As Bill C-31 winds its way through the Canadian parliamentary system, those who defend the FATCA IGA legislation buried within 300+ pages of the omnibus bill it is hidden in, respond to the cry of the victims, by repeating the message, ‘Well, you might win a Charter Challenge, but if you do, it will hurt ALL Canadians’.
Should the estimated one million Canadians, deemed ‘US persons’ by a foreign nation, and their family members feel guilty about actively opposing this deal with the devil? Should they all just shut-up, and take one for the team? After all there are 30-something million other Canadians who are not affected by a FATCA IGA with the USA, who could care less, or so it seems.
Are Canadian citizens, deemed ‘US persons’, asking their fellow Canadians too much by insisting they risk their economic well being in exchange for the rights and freedoms, and economic well being of the ‘US persons’ in their midst?
Do Canadians want to live in a country where the majority is protected – until it’s not – at the expense of others who find themselves in the cross-hairs of a foreign nation through no fault of their own?
Has Canada become a mockery of a country with a reputation for high standards of human rights and freedoms?
Has Canada never been what many thought it was, with those deemed ‘US persons’, the first to be disillusioned by the reality that none of us are free, and none of us are protected, as is evidenced when a bigger power comes knocking and demanding tribute from those it illegitimately considers its own?
NorthernStar, in an email she shared with me, writes the following comment with regard to an article written by Don Cayo published at the Vancouver Sun:
I refused the offer. and I got off lightly….
In the early 90’s after 24 years in Canada as a permanent resident my husband and I chose to become Canadian citizens… We realized that we were never going back to the USA, to work or retire. Our children were born here and we have long established good paying jobs. We loved Canada and it was a good fit as we were Canadian in our hearts and beliefs.Somehow, unlike most Americans who expatriate, I found out that US taxes were to be filed while living outside of the USA. I was an A student in US History and Economic Geography in high school and never was taught Citizen based Taxation (the exceptional America uses ) and Resident Based Taxation (the rest of the world uses).
I guess I found out through reading, which I do a lot of. My mother once told me I would go to my room and read. I filed US taxes for my husband and I, all by myself. The most complicated part was currency conversion. We never had to pay as we were far below the US level where one must pay US taxes. One year in the 80s the IRS sent us back a $2,000. US income tax refund.. I promptly called the IRS and sent the cheque back as we never worked in the USA since 1969. The last US tax filing I did was for the year 1993 when we became citizens.
I am thankful to be Canadian and to have the good health care insurance as my husband and one of our children were diagnosed two months apart in 1998 with cancer. They had the best of care in Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital. Unfortunately it was terminal for both of them. I compared there treatment with that given in the USA and they had the same superior treatments with no medical costs for us. My husband left me his pension intact. I am now retired and living on it..In January 2009 I was visiting one of my children in Toronto when we discovered while reading the Toronto Paper (probably the Sun) that the Democrats Abroad was holding an inauguration party for President Obama, who I admired greatly. I decided to go to the party as it was an open invite. I met mostly Americans working in Toronto but planning to go back.. I signed the email list just to know what might be interesting happening with the organization. In 2012 there was an DA email out about FATCA.. Long story short there was a meeting in Yorkdale that spring about FATCA hosted by DA. The room was filled to standing room capacity. FATCA was a shock to many but the Dems abroad were kind enough to have the Tax Compliance Industry there waiting to take our money with over a $1000 plus for each year US taxes not filed if we chose to use them.. We were advised we could face heavy penalties from the IRS if we did not file I was shocked that I had been wrong and that I had still to file US Taxes.
A few months later I found online The Isaac Brock Society and Maple Leaf Sandbox They saved my sanity. I found out that in my circumstances I needed to get a Citizen Loss of Nationality (CLN). There are many of us, and many who do not post on these sites but are all together on the bus to fight this immoral agreement, FATCA. We are the modern day Rosa Parks. I am free now… I have that official paper, backdated to the day I became citizen. Others must pay a lot of money to do this , or mothers can not renounce for their adult mentally challenged child, born in Canada, because the US citizenship is so “precious”. See Calgary411 on Brock for that scenario. There is no easy way out for most. For many it means giving up all their life savings, earned in Canada only. It is not at all like giving up Canadian citizenship. Canada is a very much kinder country.
I am prepared to help fund and campaign for the Charter Challenge to FATCA, even though I am safe. I will do this for ALL Canadians, not just American Canadians. I treasure my privacy and the Charter of Rights and Freedom . The Harper government has given in to the US bully. Other Prime Ministers stood up to the American bully and said NO. If Canada had said NO, other countries would follow suit. There are over a million American persons in Canada.
Now will Russia, China, India, Saudia Arabia, Japan require the banking info of dual Canadians from their country? Will Harper give in and give them this banking information.
Canada has caved in to the Banking and Investment/Compliance Industrial Complex.
It has gone against what Matthew 16:26 said
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
another saying I have on my desk is: Tyranny wins when good men do not say anything.
What is happening now… is like what happened in Europe in the 30s. Do you want American Canadians to be second class citizens for the benefit of money and the loss of our Canadian sovereignty?
NorthernStar received this response to her comment:
Thanks for this. It is very interesting. And I’m very pleased it is working out well for you.
If you go ahead with your Charter challenge, you may … very possibly win. You will no doubt consider this a great moral victory, and I cannot disagree. But I believe it will contribute to an economic disaster. And that was the point ….. You have every right to believe the victory is worth the cost, however, but you ought not go into this without understanding what the consequences will be. And not just for those who have held American citizenship, but for all Canadians.
Personally, I think you are wrong to assume other countries would follow suit. I think Canada would be hung out to dry. I don’t like this — I think it’s wrong — but our indignation about it and two or three bucks would get us a cup of coffee.
This citizenship taxation law is supported by Liberal and Conservative Morons alike. So far it has driven most of our sales and service people home because they cannot pay the taxes and the cost of filing the tax returns.
Those of us who I consider patriots want the Income Tax law repealed along with the passage of the FairTax Bill HR25. We consider it a way to revive the economy of the U.S. which has been moribund since 1976 which was the last year we ran a trade surplus and we never will again unless we dump the Marxist Income Tax and enforcement of FATCA and FBAR.
Here’s the deal as I see it. The govt will have to develop some things on the back burner. The point is to push them. If we have a good chance of winning perhaps they will realize they should have got off their bums in the first place. If they sit around and do nothing I doubt they will be able to blame us if FATCA comes into play.
Thus the importance of hitting them endlessly with Allison C’s points and A. Cockfield’s and John Richardson’s…and who knows who/what else down the line. Other things may happen that we can’t even think of yet. Just had a conversation yesterday looking at where we started and how much things have moved forward since the FATCA forum Dec 2012. I don’t think anyone imagined we would be where we are now. There was no direct plan or anything like that. We just followed where it all led and did things that made sense at the time.
The govt seems to have no clue they were supposed to come up with something other than lay down and let the US walk all over us.That’s what they are paid to do. Not sit around and figure out ways around Canadian laws and the Charter and the Constitution.
@Tricia,
I never having paid a lot of attention to politics in my younger years as a comp sci major,(I took one third year polisci course in university because it was the only course left that I could take to meet overall general requirements having waited too late to pick my courses..lol)), point being, I always figured our Canadian politicians were smarter than me(at least with regards to what THEIR job was), and had my (i.e ALL Canadians) best interests at heart. Boy was I wrong. This whole FATCA fiasco has been one sad awakening.
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Metro+Vancouver+baby+boomers+sitting+billion+property/9844270/story.html
very interesting article in the Vancouver Sun. I wonder if Don has thought about the impact to Vancouver’s economy if FATCA comes into effect for those “baby boomers” in Vancouver who own $163 billion dollars worth of real estate? How many of them are thinking of selling their homes to fund their retirement? How many would be considered to be US persons? What about estate sales etc? Think of all those capital gains waiting to be taxed and go south to fund the US debt??
@WhiteKat
I know the feeling well. My field was applied music/piano performance. We were always considered the “really weird, dumb ones.” Outside of endless family battles over issues as I grew up, I never really considered myself well-versed enough to appreciate everything that was required to make a balanced judgement. Like you, I trusted that on the everyday stuff, it was okay to presume politicians wouldn’t do anything overtly “wrong.” Obviously on the “big” stuff, like Vietnam, Watergate, etc, something wasn’t quite right but those were aberrations, right?
I’ll bet my Quaker ancestors were told before they sailed for America, that there was no way they would ever be able to escape the long arm of the King and that they would never be free of the taxes and religious persecution they were trying to escape. They also were probably scared out of their wits about the climate, lack of “development”, likelihood of being killed by native people, etc. History has certainly proven that not to be the case.
Re:
If the U.S. were to cause an “economic disaster” with Canada by enforcing FATCA without an IGA, it would be a political and economic disaster for the U.S. as well. They would be crazy to inflict such damage on their relationship with their largest trading partner, and I don’t think they are that crazy (yet).
Remember, FATCA implementation has been delayed several times already, because the IRS has begun to realize how problematic it is. With enough push-back they will have to delay it indefinitely.
We Canadians should CALL THEIR BLUFF!
@AnonAnon
Hear, Hear!
@downtherabbithole
Hmmmmmmmmm (!)
Wise words, AnonAnon.
Why is Canada (why are other countries) so easily submitting to the economic terrorism of the US — their threats and instilling fear into the hearts of politicians and bankers? We have witnessed over and over the US practice of instilling fear to manage its population. The US is a master at knowing the power of installing fear. It is using that same “fear” on other countries and its own citizens abroad with threat of economic sanctions.
And, we are blind to what is happening once again. Submissive cowards to let one million US Persons and their families be the fall guys. Will this not set a Canadian precedent for other countries’ nationals to be hunted, their private information turned over to a foreign state?
Why would the Canadian government in power not pause to more thoroughly study the consequences to its own country and its people rather than bow with their rash submissiveness to the USA? There is time — it has been shown by many on the panels testifying at the Finance Committee that there is no good reason for Canada to rush implementation of the FATCA IGA.
“We Canadians should CALL THEIR BLUFF!”
I spoke with the advertising and marketing manager of a BC credit union and he told me today that credit unions are not allowed to mention FATCA in their advertising nor are they allowed to advertise towards its victims using the term FATCA.
Believe me he would like to do just that but he says they must watch their wording, if I understood him properly.
To me it is obvious that the CRA and our Government and the CBA and others are engaged in CONSPIRACY to hide the facts on FATCA. I still go into the odd bank here and ask about FATCA and there has yet to be one employee that will say anything at all about it but rather they say they have never heard of it. This is the CRAP country some here think is better than some other country. Spare me, I’m sick and tired of reading how Canada is so much better than the USA. If this country were better this wouldn’t have gone this far. I disdain both countries equally. How come there aren’t more lawyers across the country speaking out? And where is ours?
As Ben Franklin said, hang together or we hang separately. The Yanks have seen Canadians are wimps and can be pushed around, so FATCA is now only the beginning of stuff that will affect all Canadians.
@NorthernStar
Re:
“You have every right to believe the victory is worth the cost, however, but you ought not go into this without understanding what the consequences will be. And not just for those who have held American citizenship, but for all Canadians.”
How generously pragmatic; to urge us to waive our sovereign equality rights so that the majority of Canadians are less affected by the extra-jurisdictional demands of a foreign state.
How generous – that he would do that for us! O Brave New World, that has such people in it!
Yet I believe we can win Mr. Cayo over. After, he had a real scoop in revealing that the CRA would NOT collect US taxes and penalties from Canadian citizens, – this at a time when the rest of the handout journalists we saying “Comply… or die”. Don Cayo did his research, got a definitive opinion from CRA, and published it widely.
Let’s appeal to his journalistic and intellectual integrity.
Inundate Don Cayo with convincing arguments; he’s obviously one of the smarter people in the room, and this issue is again his beat.
My dear Noble Dreamer, your ancestors were Quakers. Alice Paul was a Quaker, practically every significant social movement, civil rights and anti war movement was lead by or had Quaker examples to follow.
My ancestors were Quakers too. We were born into this know it or not! For inspiration you might want to go to Alice’s website. She was said to be VERY tenacious and never took “no” for an answer when engaging in the fight to get women the vote. She”s been an inspiration to me for a long, long time. Thank god for that because who saw THIS coming!
I am still in awe of how far we’ve come. On the other board before Brock, which is exactly what I thought of when Lynne was before the finance committee the other day as was Allison and Author Cockfield. Who could have thought of something like that happening back then?
Allisons amend recommendations ARE doable. She ought to KNOW she’s an expert. Auther Cockfield suggesting they have time to slow down and look at this more closely is certainly a reliable source of information for this government to look to. Keep writing to these people in government. Ask them given the outlined facts what at that meeting why it is too much to ask to take the time they have to look more closely and perhaps add Allison’s amendments.
I don’t know if Don Cayo monitors this web site. If he does, I would tell him that the “economic disaster” arguments he advances are the product of very, very simplistic analysis. Not a single dollar would be subject to withholding in fact – subject only to people or institutions who failed to make arrangements in proper time. Transactions that might be subject to the tax would not happen or would be restructured through intermediaries (at additional cost) to avoid it. The net impact would be Canadian banks would be frozen out of some US lines of business, Canadian businesses would find some US$ hedging transactions more expensive or difficult to conduct and US banks would lose a similar volume of business with Canadians. After a brief period of time, the market would adjust – awkwardly – to the new world. The banking sectors of both countries would be lose profits but consumers would notice almost nothing.
All of this of course assumes that the US took the step of declaring Canada non-compliant. At the moment, Canada is declared “in” the tent despite the fact our IGA is not implemented and 29 other countries who are still negotiating an IGA are similarly so-declared. There is no reason to assume the US would sanction Canada were Canada to carve its own tax residents out of the IGA since the whole rationale of the FATCA regime is to find tax cheats, not tax compliers. The IRS knows that with marginal exceptions, dual citizens would owe little or nothing on average beyond penalties, fines and “gotcha” opportunities. Canadian resident dual citizens were never in the gun sights of the IRS and given half an excuse, they will declare victory and go home (where they belong).
In short, Don Cayo, I dispute your premise and would suggest you actually peel the onion a bit and ask exactly what would be subject to this horrible withholding? US source payments do not include, for example, US purchasers paying for their imports from Canada.
Hedging and derivatives would be impacted in a big way, but can be re-engineered in ways that would carve US withholdable payments out of the equation given a short transition period to devise them. This adds cost to the system to be sure – but, by the way, likely freezes US banks out of the equation. Want to hedge US bond rates – do a synthetic swap with a non-American bank who is able to hedge them directly. London and Toronto win, New York loses.
There are few people in the world with more imagination than the guys in red suspenders who devise these financial products. It would not take long for the market to develop work arounds for New York being frozen out of direct participation in world markets. This sanction threat has always been such a hollow piece of ****: any two or three large trading partners could cripple it with bi-lateral arrangements and the impact of imposing it would be to accelerate the demise of the dollar (one of the single biggest assets of the US economy). I grow bored of this bluster that is backed up by little actual data.
Again, Don, I ask: EXACTLY what would happen? If you start to go down that road, you will find the emperor is wearing little more than boxers….
What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander in FATCA.The implementing legislation proposed by Obama for the US side of the FATCA reciprocity ‘bargain’ provides for the sharing of bank info with foreign countries for US banks only for non US citizens – and does not cover dual US/other country citizens living in the USA with a US bank account – i.e. if a Canadian/US citizen is living in the US and has a US bank account such account info would not be shard with CRD because the person is a US citizen….humm, but the reverse doesn’t apply on the Canadian side of the border…
To add to Anne Frank’s points (can I use them next time I’m boxing with Mr. Wood over at Forbes?) are Jatras’s predictions regarding US treasuries in his latest article and Richardson’s arguments regarding the amount of assets being stolen from the Canadian economy that will hurt all Canadians and may make the 30% withholding look like peanuts…especially if there are work arounds as Anne states.
To reveal my age: Had the big drive up from Boston yesterday, had the oldies on. JA’s “Up Against the Wall” came on and boy it brought back big memories and also reflected exactly how I am feeling at the moment. It also emboldened me. Can we adopt that as the Brocker’s theme song? Have a button to play it? I’m getting out my madras bell-bottoms, 4″hoop earrings and patchouli oil and getting ready to march on Washington. Ah, it adds such great symmetry to my life. We of that generation had real problems with authority when we figured out they were just paper tigers. (Also might I get in trouble if I steal the sign that says “Bridge to Canada 3 miles”? I want it for my living room wall, I could have kissed it.)
@Anne Frank, your logic has taken hold with me over many months.
It is not a problem of shutting the world out of US Markets.
The US should be worried about being shut out of World Markets.
The goal should be to margenalize New York and Chicago as market centers and expand trading elsewhere such as London.
This may very well be our best opportunity to divert disaster for Canada. We won’t let the corrupted stand in the way, will we?
Cayo appears to be merely a mouthpiece for the compliance troll Dueck.
@Tricia/nobledreamer: I’m no Quaker but I did accidentally land in a hotbed of transplanted Quakerism when I came to Canada over 40 years ago. These good people were my friends, neighbors, and workmates and I learned a lot about how they think and operate. My take on the Quakers is that they tend to be “early adopters” on moral issues, long before political correctness and the just plain “rightness” of of their position becomes more mainstream.
Quakers were among the first to really push for Abolition before the US Civil war. Their opponents said “well, we agree that slavery is probably wrong, but it would be economic disaster to eliminate it”. Quakers were on the right side of history on that one. The bunch I knew came to Canada in the 50’s as Korean war conscientious objectors and later the Vietnam war. They were on the right side of history on that as well.
It is not at all surprising to me that Quakers would resist the fundamental injustice of CBT, FATCA, and the US government information vacuum cleaner. As for the current IGA creating two classes of Canadian citizens and Constitutional and Charter violations, Quakers will undoubtedly be on the right side on that question as well. Quakers can be relied on to find the moral high ground and take a stand even if it causes them negative consequences or personal discomfort. These folks have long been my personal inspiration even though their seemingly endless “discussions” have caused me to sometimes shake my head. I’m betting you know what I’m referring to! (LOL)
Don Cato’s economic disaster is a non sense. If the US pull the 30% economic sanction tax, it would push the world into de-dollarisation faster. Already Russia is teaming up with Iran and China to trade its oil / gas in Rubles or Yuan to get out of dollars and limited the impact of US economic sanctions.
FATCA’s sanction tax will ultimately hurt the US more than the world. If the US loses sole reserve currency status, it will have to start living within its means. Translation – The US standard of living will take an initial hit until the US economy adjusts to the new realities.
This is the secret US politicians are desperate to hide.
What we must do is hammer home AnonAnon’s & Anne Frank’s excellent points to the Con MP’s on the Finance Committee who seem potentially empathetic to our plight – ie. M. Adler, J. Rajotte & possibly M. Allen. Please everyone, write these MP’s personal emails about adopting the amendment to exclude Canadian citizens and residents who are resident in Canada.
I’m old enough to remember when people talked about negative economic consequences of ending the Vietnam War.
@George
“The US should be worried about being shut out of World Markets.”
The US clearly is, hence the active trolls and scare-mongering.
@Blaze Vietnam was the event that caused the penny to drop for many people–maybe Kennedy was on to something when he hinted America was run by an Industrial Military Complex.
Phil Donahue Talks Ron Paul Foreign Policy
Don Cayo is entirely misguided and utterly deluded if he thinks that he even understands the current terms and ramifications of FATCA – which he feels that he and all of us should agree to be ruled under courtesy of the US. FATCA is NOT a known and static thing. FATCA and the FATCA IGA contain many uncertainties. Obviously he doesn’t understand the Last in Time /Later in time rule. Obviously he doesn’t understand the Savings clause. The US will continue to tweak this and build on it, and develop more guidelines and more repressive conditions as it sees fit. Caving to FATCA is like handing the US a blank cheque signed by Canada – a never ending multi-course free lunch that never ends, at Canada’s great expense.
Without any cost benefit analysis, Cayo – and the Conservative government are basically saying that no price is too high to pay, and no sacrifice of Canadian citizens, legal residents, their families, their legal Canadian earnings, savings, and assets it too much to hand over to a foreign country.
The US is not going to stop at FATCA. If it gets away with this, there is nothing to stop it from enacting additions to FATCA, and other similar extraterritorial laws that threaten Canadian citizens, residents, economy, banks and our financial system and thus our society and sovereignty.
Where is the end to that? There isn’t one as long as Canada gives in to US threats via extortion. Remember, no crimes have actually taken place. No evidence has been brought to justify this confiscation via unwarranted economic sanctions.
We didn’t give in to the NAFTA dispute about softwood lumber, and persisted on that issue and others.Prof Cockfield enumerates many good reasons why FATCA is wrong, and so does Prof. Christians. The NAFTA and possible WTO aspects haven’t even been explored.
I don’t see how Cayo has any better or deeper understanding of this than Hogg, Cockfield, Christians, etc., and so is only relying on the CBA, IIAC, etc. Seems pretty arrogant when he asserts that the rights and assets and data of over 1 million Canadian families, business partners, joint accountholders, all Canadian taxpayers paying for the CRA, and all Canadian accountholders paying higher fees, the integrity of Canadian laws and sovereignty, the Charter, Constitution, and what is ethical and moral and just is an acceptable sacrifice to appease the US bully and extortionist.
Why would we cave on something so monstrous and so far reaching as FATCA?