.
Don’t confess anything someone has not even accused you of. Don’t willingly provide information. Respond to threats when they are a clear and present danger. Foreign states cannot collect taxes in Canada, and the Government has made it very clear they will not assist the US in collecting taxes from Canadian citizens. If you’ve ever owed money to cable company or car loan, you know what a collection attempt feels like. Has a foreign government actually tried to collect from you in terms of personal and direct communication – like a phone call? Conduct yourself accordingly. As Churchill said: “Danger – if you meet it promptly and without flinching – you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away.”
@ Publius
Massive debt related to private equity buyouts could be a catalyst for a financial crisis similar to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. Check out excellent book: “Buyout of America: How Private Equity Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy” by Josh Kosman
http://www.joshkosman.com/
@YogaGirl
Under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, certain German citizens had their economic and equality rights reduced, based upon their ancestry. Following the 1935 Nuremberg laws that stripped Jews of German citizenship rights, one coveted document was a “certificate of non-Jewish nationality” that could be obtained through a bureaucratic “reclassification procedure” to “certify” non-Jewishness according to the pseudo-scientific racist criteria the Nuremberg laws used to define who was Jewish. Essentially, this was a certificate of non-Jewish nationality.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nurlaws.html
See the “Reclassification procedure” here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischling#Reclassification_procedure
Also suggest reading: “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” by Erik Larson
Bottom line: FATCA is FOLLY.
Barbara Tuchman defines government folly as:
“The pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved.”
The criteria of folly include:
. . . it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely in hindsight.
. . . a feasible alternative course of action must have been available.
. . . the policy in question is that of a group, not an individual ruler, and persists beyond ‘any one political lifetime.’
Sound familiar?
Thanks all for great comments. I would like to add my ‘two cents’ in terms of how I see the US Treasury/IRS proceeding, given the resources they have and the objectives once FATCA is in full force and reporting has begun. US government priorities in terms of enforcement –
1. US Persons living in the US with undislclosed overseas accounts
2. US Persons living outside the US with assets in the US with undisclosed accounts. US assets are reachable.
3. US Persons living outside the US with no assets in the US with undisclosed accounts. Definitely a third priority but everyone who is identified as having an undisclosed account will likely get letters from the IRS to try to smoke out admissions and extort payments (back taxes and fines).
Trust me, Wondering, I hear what you’re saying. Unfortunately the news of the omnibus bill just put me over the edge.
I just want to PUNCH SOMETHING!!!
@Steve Klaus
“No such person. Return to sender”.
uh meanwhile get REAL money that has stood the test of time: 25% of your liquid assets should be in:
@Joe Smith,
Of course, you’ve just outed yourself (albeit with an anonymous alias) as being a wild turkey. Ostriches don’t think they have a problem, while many of those in compliance(is there a bird for them?), empathize with us, oftentimes to the detriment of their own health and well being.
So, if the IRS discovers a US person in Canada, what will they actually do? Can the IRS or CRA confiscate your money from your accounts? What if I choose to never set foot in the US again? I was born here so I have had Canadian citizenship from birth (unfortunately also US, inherited from my parents)
@manalive,
They can send you a nasty penalty bill in the mail for willful non reporting of FBARS which could cause you a lot of emotional angst, and greatly restrict your ability to travel in the USA, but otherwise, I doubt they can do much.
Can we please trade the pages in our passports that shows where we were born?
@ WhiteKat,
Thanks for your comments. I have no need to ever travel to the US again so I’m not worried about border guards. I am just worried about whether or not they can seize money out of my accounts.
Who wants to go to a country that doesn’t even look after their veterans who are committing suicide to the tune of 22 of them every day? Anyone here imagine they care about us? Let’s cut to the chase. The American Government is the enemy of the United States….NOT Russia or Iran or Afghanistan or Cuba.
http://www.newsforage.com/2014/03/1892-us-veterans-have-committed-suicide.html
If only 22 banksters would kill themselves every day what a wonderful world this would be.
“I am just worried about whether or not they can seize money out of my accounts.”
No they cannot. But they can mail you constant threats. The threat of closing accounts in Canada is a bluff to scare people. Better off in a credit union as even though they are supposed to comply most won’t bother except a few losers like the Salmon Arm manager who has salmon eggs for testicles. Ooops there goes my eloquence again.
You still have bank accounts with the transnationals? If you do then you deserve to lose it to those thieves.
I closed my last transnational bank account yesterday. Got gold? Put it in the ground somewhere but make sure the rats can’t get it
I don’t believe that I am being slowly conditioned so that one day I will meekly board a cattle car for a FEMA camp south of the border. I am not going to have to hide my child under the neighbors floorboards and we aren’t going to be made to wear American flag emblems on our sleeves and our kids sent to “special USG only” schools. Probably won’t be herding us into ghettos either.
The actual holocaust was a whole helluva lot worse than what is happening to most of us. There are some who are truly trapped in USC, like Calgary or Animal’s children, but the rest of us simply have choices to make and details to work out.
All I was saying, and perhaps you should read with comprehension this time, was that this is an open forum and those giving advice about banking and other financial issues should be very precise with their language so that anyone reading – who is looking to cause trouble – won’t be able to.
I understand that people are angry but not everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi.
“salmon eggs for testes”… LMAO. 🙂 Great one, Chears. Needed that laugh today. You are absolutely eloquent with words.
Yogagirl. All I want to do is to be able to protect my wife so that she can be Canadian and thus the two of us will henceforth be able to tell the US where the IRS can stick their FATCA. My kids will be treated as if they were Canadian by birth and told to only acknowledge their Canadian-ness.
@manalive – The reality I believe is that in Cananda the most that can happen to a dual Canaidan/US Person with no assets in the US is that (i) information from the banks will be shared under the IGA with the IRS, and (ii) the IRS can/will send such person correspondence (which can be ignored) demanding some response, some payment/some fine. This could present issues later if you enter the US (even today, if there is a tax lien issued by the IRS a person will be flagged at the border and questioned as to what assets that person has in the USA).
Tactics:
– Persons born in Canada who have parents born in the US can get (in Ontario at least) a SHORT FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE. This is handy pocked size cert that DOES NOT list parents’ place of birth or citizenship. Can be used for almost all legal ID purpose such as opening a bank account, school attendance, etc. You can possess both a long and short form birth cert. In Ontario order online from Service Ontario.
http://www.ontario.ca/government/short-form-or-long-form-birth-certificate-needed-passport-application
– Want robust Federal Government ID that does not indicate place of birth? Get a “Possession and Acquisition Licence Under the Firearms Act (For Individuals Aged 18 and Over).” Issued by RCMP. You have to take a course and fill out a very detailed application that is vetted by the RCMP. The ID card does not list place of birth.
– Becoming a Canadian citizen? Apply NOW – there is an almost 2 year wait. Your local Member of Parliament is typically a good source of expertise on this – MP constituency offices typically spend a lot of time on citizenship matters and staff can be helpful.
@Whitecat Compliant people would have to be owls, birds known for being smart. There are just so many ways to not be compliant. This year I used a professional preparer since I knew a) I would owe taxes and b) should itemize rather than using 2555EZ. Even with a CPA, getting things right has been incredibly difficult. Why doesn’t the IRS publish a chart for the calculation of PFIC fines?
@yogagirl
Good points. Is maybe what is needed citizenship reform? The whole purpose of giving citizenship automatically to the children of U.S. citizens born overseas was to prevent them from ending up as stateless children, which is a horrible situation. If there was some provision for the guardians of the disabled to make a decision for them, this might help those who really are trapped.
Yoga Girl,
I hear you on this.
@Steve Klaus
I agree. The IRS is understaffed and underfunded. Collection efforts will be automated and I can see a form letter that’s both inquisitive and demanding designed to ‘shake the trees’ being sent out to suspected USP’s.
@YogaGirl, re: “There are some who are truly trapped in USC, like Calgary or Animal’s children, but the rest of us simply have choices to make and details to work out. ”
Sorry, but wow, that seems like an understatement to me; something like we would hear from Brian Mahany and other compliance condors.
I, like many others, will never be the same after FATCA! The ground will never feel safe beneath my feet, and I have little hope for the world in general, whereas I used to be cautiously optimistic. Having said that I can never give up fighting for what I think is right.
The choices I have made and continue to make surrounding FATCA and CBT have been anything but simple. I now realize that I no longer have the choice to go down the compliance road (based on difficult choices I’ve made, and details I’ve worked out), and what is most scary, is that I have no control over how the USA may make me regret these choices down the road.
No Yogagirl, for many of us, FATCA is not simply about making some choices and working out some details.
The CHOICES should be for those who were actually born in the US as they made their choices to pull up stakes and continue their lives in other countries. Those like me — I chose to come to Canada; I chose to become a Canadian citizen and part of Canadian society, with all of its rights and responsibilities.
As far as I’m concerned, for every “Accidental American”, either born in the USofA and then returned to their parents’ country or born in another country to US parent(s), it is all MOST UNFAIR. Why should any of these persons who had no choice in where they were born or to whom they were born be captured into US citizenship, ESPECIALLY with its US citizenship-based taxation law?
That is the worst part of this whole thing for me, to have brought this onto my children who were born in Canada. One is now FREE, the other entrapped unless some government leaders, somewhere get and use some common sense. If not, to me, it is all about punitive measures to the parents of these children and to these children themselves.
I believe this is not just our fight here in Canada. I think about the people living in other parts of the world that have had their accounts frozen or refused access to banking because of their birth place. So far this hasn’t happened in Canada but who is to say it won’t happen in the future. This is a global fight against our Charter and privacy rights worldwide. Putin has dug in his heels to thwart the bully behavior of the US and we need to do so as well as world citizens. How do we make this viral?
Ann,
You are absolutely right in saying that this is not just our fight here in Canada. Although the Isaac Brock Society was conceived in Canada by a group of Canadians, it is for ‘US Persons’ around the world.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2011/12/14/about-the-isaac-brock-society/ ends with:
I have sent an email to everyone on my email address list with a copy of the Issac Brock Society tag together with a note to suggest they read some of it and pass on our website to anyone who is living abroad that this law would affect. I have included Canadians, Americans and anyone I am in contact with over the web. At least 150 went out from me today. It’s a small drop in the bucket but if we continue to advise our friends, family, businesses etc, this may break the silence. Just a thought. I like the newspaper idea too.
@Anne Frank
You wrote:
“I think some on this Board may be losing a bit of perspective. If you are Canadian who does not accept the existence of any US obligations, it is very likely nothing is going to change for you in fact. You might have to shuffle an account or two to reduce risk, but if you can assert relinquishment (with or without a CLN which has never been mandatory), there is every likelihood the status quo will be preserved. The US laws and their implicit threat are ridiculous and everything else we could care to mention, but they have been around a while and will likely be around a while longer.”
I think you may have some difficulty explaining that to Americans in Switzerland (those that are still left) who are currently on the front line of the US Blitzrieg. They’ve been thrown not only under the bus, but into the meat grinder as well.