Americans unable to open financial accounts. In CANADA!
28 seconds ago
Expats: Americans unable to open financial accounts. In CANADA! Pls RT. pic.twitter.com/luSoli0jTO
— U.S. Expat Canada (@USExpatCanada) February 21, 2015
While I don’t believe this is the first instance, I think we should start keeping a record of these and will look into a sidebar link so the discrimination is all in one place.
@Gwevil, your comment to @Schubert split the log……..
This reminds me of a question that I have seen in the EU which IMO is tolerable.
They should be asking.
1. Are you a Canadian Citizen?
2. Are you solely a taxpayer in Canada?
3. If no, are you a US Citizen? If not a US Citizen, (insert).
@Schubert. Citizenship is not specifically mentioned in the Charter but the Courts have found it to be an analogous ground. In fact, the very first Charter case was a citizenship case (on which Joe Arvay was representing the government of British Columbia which lost the case.
Similarly, the Charter does not mention sexual orientation, but the courts have ruled that sexual orientation is protected and us the reason why Canada was one of the first countries in the world to have same sex marriage.
Like you I am not a lawyer, but I just wanted to clarify that the courts have found citizenship to be a protected groud even though it is not specifically mentioned in the Charter.
However, banks are not covered by the Charter. They are covered by human rights laws. The enabling act overrides all Canadian laws so I don’t know if a human rights complaint would be successful or not.
@everyone
This won’t get settled until the court case is settled. Keep donating to the ADCS fund.
In the meantime, I expect there will be a lot more of these questions on account application forms at financial institutions. I’m not sure what value there is in hammering the FIs in Canada on this; they’re doing what their lawyers are no doubt telling them they have to do, given the IGA and enabling legislation. Unless the legal team gets a restraining order or an injunction, or wins a court decision, I don’t think the FIs are going to behave much differently than what we’ve seen here. Except probably for the local-client-base-exempted credit unions, those that have obtained that status anyway.
New Barrie McKenna article in the Globe and Mail:
Alberta online bank first in Canada to shun U.S. clients amid tax rules
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/alberta-online-bank-first-in-canada-to-shun-us-clients-amid-tax-rules/article23186804/
Making a new post to bring this back up to the top.
just read the globe article and the comments
perhaps one of the t.v. news shows will pick up on this and run with it to get it even more traction
slowly but surly the word is getting out and like the tom petty lyrics
Well, I won’t back down
No I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down
@Mettleman
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/10/29/i-wont-back-down/
Basically, it is like blaming the tavern manager for refusing to serve beer to people under age, when it is the government and the police who intimidate the tavern owner into refusing such service. Repeal the underage drinking laws and then let each tavern manager decide; repeal the FATCA IGA & enabling legislation, and then let each bank decide. First, one small provincial bank will bravely open and offer only Canadian-dollar accounts; but with lower costs will be able to offer better prices and rates and will also attract pro-Canada depositors. A correspondent bank in non-IGA El Salvador and Ecuador, and they can process US-dollar payments because the US dollar is the currency of those countries. One by one, they open correspondent bank accounts in non-IGA currency areas. For example, Monaco is a Euro country with no IGA and two non-FATCA banks. Gradually, the non-IGA countries have parallel correspondent bank relationships around the world. The Canadian dollar gradually replaces the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Re: Citizenship is not specifically mentioned in the Charter but the Courts have found it to be an analogous ground. In fact, the very first Charter case was a citizenship case (on which Joe Arvay was representing the government of British Columbia which lost the case.
…not just CITIZENSHIP. A foreign law saying the Canadian citizen is a citizen of that foreign country.
Bloomberg Daily Tax report says a Treasury Official stated at an international conference on April 17 that financial institutions in IGA Model 1 jurisdictions such as the UK and Canada must obtain a self-certification of residency and citizenship BEFORE opening a new account. Apparently the prior interpretation of this, issued by the UK at any rate, was that the financial institution could open the account and if the certification wasn’t provided in 90 days, could treat the account holder as a US person. Presumably, the US Treasury official is saying that a self-certification is a precondition to anyone’s being able to open an account in any Model 1 jurisdiction. This interpretation gives the bank a chance to reject you which the bank most certainly will do, and gives the you the customer a perjury problem if you lied, or just didn’t know, about the fact that you are a US person.