‘Being an atomic-bomb-threat-under-the-desk-survivor, I resent comparisons being made between that experience and the current campaign of terror against US non-residents. Clearly the former is more humane, as we as children believed as we were told – that a desk would prevent us from incineration. We would not have known what hit us. Learning you are a US person for tax purposes is much worse than that.’
There are still some long term survivors of the A-bombs. There were also quite a lot at the time who survived for a few days, and most likely the living envied the dead, as scientists advised will happen in World War III. Of course it’s not a desk that protected (to whatever degree); it was just a matter of chance, whatever path the blast waves travelled, just like some buildings survive typhoons or hurricanes or tsunami or tornadoes.
I wonder how long it will be until living persons who discover they’re US persons for tax purposes envy the dead.
“Could you be thinking about one of these posts?”
In those two posts I don’t see the year when Mr. Conklin testified in Congress. I can’t find it now.
@ Norman Diamond
1978 and 2013, so 35 years of inaction between Roger’s submissions. Try mapping this onto the US international trade deficit figures for the same time period if you want to have some fun. Actually, start at 1976 and see where the line goes from there:
‘a report that came out earlier last month that in essence says that the IRS has absoutly no clue how to reach any of the over 7 million expats or if they do they have no way to ensure that the package sent actually made it through to the addressee.’
There are reasons why that’s true and reasons why that’s not true.
Reasons why it’s true include these:
1. Many of the IRS’s letters are mailed without proper postage, which ordinarily means USPS would return them to the sender, but the IRS has an agreement with USPS for USPS to destroy some of the IRS’s letters instead of returning them. Some but not all, but I don’t know the criteria. USPS does return some mail to the IRS, US Tax Court, US Court of Federal Claims, etc., when postage is insufficient, but not always.
2. Many of the IRS’s letters are sent to scrambled addresses, making them undeliverable, and the IRS’s envelopes have return addresses ending in international standard abbreviations for Panama (PA), Canada (CA), etc. So when the destination post office can’t figure out the correct address, they return the letter to Panama, Canada, etc. USPS’s web site tells senders to put the US’s country name at the end of the return address, but why should the US government obey that?
3. Many of the IRS’s letters are mailed from Germany or the UK etc., with unreadable return addresses in unreadable postal meters. Some of those are sent air mail and some are sent sea mail. In fact the UK allows letters to be sent by 2nd class sea mail in cases where sending from the US would require 1st class postage and sending from Japan would require sending either 1st class air mail or 1st class sea mail. Of course those letters (and ISAL letters mailed from the US) arrive after the expiry of a 10 day deadline or 20 day deadline that they set for victims to reply.
4. Sometimes the IRS doesn’t even mail its letter until weeks or months later than the date written in the letter. So if they wonder whether a letter arrived or not, maybe they don’t even know if they mailed the letter yet or not.
5. Even when the victim replies to the letter, the IRS doesn’t have the reply because, as TIGTA reports, IRS employees steal incoming mail.
Reasons why it’s not true include this:
The IRS knows how to register a letter when it wants to. The IRS often though not always registers a letter when the law requires it to do so, and sometimes registers letters that it doesn’t have to.
(Though I wonder … Three of my registered letters to the IRS never arrived; USPS reported to Japan Post that USPS had lost track of them. So who knows if the IRS might have sent me registered letters that also got lost in USPS? It is theoretically possible for Japan Post to lose a registered letter too, but they would have records showing exactly where it disappeared.)
norman……exactly……my point being unless I were to stand up and wave my hand that here I am uncle sam just how is he going to find me.
the last address he has for me is from 1966. the great majority of my banking is done through a “local client based” credit union. I have minimal big 5 banking exposure and what is has been at those banks for upwards of 20 years.
the last time I was in one of the big 5 banks setting up an account a couple of months ago there were no questions at all asked about my citizenship. were there any asked I would have walked out.
the IRS is so underfunded and struggling the only way harm is going to come to most of us is if we tell the IRS who and where we are
this does not make me want not to fight any more but rather reinforces my resolve and attituted that this whole situation is wrong. but I will be damed if I am going to make it easy on uncle sam to find me.
Actually Uncle Sam does know how to find me because I’ve been at the same address since 1998 and I’m not hiding.
Though by coincidence a few days ago the IRS told me they have a record[*] of trying to contact me but being unable to contact me. They couldn’t say what they were trying to contact me about because they had purged records[*]. I can only guess that USPS returned a letter with insufficient postage. Or maybe an IRS letter with an undeliverable scrambled address and invalid return address (e.g. ending in FL or something that isn’t an ISO country abbreviation) might have been registered so the Japanese post office could figure out what country to return it to.
Despite me not having moved since 1998, the IRS has made several changes to the address they send mail to. I used to think they were just being nonsensical, but after reading TIGTA reports I have a feeling I can guess what their embezzlers were doing. Among documents for which I tried to compel discovery, I tried to get a list of address changes they made to my account, and the reasons.
[* It seems they do still have some limited amount of records of me despite having done a purge. As for purging records while my account is in litigation, courts say that a negative inference is warranted for spoliation of evidence: Estate of Wilshire v. US, No. 1:07-CV-00377 (Southern District of Ohio, 2008) . I’ve gradually figured out part of what the IRS is trying to hide, so I guess they had to purge records before I could find out more.]
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-tax/2015/10/pro-morning-tax-210489
See Section “Dear Americans Abroad..The IRS has trouble tracking the notices and letters it sends to U.S. citizens who live abroad, according to a new audit. The agency heavily relies on them to communicate with citizens about their tax obligations to their home country. “Even though the IRS sent approximately 855,000 notices and letters to U.S. taxpayers living in other countries during Calendar Year 2014, it cannot determine taxpayer response rates…………”
The US should threaten a withholding 30% of all mail destined to other nations unless those nations commit to properly deliver IRS mail to US taxpayers!
@Norman Diamond
“I wonder how long it will be until living persons who discover they’re US persons for tax purposes envy the dead.”
Unfortunately death offers little relief for some, nor their estate’s executors.
“Offshore accounts
In the spotlight now are foreign bank and other financial accounts, which must be disclosed on a Foreign Bank Account Report, known as the FBAR, if they total more than $10,000. This requirement applies not only to owners, but also to inheritors and anyone with “signatory authority” over the account. Here’s a surprise: an adult child with power of attorney on her elderly parents’ foreign accounts must file her own FBAR , even if she never took any action on the account, according to an Internal Revenue Service manual. Failure to file an FBAR is punishable with steep penalties—up to half of the account’s value for each year of nonfiling—and can even be criminal if a violation is willful.”
to a report that came out earlier last month that in essence says that the IRS has absoutly no clue how to reach any of the over 7 million expats or if they do they have no way to ensure that the package sent actually made it through to the addressee.
just one more reason that were I ever to get a brown envelope it would end up at the bottom of the bird cage cause “sorry uncle sam I never got your letter” 🙂
There are also good comments at that thread by Norman Diamond — along with other commentary at Deckard’s post about *The Roundup Begins*, isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/10/01/the-roundup-begins/. It does indeed and there are may ways of looking at it.
Thanks once again, bubblebustin — the worry I have in the wee hours of the night described in that paragraph about *Offshore Accounts*.
As the roundup begins, I’ve heard a lot of people mention IRS forms W9 and W8-BEN. I think they’re related to withholding taxes on US income. Can non-US banks force us to sign one of these two forms in order to open a Canadian bank account that has no US income? Or are these forms strictly for accounts that receive US income like Social Security payments or dividends from US stocks???
“Can non-US banks force us to sign one of these two forms in order to open a Canadian bank account that has no US income?”
As far as I can tell, W9 (supposed to be used by US persons) and W8-BEN (supposed to be used by persons who aren’t US persons) are supposed to apply only to US sourced income.
However, TD Waterhouse in Canada withheld both 10% Canadian withholding and 30% US withholding from Canadian sourced interest income in my Canadian account in 2002. TD Waterhouse refused to explain themselves and the result was closing my account.
The IRS later told me TD Waterhouse withheld US withholding from Canadian sourced income because TD Waterhouse had a US affiliate — and if my Japanese employer had a US affiliate then my Japanese employer would also have to withhold 30% US withholding in addition to around 20% Japanese withholding from my salary for working in Japan.
So I think your Canadian bank can withhold 30% US withholding from your Canadian interest income, and can close your account. It seems judges are saying the Canadian and US governments aren’t forcing you to sign one of those two forms because your bank is the one forcing you to sign one of those two forms.
Marie. I think the answer to your question is here on page 104 and 114-117 of the pdf version http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/nhncdrprtng/gdnc-eng.pdf
This is the Aug 2015 version of the CRAs Guidance for enhanced financial reporting. CRA has gone ‘all in’ with the US.
8.64 Self-certifications must result in a clear declaration from account holders as to whether they are specified U.S. persons. There is no prescribed form for the certification. While forms issued by the IRS (such as the W-8 and W-9 series) may be used in connection with establishing an account holder’s status, there is no requirement to use them (see paragraph 7.12). Financial institutions may choose the form. Such a form must be designed to ask the account holder to declare his or her residency for tax purposes. Also, the approach adopted by a particular financial institution must address directly the question of U.S. citizenship or clearly indicate that a U.S. citizen is a specified U.S. person. Examples of the types of questions and instructions that are acceptable are provided in Chapter 9 of this guidance.
I think this means most FIs will ask new customers to sign a W8 Ben or a W9. They are however able to substitute their own form .(for example in an online application. ) Demanding place of birth is not required.
It’s one thing to as a Canadian to tick off a box asserting “I am not a US person” when opening a bank acct.
Canadians with absolutely no US connection are going to be pretty pissed off when they are expected to fill out onerous, multiple page IRS tax documents when opening simple saving/chequing accounts with no US income. Just sayin.
@Marie
Sorry to say… its just another form to fill… when one opens a new account… they just hand papers over…. many do not read it & sign because they trust the bank & gov’t not to screw them over… Also… many do not know the problems about admitting to being a US person… yrs before… it wasn’t a big deal to say u are or not… they do not realize how their lives will turn to crap when they admit it… being a US person is a deep dark secret… once u are tagged as a US person… how do u know that tag is not entered into a database to be shared with everyone… ok… the last part maybe my crazy thought… but if u think about it… its easily done since US persons have no privacy or rights under the law
Does anyone have anything hopeful to report? I just looked at the latest election projections and decided I don’t want to live in Canada after October 19th. You can’t sing or vote out the Harper tyrant when the bulk of the electorate is either too stupid or too apathetic to try. This was Thomas Mulcair’s chance to triumph and right now it looks like he’s tanking. http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/poll-tracker/2015/index.html
@EmBee
If you live in a swing riding, vote strategically. Encourage everyone you know to get out and vote. The Con’s aren’t exactly helping themselves with things like their new “barbaric cultural” practices tip line. Then pray, pray, pray!
@ Marie
I don’t live in a swing riding. Everyone here sees the world through dark blue lenses which are so very effective at filtering out all the other colours. My orange or green protest vote will be insignificant, just as all FATCA’d folks in Canada are insignificant to the Harper regime and the oblivious Canadian population as a whole.
@EmBee
Same here. My riding is so blue, it’s almost black. Hopefully other riding’s will make up the difference.
“Canadians with absolutely no US connection are going to be pretty pissed off when they are expected to fill out onerous, multiple page IRS tax documents when opening simple saving/chequing accounts with no US income.”
I think W8-BEN is a single page. But I think the Con artists should make agreements with 190 countries so that all Canadians with absolutely no connection to those 190 countries have to fill out 190 single-page forms. Let the Con artists and the banksters who own them enjoy processing those.
Keith Redmond posted this on FB today:
Please see the e-mail response I received below on 6 October from the general counsel of the World Council of Credit Unions.
Dear Mr. Redmond,
In the US, the only information about non-resident aliens’ accounts being collected by IRS from US-based banks and credit unions is interest income reported on IRS Form 1099-INT. This reporting requirement only applies to interest income, so there is no reporting to the IRS concerning non-interest bearing accounts held by non-resident aliens at this time.
Other information about those accounts that FATCA requires non-US financial institutions to report to the IRS or the government of the country where they live–such as the non-resident aliens’ account balances on December 31st of each year–is not being submitted to the IRS by US institutions. This is because the statutory authority for that type of information collection on US-institutions is not in place.
That means that the US Treasury is likely only able to share with foreign governments the information reported to it from Form 1099-INT about non-resident aliens’ interest income (if any) on deposit accounts because that is the only information being collected.
Thanks.
Michael S. Edwards
VP and General Counsel
World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU)
I’m no tax expert, but could this have to do with FATCA data collection? Many of us are convinced that because US banks aren’t authorized to collect banking info under FATCA, the IRS has instead provided the CRA with information readily available to the IRS when a US person in Canada reports income earned in the US on a US tax return:
Canada Is Checking Foreign Tax Credits
It is not uncommon for e-filed returns or paper filed returns that claim a credit for US tax for CRA to request verification.
US tax paid per Canadian withholding slips are not requested because the slips are issued by a Canadian entity. They are looking to US tax claimed per US reporting slips such as W2s, 1099s, 1042s or from the US 1040/1040NR tax returns. US social security tax and medicare (ie., FICA) is creditable if it relates to US source wages or services performed in the US which is evident on the W2.
Foreign tax credits claimed in respect of US computed from the US tax return based on determination of what portion of the tax payable of the return relates to US source income that is creditable is usually supportable by submitting to CRA your schedules and copy of the federal (and state where applicable) return. Recently CRA has been requesting transcript which is like our notice of assessment.
Unfortunately, IRS does not issue anything if there is no additional tax liability or interest/penalties from your US filings. You need to request the transcript by calling the IRS or request it from their website.
‘the IRS has instead provided the CRA with information readily available to the IRS when a US person in Canada reports income earned in the US on a US tax return:’
As far as I could tell, the US – Canada tax treaty allowed the IRS to report everything to the CRA, regardless of whether coming from a tax return or payer-issued tax form, regardless of whether the payee has any kind of connection to Canada.
‘US tax paid per Canadian withholding slips are not requested because the slips are issued by a Canadian entity.’
To the best of my recollection, when my account at a Canadian stockbroker held shares of US and Japanese companies, the T-5 did not distinguish which countries had taken withholding.
‘US social security tax and medicare (ie., FICA) is creditable if it relates to US source wages or services performed in the US which is evident on the W2.’
I couldn’t figure that out. When my Canadian employer sent me to work at a customer of my employer’s US subsidiary, my employer paid part of my salary and deducted Canadian income tax withholding and social insurance, and the US subsidiary paid part of my salary and deducted US income tax withholding and social insurance. For income tax, salary from both companies was US-sourced on days when I was working in the US and salary from both companies was Canadian-sourced on days when I was working in Canada. I could compute US income tax accrued on the US-sourced portion and a Canadian foreign tax credit for that amount, and compute Canadian income tax accrued on the Canadian-sourced portion and a US foreign tax credit for that amount. However, I couldn’t figure out how to do any rearrangement of social insurance taxes. This was a few years before the social insurance totalization treaty, so there was no such thing as claiming exemption from US social security due to being covered by Canadian social insurance.
Now that there is a totalization treaty, why would US social insurance be creditable on a Canadian return? Why wouldn’t the worker just claim exemption from US social insurance and pay Canadian social insurance on their Canadian return?
‘Unfortunately, IRS does not issue anything if there is no additional tax liability or interest/penalties from your US filings. You need to request the transcript by calling the IRS or request it from their website.’
You need to file two Forms 4506-T each year, one for transcript of your account and one for transcript of withholding such as W-2, 1099, etc. I read that the IRS closed down that part of their web site because it was being used by identity thieves, so you have to mail Forms 4506-T on paper. I can’t imagine how to submit such a request by telephone.
@ Norman Diamond
Could you be thinking about one of these posts?
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/01/19/roger-conklin-writes-about-why-he-left-brazil-in-1976/
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/01/29/the-tail-that-wags-the-cow-roger-conklin-on-past-lobbying-efforts/
‘Being an atomic-bomb-threat-under-the-desk-survivor, I resent comparisons being made between that experience and the current campaign of terror against US non-residents. Clearly the former is more humane, as we as children believed as we were told – that a desk would prevent us from incineration. We would not have known what hit us. Learning you are a US person for tax purposes is much worse than that.’
There are still some long term survivors of the A-bombs. There were also quite a lot at the time who survived for a few days, and most likely the living envied the dead, as scientists advised will happen in World War III. Of course it’s not a desk that protected (to whatever degree); it was just a matter of chance, whatever path the blast waves travelled, just like some buildings survive typhoons or hurricanes or tsunami or tornadoes.
I wonder how long it will be until living persons who discover they’re US persons for tax purposes envy the dead.
“Could you be thinking about one of these posts?”
In those two posts I don’t see the year when Mr. Conklin testified in Congress. I can’t find it now.
@ Norman Diamond
1978 and 2013, so 35 years of inaction between Roger’s submissions. Try mapping this onto the US international trade deficit figures for the same time period if you want to have some fun. Actually, start at 1976 and see where the line goes from there:
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/graphs/gands.html
‘a report that came out earlier last month that in essence says that the IRS has absoutly no clue how to reach any of the over 7 million expats or if they do they have no way to ensure that the package sent actually made it through to the addressee.’
There are reasons why that’s true and reasons why that’s not true.
Reasons why it’s true include these:
1. Many of the IRS’s letters are mailed without proper postage, which ordinarily means USPS would return them to the sender, but the IRS has an agreement with USPS for USPS to destroy some of the IRS’s letters instead of returning them. Some but not all, but I don’t know the criteria. USPS does return some mail to the IRS, US Tax Court, US Court of Federal Claims, etc., when postage is insufficient, but not always.
2. Many of the IRS’s letters are sent to scrambled addresses, making them undeliverable, and the IRS’s envelopes have return addresses ending in international standard abbreviations for Panama (PA), Canada (CA), etc. So when the destination post office can’t figure out the correct address, they return the letter to Panama, Canada, etc. USPS’s web site tells senders to put the US’s country name at the end of the return address, but why should the US government obey that?
3. Many of the IRS’s letters are mailed from Germany or the UK etc., with unreadable return addresses in unreadable postal meters. Some of those are sent air mail and some are sent sea mail. In fact the UK allows letters to be sent by 2nd class sea mail in cases where sending from the US would require 1st class postage and sending from Japan would require sending either 1st class air mail or 1st class sea mail. Of course those letters (and ISAL letters mailed from the US) arrive after the expiry of a 10 day deadline or 20 day deadline that they set for victims to reply.
4. Sometimes the IRS doesn’t even mail its letter until weeks or months later than the date written in the letter. So if they wonder whether a letter arrived or not, maybe they don’t even know if they mailed the letter yet or not.
5. Even when the victim replies to the letter, the IRS doesn’t have the reply because, as TIGTA reports, IRS employees steal incoming mail.
Reasons why it’s not true include this:
The IRS knows how to register a letter when it wants to. The IRS often though not always registers a letter when the law requires it to do so, and sometimes registers letters that it doesn’t have to.
(Though I wonder … Three of my registered letters to the IRS never arrived; USPS reported to Japan Post that USPS had lost track of them. So who knows if the IRS might have sent me registered letters that also got lost in USPS? It is theoretically possible for Japan Post to lose a registered letter too, but they would have records showing exactly where it disappeared.)
norman……exactly……my point being unless I were to stand up and wave my hand that here I am uncle sam just how is he going to find me.
the last address he has for me is from 1966. the great majority of my banking is done through a “local client based” credit union. I have minimal big 5 banking exposure and what is has been at those banks for upwards of 20 years.
the last time I was in one of the big 5 banks setting up an account a couple of months ago there were no questions at all asked about my citizenship. were there any asked I would have walked out.
the IRS is so underfunded and struggling the only way harm is going to come to most of us is if we tell the IRS who and where we are
this does not make me want not to fight any more but rather reinforces my resolve and attituted that this whole situation is wrong. but I will be damed if I am going to make it easy on uncle sam to find me.
Actually Uncle Sam does know how to find me because I’ve been at the same address since 1998 and I’m not hiding.
Though by coincidence a few days ago the IRS told me they have a record[*] of trying to contact me but being unable to contact me. They couldn’t say what they were trying to contact me about because they had purged records[*]. I can only guess that USPS returned a letter with insufficient postage. Or maybe an IRS letter with an undeliverable scrambled address and invalid return address (e.g. ending in FL or something that isn’t an ISO country abbreviation) might have been registered so the Japanese post office could figure out what country to return it to.
Despite me not having moved since 1998, the IRS has made several changes to the address they send mail to. I used to think they were just being nonsensical, but after reading TIGTA reports I have a feeling I can guess what their embezzlers were doing. Among documents for which I tried to compel discovery, I tried to get a list of address changes they made to my account, and the reasons.
[* It seems they do still have some limited amount of records of me despite having done a purge. As for purging records while my account is in litigation, courts say that a negative inference is warranted for spoliation of evidence: Estate of Wilshire v. US, No. 1:07-CV-00377 (Southern District of Ohio, 2008) . I’ve gradually figured out part of what the IRS is trying to hide, so I guess they had to purge records before I could find out more.]
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-tax/2015/10/pro-morning-tax-210489
See Section “Dear Americans Abroad..The IRS has trouble tracking the notices and letters it sends to U.S. citizens who live abroad, according to a new audit. The agency heavily relies on them to communicate with citizens about their tax obligations to their home country. “Even though the IRS sent approximately 855,000 notices and letters to U.S. taxpayers living in other countries during Calendar Year 2014, it cannot determine taxpayer response rates…………”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-tax/2015/10/pro-morning-tax-210489#ixzz3nPxh3oVp
The report: http://1.usa.gov/1KSsKj7
The US should threaten a withholding 30% of all mail destined to other nations unless those nations commit to properly deliver IRS mail to US taxpayers!
@Norman Diamond
“I wonder how long it will be until living persons who discover they’re US persons for tax purposes envy the dead.”
Unfortunately death offers little relief for some, nor their estate’s executors.
“Offshore accounts
In the spotlight now are foreign bank and other financial accounts, which must be disclosed on a Foreign Bank Account Report, known as the FBAR, if they total more than $10,000. This requirement applies not only to owners, but also to inheritors and anyone with “signatory authority” over the account. Here’s a surprise: an adult child with power of attorney on her elderly parents’ foreign accounts must file her own FBAR , even if she never took any action on the account, according to an Internal Revenue Service manual. Failure to file an FBAR is punishable with steep penalties—up to half of the account’s value for each year of nonfiling—and can even be criminal if a violation is willful.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2014/06/18/heirs-left-with-unpaid-bills-may-inherit-more-grief-than-gold/
And, a thanks to anne boleyn for providing the information on this, the report now posted at: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/10/02/from-the-u-s-tigta-planned-improvements-have-not-been-made-to-manage-and-track-correspondence-with-international-taxpayers/. It was also reported mettleman in http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/10/01/the-roundup-begins/comment-page-1/#comment-6639371, who said:
There are also good comments at that thread by Norman Diamond — along with other commentary at Deckard’s post about *The Roundup Begins*, isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/10/01/the-roundup-begins/. It does indeed and there are may ways of looking at it.
Thanks once again, bubblebustin — the worry I have in the wee hours of the night described in that paragraph about *Offshore Accounts*.
As the roundup begins, I’ve heard a lot of people mention IRS forms W9 and W8-BEN. I think they’re related to withholding taxes on US income. Can non-US banks force us to sign one of these two forms in order to open a Canadian bank account that has no US income? Or are these forms strictly for accounts that receive US income like Social Security payments or dividends from US stocks???
“Can non-US banks force us to sign one of these two forms in order to open a Canadian bank account that has no US income?”
As far as I can tell, W9 (supposed to be used by US persons) and W8-BEN (supposed to be used by persons who aren’t US persons) are supposed to apply only to US sourced income.
However, TD Waterhouse in Canada withheld both 10% Canadian withholding and 30% US withholding from Canadian sourced interest income in my Canadian account in 2002. TD Waterhouse refused to explain themselves and the result was closing my account.
The IRS later told me TD Waterhouse withheld US withholding from Canadian sourced income because TD Waterhouse had a US affiliate — and if my Japanese employer had a US affiliate then my Japanese employer would also have to withhold 30% US withholding in addition to around 20% Japanese withholding from my salary for working in Japan.
So I think your Canadian bank can withhold 30% US withholding from your Canadian interest income, and can close your account. It seems judges are saying the Canadian and US governments aren’t forcing you to sign one of those two forms because your bank is the one forcing you to sign one of those two forms.
Marie. I think the answer to your question is here on page 104 and 114-117 of the pdf version
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/nhncdrprtng/gdnc-eng.pdf
This is the Aug 2015 version of the CRAs Guidance for enhanced financial reporting. CRA has gone ‘all in’ with the US.
I think this means most FIs will ask new customers to sign a W8 Ben or a W9. They are however able to substitute their own form .(for example in an online application. ) Demanding place of birth is not required.
It’s one thing to as a Canadian to tick off a box asserting “I am not a US person” when opening a bank acct.
Canadians with absolutely no US connection are going to be pretty pissed off when they are expected to fill out onerous, multiple page IRS tax documents when opening simple saving/chequing accounts with no US income. Just sayin.
@Marie
Sorry to say… its just another form to fill… when one opens a new account… they just hand papers over…. many do not read it & sign because they trust the bank & gov’t not to screw them over… Also… many do not know the problems about admitting to being a US person… yrs before… it wasn’t a big deal to say u are or not… they do not realize how their lives will turn to crap when they admit it… being a US person is a deep dark secret… once u are tagged as a US person… how do u know that tag is not entered into a database to be shared with everyone… ok… the last part maybe my crazy thought… but if u think about it… its easily done since US persons have no privacy or rights under the law
Does anyone have anything hopeful to report? I just looked at the latest election projections and decided I don’t want to live in Canada after October 19th. You can’t sing or vote out the Harper tyrant when the bulk of the electorate is either too stupid or too apathetic to try. This was Thomas Mulcair’s chance to triumph and right now it looks like he’s tanking.
http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/poll-tracker/2015/index.html
@EmBee
If you live in a swing riding, vote strategically. Encourage everyone you know to get out and vote. The Con’s aren’t exactly helping themselves with things like their new “barbaric cultural” practices tip line. Then pray, pray, pray!
@ Marie
I don’t live in a swing riding. Everyone here sees the world through dark blue lenses which are so very effective at filtering out all the other colours. My orange or green protest vote will be insignificant, just as all FATCA’d folks in Canada are insignificant to the Harper regime and the oblivious Canadian population as a whole.
@EmBee
Same here. My riding is so blue, it’s almost black. Hopefully other riding’s will make up the difference.
“Canadians with absolutely no US connection are going to be pretty pissed off when they are expected to fill out onerous, multiple page IRS tax documents when opening simple saving/chequing accounts with no US income.”
I think W8-BEN is a single page. But I think the Con artists should make agreements with 190 countries so that all Canadians with absolutely no connection to those 190 countries have to fill out 190 single-page forms. Let the Con artists and the banksters who own them enjoy processing those.
Keith Redmond posted this on FB today:
Please see the e-mail response I received below on 6 October from the general counsel of the World Council of Credit Unions.
Dear Mr. Redmond,
In the US, the only information about non-resident aliens’ accounts being collected by IRS from US-based banks and credit unions is interest income reported on IRS Form 1099-INT. This reporting requirement only applies to interest income, so there is no reporting to the IRS concerning non-interest bearing accounts held by non-resident aliens at this time.
Other information about those accounts that FATCA requires non-US financial institutions to report to the IRS or the government of the country where they live–such as the non-resident aliens’ account balances on December 31st of each year–is not being submitted to the IRS by US institutions. This is because the statutory authority for that type of information collection on US-institutions is not in place.
That means that the US Treasury is likely only able to share with foreign governments the information reported to it from Form 1099-INT about non-resident aliens’ interest income (if any) on deposit accounts because that is the only information being collected.
Thanks.
Michael S. Edwards
VP and General Counsel
World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU)
I’m no tax expert, but could this have to do with FATCA data collection? Many of us are convinced that because US banks aren’t authorized to collect banking info under FATCA, the IRS has instead provided the CRA with information readily available to the IRS when a US person in Canada reports income earned in the US on a US tax return:
Canada Is Checking Foreign Tax Credits
It is not uncommon for e-filed returns or paper filed returns that claim a credit for US tax for CRA to request verification.
US tax paid per Canadian withholding slips are not requested because the slips are issued by a Canadian entity. They are looking to US tax claimed per US reporting slips such as W2s, 1099s, 1042s or from the US 1040/1040NR tax returns. US social security tax and medicare (ie., FICA) is creditable if it relates to US source wages or services performed in the US which is evident on the W2.
Foreign tax credits claimed in respect of US computed from the US tax return based on determination of what portion of the tax payable of the return relates to US source income that is creditable is usually supportable by submitting to CRA your schedules and copy of the federal (and state where applicable) return. Recently CRA has been requesting transcript which is like our notice of assessment.
Unfortunately, IRS does not issue anything if there is no additional tax liability or interest/penalties from your US filings. You need to request the transcript by calling the IRS or request it from their website.
Original Post By: Larry Stolberg
http://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/canada-is-checking-foreign-tax-credits/#.VlSJVXr9erU
‘the IRS has instead provided the CRA with information readily available to the IRS when a US person in Canada reports income earned in the US on a US tax return:’
As far as I could tell, the US – Canada tax treaty allowed the IRS to report everything to the CRA, regardless of whether coming from a tax return or payer-issued tax form, regardless of whether the payee has any kind of connection to Canada.
‘US tax paid per Canadian withholding slips are not requested because the slips are issued by a Canadian entity.’
To the best of my recollection, when my account at a Canadian stockbroker held shares of US and Japanese companies, the T-5 did not distinguish which countries had taken withholding.
‘US social security tax and medicare (ie., FICA) is creditable if it relates to US source wages or services performed in the US which is evident on the W2.’
I couldn’t figure that out. When my Canadian employer sent me to work at a customer of my employer’s US subsidiary, my employer paid part of my salary and deducted Canadian income tax withholding and social insurance, and the US subsidiary paid part of my salary and deducted US income tax withholding and social insurance. For income tax, salary from both companies was US-sourced on days when I was working in the US and salary from both companies was Canadian-sourced on days when I was working in Canada. I could compute US income tax accrued on the US-sourced portion and a Canadian foreign tax credit for that amount, and compute Canadian income tax accrued on the Canadian-sourced portion and a US foreign tax credit for that amount. However, I couldn’t figure out how to do any rearrangement of social insurance taxes. This was a few years before the social insurance totalization treaty, so there was no such thing as claiming exemption from US social security due to being covered by Canadian social insurance.
Now that there is a totalization treaty, why would US social insurance be creditable on a Canadian return? Why wouldn’t the worker just claim exemption from US social insurance and pay Canadian social insurance on their Canadian return?
‘Unfortunately, IRS does not issue anything if there is no additional tax liability or interest/penalties from your US filings. You need to request the transcript by calling the IRS or request it from their website.’
You need to file two Forms 4506-T each year, one for transcript of your account and one for transcript of withholding such as W-2, 1099, etc. I read that the IRS closed down that part of their web site because it was being used by identity thieves, so you have to mail Forms 4506-T on paper. I can’t imagine how to submit such a request by telephone.