BREAKING NEWS: Murray Rankin’s Assistant just advised they expect the vote on the Omnibus Bill C-31 in the House of Commons Monday, June 9 following Question Period.
She said:
The NDP moved report stage deletions to the budget, including deletions to every section pertaining to FATCA, so those will be voted on, followed bny the vote on the budget itself. It is expected that the Conservatives will vote down all of our amendments to delete.
I will keep you updated. And we will continue to work to advocate for all those caught up in the FATCA net!
Please feel free to share the NDP petition.
Cross-posted from Maple Sandbox
You can only be screwed by the system if you play the IRS’ game, are in Canada, and you are not a Canadian citizen. Or if you play the game, and cross the border.
I chose to make my own rules to the game, based on IRS and my country’s rules. I reserve the right to change my rules at any time, to my benefit. Kind of like the US and the banks do.
Workin’ so far.
Amazing that usxcanada has not been around to give us a jab or two. Maybe he’s still too busy doing a told-ya-so dance. And where is ChearsBigEars? Did he just assume this is all our fault because we didn’t do enough to stop the bill’s passage and wash his hands of us? Well, as exploded as my head feels right now, I’m still here and although I haven’t any useful talents, I’ll keep trying to do something. Since it looks to me like ADCS is our last kick at the FATCA can, I’m going to go at that with both feet. I need to focus on saving for donations and helping my husband get through the wait for his CLN and the post-CLN filing maze.
The thing is that I think that Canada in general, and Brockers in particular, should welcome this decision involving this woman from Florida. The criminal justice system in the USA is way out of control. Even though I understand that some might draw the line of consent differently than others, a 30 year sentence is just way out of line for a consensual relationship involving someone well into their teens (ie NOT a child). I think it is a sign that Canada is losing patience with overextension of American authority and I think should give Brockers hope that a similar result will happen when FATCA is challenged in the Canadian courts.
That said, I want to hear more specifics about the court challenge before I support it financially.
I so enjoy your sardonic sense of humour, Em. Giving people a reason to chuckle under these conditions is a VERY useful talent, I’d say!
Not to mention your fabulous poetry, songwriting, limerick and haiku-writing skills, Em. I’m so lucky to be surrounded by so many talented word-crafters. Thank you all!
Em,
Your words keep us going.
@The Mom– I couldn’t agree with you more. I will identify myself as Canadian, and Canadian only. Born in Canada. Proudly Canadian. I am not offering any “US indicia.” I am optimistic that the Supreme Court of a Canada will rule on the side of common sense.
Em asks for a jab. Suffice it to observe that the prime time Canada Day / Fourth of July season looms on the near horizon with not one inkling that even a possibility of dramatic unsanctioned resistance festers anywhere. Meanwhile the forces of LTA (Lobby The Authorities) revel in possibilities of long-term ensnarlment with the judicial tentacle of the very state whose executive tentacle is about to compel the legislative tentacle to squeeze out an utterly foreseeable result. Lesser imaginations of pushback predictably fasten onto DTM (Doing The Media), with fantasies of somehow breaking through the state-serving mainstream propaganda machine to tell the “truth” about extraterritorial US persons – a “truth” that unfortunately only the expendable affected class would ever care about. No one outside the United States loves Americans, and least of all anti-Americans forevermore tainted with their own US personhood. Call the syndrome the inexorable sadness of passionate intensity. Sauve qui peut.
@Dash Remember, Switzerland signed the IGA in early 2013. What’s more, the application law and also a new law authorizing cooperation with the IRS “program for Swiss banks” were passed last year. No mandatory referendum was raised as the Constitution would require for an adherence to a supra-national organization, and everything was done on the quiet so nobody understood what this was all about when an optional referendum was raised.
Canadan banks will only get their application law if it passes this month, hardly enough time to be ready for 1 July but I suspect they have been preparing.
Still, in Switzerland, account closures have been rampant even before the IGA and are now happening (IMHO) more because of the so-called “program for Swiss Banks” than FATCA itself. For example, under the Swiss IGA, 3rd Pillar A accounts (optional retirement accounts with highly restrictive investment and withdrawal terms are protected from being identified as financial accounts). But according to an RTS article a few weeks ago, 3rd pillar accounts are now being closed by unnamed banks. I suspect this is under the “program for Swiss banks” which seems to be quite vague (you have a US connection, we identify your account whether it falls below the thresholds or falls outside the exemptions of the IGA).
Also, I am hearing rumors that Intrum Justitia (an international collections group based in Sweden) is billing people through their Swiss branch for what sounds like FBAR fines. For example, somebody is just retiring, tries to draw their mandatory 2nd pillar pension, and gets a bill for something like 50% of the balance. (depending upon how much somebody adds to the pension in various years could mean that perhaps 6 years x 50% = 50% of the total amount of the pension.
I would hope all of you would watch out for such tactics. Somebody might try a similar attack in Canada or elsewhere Even if governments are not supposed to collect taxes from their residents on behalf of other governments, this doesn’t mean that a collections firm couldn’t try to slip through (it seems they are doing that).
The rumor I heard about Intrum Justitia was pretty vague because people are trying to protect the identity of the affected persons, so I do not know it is really IRS, or if they are employing the firm as an agent to collect, or selling the debt to them. Just please watch out, because I think we are going to see all sorts of scare tactics.
@ usxcanada
There, you must feel so much better now.
@ Jefferson D. Tomas
Scary stuff but thanks for the heads up. Another thing I considered quite awhile ago was that under the negotiation table our Cons asked for and received a promise of a cut of the IRS’s looting of the Canadian retiree pot of gold. They could use it to reimburse the banks for all their FATCA costs and get some significant campaign contributions in return. Bad thoughts, I know, but we’re dealing with bad people.
so what is the latest status and the next step? It passed and it goes to the next house?
(don’t know the Canadian political system)
Hi Steve Klaus et al
Have been sending CCs(via Canada Post – am technologically challenged! ) of my e-mail to democraticparty@democrats.org to newspapers, the White House, and others including my health care providers. This whole situation has made me physically and emotionally sick. I had to PAY tax to the US. I am 60. Not wealthy. Will likely never own a home. My MSPof BC is subsidized. I left the US 42 years ago.
It really helps to know there are others who are supportive (as I am of them) and that many Republicans are challenging this! Jen, a new Republican