Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 2,221 Comments

[We now have a NEW POST taking us up to February 1, 2015. This post will be retired from service.]

THE AUTUMN 2014 UPDATE

Dear Donors,

Together, we reached our goal of $100,000 to pay the November 1 legal bill 11 days ahead of schedule!

Thank you Canadian donors from coast to coast and our friends from around the world for your generosity, support and determination — and especially for not being afraid.

The name of our non-profit corporation is the “Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty.”

We were very deliberate in including in our name the word “sovereignty”, which forms a cornerstone of our Claims against the Government of Canada.

Canada and dozens of other countries throughout the world gave into a bully because their “leaders” were afraid of harm caused by a trading “partner” — and they gave their sovereignties away.

Help us convince by example the Leaders and Governments of all countries worldwide that they should return their sovereignties back to their Peoples.

Please continue to support our lawsuit.

“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” (Helen Keller)

— Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen, and the ADCS-ADSC team

Chers donateurs,

Ensemble, nous avons atteint notre but d’amasser 100 000 $ pour payer notre facture légale du 1er novembre 11 jours d’avance !

Un gros merci à vous, donateurs canadiens, et à nos amis de tous les coins du monde pour votre grande générosité, soutien et détermination. Et surtout pour votre courage.

Le nom de notre organisme sans but lucratif est « l’Alliance pour la défense de la souveraineté canadienne ».

Nous avons choisi délibérément le mot « souveraineté » puisqu’il constitue la base fondamentale de nos revendications envers le gouvernement du Canada.

Le Canada et des dizaines d’autres pays se sont pliés devant l’intimidation des États-Unis parce que leurs « leaders » ont eu peur des menaces de notre « partenaire » commercial. Ils ont donc vendu leur souveraineté à rabais.

Aidez-nous à convaincre les dirigeants et les gouvernements de tous ces pays qu’ils se doivent de remettre leur souveraineté à leurs peuples.

S’il vous plaît, continuez à soutenir notre cause.

« Seuls, nous pouvons faire si peu. Ensemble, nous pouvons faire beaucoup. » (Helen Keller)

— Ginny, Gwen et toute l’équipe de l’ADCS-ADSC

DONATE to www.adcs-adsc.ca (ADSC en français).

2,221 thoughts on “Canadian FATCA IGA lawsuit: November 1, 2014 legal bill will be paid on time! / Poursuite canadienne contre la FATCA et le gouvernement canadien : nos frais légaux du 1er novembre 2014 seront payés à temps !”

  1. @Victoria
    I didn’t realize that you had met the JCT. Looking at who is on it, I am not surprised that you found it a tough audience.

    The problem is that nobody has any good data on anything and a skeptical audience is always going to want something really air tight. These measures weren’t introduced on the back of really good data, either. To build any sort of a counter argument, I think that you would need a multilingual team of demographers who could pull out the data, but even they could probably only get U.S. born persons and maybe their children. Then there would be figuring out how much tax they would owe and the cost of extracting it. I have read that a lot of the people who end up owing tax are in Asia, but in Asian countries they tend not to ask the right questions about birthplace to produce the type of data needed. The only thing that matters to them is whether a resident is a foreigner or not.

  2. “Meeting the JCT was the scariest meeting I attended. These people are deadly serious. You want something changed? Then you have to walk in there and make your case as coldly and as logically as you can and have evidence backing up your assertions. And that is where we fail.”

    Court cases, human rights complaints, renunciations and any expats who remain must vote against the Democrats.

    The Democrats need to go, every last one of them.

  3. @Victoria, ironic isn’t it that the JCT and their colleagues would demand such robust statistics and data when they operate on so much less – re the wild unsubstantiated guestimates that are touted as the basis for calculations of that portion of the US ‘tax gap’ which originates from individuals abroad. And they rely solely on notes on paper napkins and back of envelope numbers and piece of ‘personal correspondence’ that have been cited, as well as IRS/Treasury assertions about the purported size of tax evasion, the amounts of ‘secret’ ‘offshore’ accounts – without making any meaningful distinctions between those belonging to those at home resident in the US, and those with local accounts where they live – abroad, etc.

    The US doesn’t even have reliable numbers to calculate the actual population of US citizens ‘abroad’, much less the number of ‘US taxable persons’ living outside the US. They chose not to try to count those abroad and include them in any census. So how could they possibly have any actual numbers?

    They don’t. They just say whatever they want. And will continue to I think – even if we had unassailable numbers to refute their claims. They have the power to issue any message they choose, and we know what message they have chosen.

    It reminds me of the fight against leaded gasoline, and to prove that smoking causes cancer. The entrenched powerful industry lobbies forced those doing research, and advocates to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that lead and smoking were harmful – and thereby dragged out any challenge to their vested interests for years, and ate up countless dollars of funding and resources that they forced their opponents to find.

    I don’t think that we’d ever be able to prove it to the satisfaction of the JCT because they aren’t working on facts or ethics, etc. They won’t let facts get in their way. They are operating on ideology and political interests. We don’t matter to them at all.

    I totally agree with your point about being a nuisance and an irritant. Both to the US, as well as to our respective home governments. The path of the stick is the only one left to us, as you rightly point out. We tried the carrot to no avail. They really don’t give a hoot about those outside the US except as sources of revenue and of convenient scapegoats and propaganda fodder to distract their homeland resident constituents from domestic issues like the national debt. And our own governments have shown willingness to sacrifice their own taxpayers and citizens to placate the US.

  4. Haven’t all societies reverted to using scapegoats when the water had reached their necks? They won’t look at their own bookkeeping.

  6. Read the Czech Republic IGA – they’ve gotten a better deal.

    http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/treaties/Documents/FATCA-Agreement-Czech-Republic-8-4-2-14.pdf

    Read this dribble probably from the US for a ‘local client base.’

    A. Financial Institution with a Local Client Base. A Financial Institution satisfying the
    following requirements:
    1. The Financial Institution must be licensed and regulated as a financial institution under
    the laws of the Czech Republic;
    2. The Financial Institution must have no fixed place of business outside of the Czech
    Republic. For this purpose, a fixed place of business does not include a location that is
    not advertised to the public and from which the Financial Institution performs solely
    administrative support functions;
    3. The Financial Institution must not solicit customers or Account Holders outside the
    Czech Republic. For this purpose, a Financial Institution shall not be considered to have
    solicited customers or Account Holders outside the Czech Republic merely because the
    Financial Institution (a) operates a website, provided that the website does not
    specifically indicate that the Financial Institution provides Financial Accounts or
    services to nonresidents, and does not otherwise target or solicit U.S. customers or
    Account Holders, or (b) advertises in print media or on a radio or television station that
    is distributed or aired primarily within the Czech Republic but is also incidentally
    distributed or aired in other countries, provided that the advertisement does not
    specifically indicate that the Financial Institution provides Financial Accounts or
    services to nonresidents, and does not otherwise target or solicit U.S. customers or
    Account Holders;

    So the Czechs have tried to FATCA out their local banks with the US adding complicated language in an attempt to close a loophole.

  7. Don As far as I can tell, Canada got the same deal. For some strange reason, some of our credit unions are choosing not to take advantage . Go figure.

  10. @ Stephen Kish
    I hope Twig#5 has landed safe and sound in your mailbox.

    Question: Money orders require the payee’s name and I think there is a limit as to the number of characters. If the full name for the fund doesn’t fit can A.D.C.S. or A.D.C.S.-A.D.S.C. be used? This may have been answered previously but I can’t remember.

  12. @Victoria

    You write that “today [the books] are not balanced and there is clearly a lack of revenue (or too much spending…).”

    This is actually incorrect. The Federal deficit has dropped precipitously over the last couple of years. It is now well below 3 percent of GDP, and at this rate the Government is rapidly reducing its indebtedness.

    I am writing this because now is about as favorable an environment for tax reform as we will get for the rest of this decade and beyond (deficits will return around 2020 and later, unless entitlements are reformed). There is a real window of opportunity to effect change.

  13. @Ted Baumann,
    You fell for their rubbish. The debt is soon to cross $18 trillion with GDP at about $17 trillion. So we are above the danger area of 100% debt to GDB ratio. Unfunded liabilities for medicare and SS are estimated at $49 trillion. The debt is set to grow by about a trillion each year and that’s bigger than the deficit. Remember we have to pay all that interest.
    The deficit has to be closed.

  14. “The Federal deficit has dropped precipitously over the last couple of years. It is now well below 3 percent of GDP, and at this rate the Government is rapidly reducing its indebtedness.”

    Well, that must be some of that new math I’ve heard about! Perhaps you are confusing the annual deficit with the total accumulated debt. While its true that the federal deficit has declined considerably from its peak a few years ago during the depths of the financial crisis, a deficit is still a deficit. The US national debt is still increasing, just not at as rapid a rate as it was a few years ago.

    The only way the US can reduce its indebtedness is by raising revenues or reducing spending (likely a combination of the two) enough to result in an annual surplus. That last time that occurred was during the Clinton presidency. There is no chance of that happening in the foreseeable future because there is no political will; those guys want to get reelected. Taxing expats won’t come even remotely close to achieving a surplus but it plays well to the masses.

  15. @EmBee,

    Your saplings are still doing very well and are surrounded by little Eurotwigs waving flags that say “Kill the FATCA.”

    You ask about using ADCS or ADCS-ADSC on money orders etc. if the very long name (sorry) of our non-profit does not fit.

    Technically speaking the legal name of the organization is supposed to go on the money order, but in confidence (is this a private conversation?) the bank where we make the deposits will accept ADCS or ADCS-ADSC.

  16. Here is more today from Phil Hodgen’s weekly expatriation email regarding expatriation by minors:

    A Minor Can–In Theory–Renounce Citizenship

    There is nothing that stops a minor from renouncing citizenship. There are two things that the State Department wants to see from any would-be renunciant:

    Renunciation is voluntary; and Renunciation is done with full understanding. Minors are, in that regard, treated like anyone else who wishes to shed U.S. citizenship.

    The Foreign Affairs Manual says this, at 7 FAM 1292(i)(2):

    Voluntariness and intent: Minors who seek to renounce citizenship often do so at the behest of or under pressure from one or more parent. If such pressure is so overwhelming as to negate the free will of the minor, it cannot be said that the statutory act of expatriation was committed voluntarily. The younger the minor is at the time of renunciation, the more influence the parent is assumed to have. Even in the absence of any evidence of parental inducements or pressure, you and CA must make a judgment whether the individual minor manifested the requisite maturity to appreciate the irrevocable nature of expatriation. Absent that maturity, it cannot be said that the individual acted voluntarily. Moreover, it must be determined if the minor lacked intent, because he or she did fully understand what he or she was doing. Children under 16 are presumed not to have the requisite maturity and knowing intent[.]

    Renunciation must be a voluntary act. The person giving up citizenship should not be acting under pressure from anyone. Pressure from parents is an obvious problem.

    The inference of duress can be counteracted by an assessment by the State Department that the child’s maturity is such that the considered action — expatriation — can indeed be seen as an act of free will, outside of the parents’ pressure.

    Renunciation must be done knowingly: the individual must understand the fully irrevocable (heh–except for a minor!) consequences of renunciation. Again, this requires a judgment call by the Consular Official. What is the child’s level of cognition and understanding?

    Under Age 16? Gravity Works Against You

    Note that the State Department says that “[c]hildren under 16 are presumed not to have the requisite maturity and knowing intent[.]”

    This means that if you go into the Embassy and try to have your young child expatriate, the presumption is against this happening. The State Department will presume that renunciation is not voluntary, and that the child is not sufficiently mature to understand the full consequences of renunciation.

    Between 16 and 18? Possible

    The presumption falls away at age 16. At that point, presumably the State Department officials will interview the child with an open mind, being willing to be persuaded that the minor’s renunciation is free of duress, and the minor fully understands the consequences of this decision.

    Gauntlet

    But in order to renounce as a minor, you will have to run a gauntlet of government officials. Ignore what the alphabet soup means. Look at 7 FAM 1292(i)(1):

    (1) Consult CA/OCS/ACS: Whenever you receive a request to renounce from a minor you immediately must contact CA/OCS/ACS. CA/OCS/ACS will not approve a Certificate of Loss of U.S. Nationality (CLN) for a minor without the concurrence of CA/OCS/L, and appropriate consultation with L/CA;
    Lots of people will be involved. Careers are enhanced by taking the safe path. “Wait until you’re 18, kid” would be safe.

    The interview process is described as well, at 7 FAM 1292(i)(3):

    Interviewing a minor: When conducting the initial interview with a minor and during the renunciation procedure, you should have at least one other person present. The parents and guardians should not be present. As noted, the interview should take place in the presence of the consular officer and a witness, preferably another consular officer, another Foreign Service officer (non consular) or locally employed staff (LE staff). You should also explain that upon reaching the age of 18, the minor has a six month opportunity to reclaim U.S. nationality. See 7 FAM Exhibit 1292, A Sample Letter to Accompany CLN for Minor Renunciants, which should be provided to minor renunciants together with an approved CLN[.]

    In Summary

    In theory, it can be done. A sufficiently mature minor (ideally between age 16 and 18) may be able to persuade the people at the Embassy or Consulate that the two factors (voluntariness and intent) are present to justify the renunciation.

    But it’s a hard job. In practice, our advice is to wait until the child turns age 18. The higher burden of proof disappears and the child’s renunciation becomes a garden-variety case.

  17. @Neill

    The net debt (accounting for the various Federal trust funds and a number of financial assets) is about $12 trillion, not $18 trillion. The “unfunded” liabilities for the entitlement programs are not included because the Federal government (like all governments in the world) does not accrue for future expenses. If it did, it would also have to accrue for the return on its spending for education, research, infrastructure, healthcare, public safety, law and order, defense, etc…

    The debt is not set to grow by $1 trillion every year, but by about 2/3rds of that amount, according to the CBO. As a share of GDP, net Federal debt is actually projected to decrease marginally from 67% of GDP in 2014 to 65% in 2018.

    The data is here http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/45229-UpdatedBudgetProjections_2.pdf

  18. @Maz57

    I am not confusing debt and deficit. I believe however that you may be confusing real and nominal deficits, as well as notional and relative debt.

    The (nominal) Federal deficit is about 3% of current GDP, but the economy is growing at about 4.5% in nominal terms (2.5% real growth and 2% inflation measured by the GDP price deflator). As long as it is the case that nominal GDP growth exceeds the current year deficit, the percentage ratio of Federal debt to GDP will drop.

    The ratio of debt to GDP is really what matters. For comparison, imagine an individual with a $10,000 credit card debt. Clearly, the amount will be much more significant if the individual makes $20,000 per year than if he/she makes $1,000,000. Public debt is not much different.

  19. @ Tricia Moon & Stephen Kish
    Thanks for your replies and it’s nice to get that “private” bit of information. 😉

  20. @ Ted Bauman, @ Neill, @Maz57. I find multiple sources that say the US Debt is nearly 18 Trillion. Now as I understand it, the Social Security Trust Fund and other Government Trust have surpluses that some say reduce that number to about 12 or 13 Trillion. Interestingly however, the Social Security Trust Fund’s assets, including its so called surplus is comprised of US Government debt. In other words, the government has already raided the pension fund and given over IOUs. I don’t know about the other government trust funds, but I suspect a similar issue. It may be true that the CBO counts those funds as having real assets, but I think it is much more honest for the government to exclude it’s own IOUs from the calculations. In my mind the debt is more like 18 Trillion or more than 100% of GDP.

    Here is a quote from:
    http://seekingalpha.com/article/2542635-shrinking-deficit-u-s-government-debt-jumps-by-1_1-trillion-in-fiscal-2014

    “Regardless of what has been proffered by the White House, the Congressional Budget Office, and others, the total gross national debt outstanding of the US of A hit $17.824 trillion in fiscal 2014 ended September 30; a jump for the fiscal year of $1.086 trillion.”

  21. @Only a Canadian

    You can trust the non-partisan and generally very reliable CBO, staffed by some of the brightest economic minds in the nation, or……

    You can trust someone posting as “Testosterone Pit” on Seeking Alpha.

    For all the very reasonable distrust of the US Government one may accumulated, I would still pick the former over the latter…

  23. @Ted Baumann, I have to go with the $18 trillion number. Why? Public held debt is $13 trillion and the government internally holds $5 trillion.

    To not count that $5 trillion would be vodoo accounting. Why? Very simple that $5 trillion represents actual value that recipents are dependent upon. If that amount was suddenly invalidated there would be a pile of hurt in the USofA.

    That is not even getting into future unfunded liabilities of military pensions, health care and alike.

    Source, US Treasury

    http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/search?startMonth=09&startDay=29&startYear=2013&endMonth=10&endDay=01&endYear=2014

  24. @ Ted Baumann

    I get your point about nominal deficit (i.e. the annual deficit expressed as a percentage of GDP. It’s a way of expressing the real deficit in terms that make it seem less onerous. Nevertheless it is still a deficit and it still results in ever increasing indebtedness.

    To use your credit card analogy, the US is like a $1 million a year man who has $1 million of credit card debt. Not good, but manageable if your credit rating is good. If the US dollar were not the world reserve currency, it would never have gotten to this point.

    To the point in your original post about now being an opportune time for tax reform, I am not hopeful. Both parties have agreed for decades that tax reform would be a good thing; nothing has been accomplished. In fact the tax code has gotten steadily worse. FATCA is just the latest chapter.

  25. I am pretty sure Ted voted for Obama. Obama reduced the deficit!! Of course he was actually forced to cut what little spending reduction sequester got and they cried like the devil about how bad it was.
    On the unfunded liabilities of medicare and SS. The government actually took money from people to fund these programs. They spent all that money (not just Obama but all of them). Anybody who realistically looks at the fiscal picture in the US knows that medicare is the killer here.

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