I am calling on Stephen Harper to resign. He is no longer fit to lead Canada, for he is planning to enact a law which will result in the extraordinary rendition of the private account information of Canadian citizens to the IRS in Washington DC. Canada is not a tax haven. FATCA is not the answer.
How to attack CBT? Each country adopts Reciprocal Based Taxation. As an example, as long as the US taxes Canadians (Duals) in Canada, then Canada will tax Americans (Duals) in America.
Net effect because there are likely more immigrants to the US than from the US, it will erode the US tax base. Thats the only way I can see attention brought to the matter.
@George, then Canada will tax Americans (Duals) in America.
This will solve nothing and create a surge in immigrants to the US renouncing their original citizenship.
The US will act like every other country in the world and say that it’s the individual’s problem.
I disagree with the erosion of US tax base argument. This will erode nothing, as long dual individuals pay taxes in the US, and other countries don’t bankrupt those citizen with unreasonable fines associated with failure to file.
The NDP get this and are on the attack. They’re defending Canadians and Canadian privacy. All of us, wherever we were born.
The Tory government said “how high sir?” when the US said “jump.” Their MPs say “suck it up or renounce USC” if you don’t like it.
With the sole exceptions AFAIK of Scott Brison and Ted Hsu, the Liberals are sucking on their thumbs or doing whatever else they do, and JT is useless. Liberals are AWOL on this issue, as a party.
Remember all of the above next federal election day. Remember who sold you out, who stood up for you, and who doesn’t have a clue nor seemingly give a damn. And vote accordingly. VOTE! Remember that in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve to get.
Especially once it’s obvious what you’re getting and what you’re not getting, on matters that are vital to you and your families’ privacy and economic survival and your country’s sovereignty.
((( thumbs up! )))
both hands
While I don’t think reciprocal taxation would change anything, it is noteworthy that there are somewhat more Canadians living in the US than “US Persons” living in Canada per the last semi-credible numbers i saw. The only real source of material drain that reciprocal taxation would bring would be in the relatively small number of areas where the US taxes but we don’t (principal residence comes to mind) and draconian fines. I don’t relish Canada adopting such a ghoulish tax system just to get even with the US, so I suspect that, at the end of the day, we should focus on improvements that are actually positive.
@Anne Frank, Well said.
@schubert1975, for the votes to actually make a difference, you need a critical mass. This is not going to happen without better MSM exposure.
This needs to happen. I wonder if the NDP could help with that. After all, this is in their interest as well.
Anne Frank –
I’ve been gathering a list of well-known Canadians who now have US citizens. If we have to go for a Charter Challenge, would you (who writes so well) be interested in writing a letter that could be directed to these folks? It would be interesting to ask them how they would feel if Canada did to them what the US is doing to US Expats……..
What a great briefing, they are the first decent politicians I have heard in a long time.
Again, I can not understand why the Conservatives do not want to do this right by having a proper debate and free votes.
@George
How about… why pull a move like the americans & hide it in a big thick bill? If it wasn’t a big deal… have everyone discuss it rather then push it through… Tories feel they can do whatever they want… if everyone was not on the look out for this… it could have gone by without notice. From this nonsense of the Americans… I have learned more about both govts that I did not know or remember from my education. It has been an eye opener for me reading everyone’s insight… I always thought that the canadian gov’t was for the good of canadians… I never realize it was for the good of anyone but the citizens
@LM – be happy to try my hand at doing up a draft letter. What would the punch line be? i.e are we looking to ask them to do something concrete or just bring them into the know?
@Schubert
My understanding is Ralph Goodale, Marc Garneau, and Irwin Cotler are all working this issue. The person who is missing is Justin Trudeau.
@Anne Frank
With the help of several wonderful other Brockers, last month about 160 snail mail and 50+ email/tweets were sent out to well-known US-born folks who are living in Canada (most are now Cdn citizens but not all). These mailings included a background cover letter (with websites listed that they could check out for further information) and a FATCA Factsheet (from Maplesandbox). The foremost aim was to spread awareness of FATCA to some influential Canadians who might not know about it. It was mentioned in the letter that a group of concerned citizens was looking into whether or not a Charter Challenge was viable, which is where we were in mid-April.
As a follow-up, it has been suggested by some Brockers that perhaps we could send information to well-known Canadians who are living in the US (some of whom might have US citizenship) to let them know what is happening, to encourage them to find out more and (if we do have to move ahead with a Charter Challenge) to ask if they would consider helping us (financially) in bringing this to the courts here.
In preparation, I’m building this new (Cdn->US) list and will, over the next few weeks, begin my attempt to get contact information on these folks. There is no rush for a letter to be written since we are in limbo right now RE where FATCA is going; and, it will be important to pass by a few other Brockers anything that might be arranged to be sent out RE these issues.
But I would think we’d want something on one page or less that explains FATCA and asks for (financial and other) support. We could even refer to the fact that Republicans Abroad has started a Constitutional challenge inside the US based on it’s going against US laws!!!
Reading your posts, you always explain things so very clearly I thought maybe you could think about how this might be worded – – accurately but poignantly, encouraging these folks to consider their Canadian roots and relationships (some still have family and certainly professional associates here in Canada) and might they help us……
If you want to take a stab at this in the next few weeks, I give permission for Pacifica to send you my regular email. Again, we’re in limbo now so who knows – – we might get lucky and not have to mount the Charter Challenge (I do like to dream). But if we do, as WhiteKat has said, all we may need is 1 or 2 or 3 well-healed supporters….. Let me know.
@ Tim
Regarding Liberal Party policy on this issue:
– my emails to Irwin Cotler’s office received prompt detailed response that indicated they were consulting and very aware and tuned into this issue.
– Sent a detailed brief to Ralph Goodale
– Local MP is Liberal Carolyn Bennett – attended a a small riding
meeting and was able to make a presentation to her and the other constituents about FATCA IGA and its discontents
I’m concerned by the lack of coherent and well-publicized policy statement from the Liberals on this. Also concerned about their mounting a superficial social media campaign that seems to be modeled on Obama’s strategy – even the slogan is #hopeandhardwork !!!
I don’t especially want a Justine Trudeau t-shirt, or a social media campaign – we need strong definitive policy statements. Can someone who is a Toronto Centre riding resident reach out to to Liberal rising star Chrystia Freeland on this?
@Wondering
I couldn’t believe it when I saw that hopey hardworkie slogan. I almost wanted to vomit. Why the hell would the Liberals want to emulate Obama?
@Wondering
My daughter lives in her riding. I dictated two long, heartfelt letters to Freeland that my daughter sent. (I also was a fan/followed her while at Reuters…thought she should know that, appealed to her on many fronts). I got NOTHING, NADA, not even a form appreciation letter. I was beyond disappointed. Now I am thinking of sending a mean message re I am so saddened about my poor judgement of character, I wrongly thought better of you blah blah.
@LM
In a public library see this, in the Reference section:
‘The Canadian who’s who’
Publisher: Toronto : University of Toronto Press.
In academic libraries it may be available as an electronic reference to search online.
I wrote to Adam Vaughan, the Liberal candidate in the Trinity-Spadina by-election. He’s a smart, aggressive guy with a ton of US tainted persons in his riding. Let’s hope he pays attention. He has been warned. There are 4 by-elections coming up soon. FATCA should be made an issue in every all-candidates debate.
@ Badger – yes, thanks – – I’m now scanning the online Cdn Who’s Who listing (only those names of folks who are still alive), pulling names out onto my spreadsheet by focusing on “birthplace”- – this site also (mostly) shows current residence city and occupation.
If/when there is a need/desire to get further info, hopefully the Hamilton main library and/or the McMaster University library may have a hard copy. So far, just scanning the “A”s and “B”s, I’ve identified about 100 names…..
Great comments at the 10:30 mark about Canadians having given up their US citizenship when they took their Canadian citizenship now being told by the US they are citizens. “To become un-American is like a negative option billing. You have to work hard.”
The NDP really gets it. They seem to understand the subject matter almost as well as we do.
The Conservatives get it too but they are cowards and are ready to hand over our country to the terrorists in the US government. The shocking thing is that the Conservative politicians probably stay awake at night wondering just how long they have before the whole country figures out what they’ve done.
They say the future belongs to the brave. The Conservative politicians are definitely not the brave.
More help from across the border to end this FATCA nightmare:
From Senator Rand Paul and the CUNA in the US.
http://www.repealfatca.com/index.asp?idmenu=4&idsubmenu=125&title=News
From the Article:
Following yesterday’s introduction of a bill (S. 887) by Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) to repeal burdensome mandates and privacy violations under the “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” (FATCA), the powerful Credit Union National Association has declared its support.
In a letter dated today, May 8, Bill Cheney, CUNA’s President & CEO, writes to Senator Paul:
On behalf of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), I am writing to express support for S. 887, which would repeal the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) so that regulatory relief will be provided to U.S. credit unions and other financial institutions. CUNA is the largest credit union advocacy association in the United States, representing nearly 90 percent of America’s 7,000 state and federally chartered credit unions and their 96 million members.
“We share your concern that FATCA, if left in place, will impose billions of dollars of compliance costs on U.S. credit unions and banks annually. We are also concerned that FATCA and FATCA-related intergovernmental agreements with foreign nations undermine the constitutional privacy rights of U.S. credit union members and bank customers.
Of special note is the CUNA letter’s reference to the Administration’s request “in its FY 2014 Budget authority to impose additional non-resident alien reporting requirements on U.S. credit unions and banks to help facilitate FATCA intergovernmental agreement negotiations.” This spotlights the looming threat that FATCA compliance costs – which under FATCA as enacted would fall almost entirely on foreign financial institutions (FFIs) – would boomerang to hit the United States under the U.S. Treasury Department’s policy of negotiating “intergovernmental agreements” (IGAs) with non-U.S. governments to enforce FATCA on themselves, in exchange for imposing FATCA-like mandates domestically in the United States. (NOTE: These IGAs are purely Treasury’s invention and are not authorized under FATCA or any other statute! See: McGill University law professor Allison Christians, “The Dubious Legal Pedigree of IGAs (and Why It Matters), February 11, 2013)”
OF NOTE: From the article above, it is clear that the US is absolutely outraged about FATCA and the CUNA as well as Sen. Paul make the case that the IGA’s are NOT authorized by Congress and Treasury has NO Authority to negotiate IGA’s with anybody.
After watching the hearing today, it is clear our officials are running scared. FATCA is here to stay, we had no choice, blah, blah, blah.
Clearly they have several choices and NONE of them include signing an IGA with unauthorized entities like the Treasury and IRS.
And, it should be more and more apparent that burying the implementation of the IGA for FATCA into this omnibus bill C-31 for budget implementation and trying to ram it through without complete study on its own merit was cowardly and another act in lock step to do what the US dictates. It was, in my view, a planned act by the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with all Conservative MPs falling in line, little regard for their US Persons constituents, in fact in little regard for all Canadians. It is shameful what they are doing to the sovereignty of our country.
@ FuriousAC
Thank you for spotting the latest posting at repealfatca.com. Just on a whim I decided to e-mail that to Marc-André Pigeon (Director Financial Sector Policy) who testified at today’s FINA meeting. I didn’t have a direct e-mail address for him so I sent it to the “inquiries” address at Credit Union Central of Canada. Ya never know …
@Em, try this one as well;
pigeonm@cucentral.com or PigeonM@cucentral.com
@ badger
Thanks. Will do.