Also note: USA imposes excise tax on ‘foreign’ insurance of US Persons, w/ joint & sev liab https://t.co/Iw3qkwUoaR https://t.co/ulwxT9clAL
— Allison Christians (@taxpolblog) November 19, 2015
This is a superb interview of Allison Christians With Robert Goulder of Tax Analysts/Tax Notes
Published on Nov 20, 2015
Update – November 22, 2015
This interview has also been archived at the IBS YouTube channel.
Hard Pressed et al
The “why” of FATCA can be seen in its original sponsors…knee-jerk liberals out to “get” the tax avoider fatcats…Barack Obama, Carl Levin, Max Baucus, Charles Schumer, etc…none of them smart enough to foresee consequences . So originally, it was cluelessness bordering on stupidity.Now it is just face-saving meanness, at which Obama excels. Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary, knows what we’re going through. He doesn’t care because his master doesn’t either. Simple as that. John Koskinen, head of the IRS is just the bagman for Lew and Obama. His lies before Congress were epic some time ago in the Lois Lerner “lost email”
saga. The good ship Obama is simply rotten to the core. God help us!!
@Duke, re;
“..The obvious thing to do with RESPs, RDSPs, and TFSAs is to not mention them. It seems clear to me that is exactly what the Can. Government expects Canadians to do. Why else insist that they be excluded from reporting?”….
Then if that is what the Canadian government “expects” then it is demonstrating that it is too chickenshit to protect its citizens and residents from a foreign government’s extraterritorial incursions into the affairs of Canadians by refusing to go along with US extraterritorial demands, and too craven to fix the pre-existing gaping holes in the tax treaty it already has with the US – a tax treaty which still does not protect the TFSAs, RESPs, and RDSPs that represent important social and economic policies specifically created in Canada for the betterment of Canadians and our society.
The Canadian federal government was and is willfully conscious of these problems, and certainly aware of how FATCA would exacerbate them. Hinting to Canadians with US taxable status that they should cope by reading between the lines re registered accounts is not a viable solution. For one thing, doesn’t the FATCA IGA say that the accts don’t NEED to be reported by Canadian institutions, but does not actually forbid them from doing so?
The Canadian government owes its citizens and residents a duty of care. Advising them via whispers and sidelong glances to make deliberate omissions in reporting as a workaround to an agreement it has entered into with a foreign governmenta and agreed to enforce is not actually fulfilling a duty of care. Forcing those very same citizens and residents to resort to subterfuge in coping with FATCA on their own as individuals is cowardly BS.
The big Why. There really is a class of nasty wealth-hiding scamsters that needs to get nailed to the wall. FATCA is a quintessential American weapon, a crude nail gun. So maybe that sharp-steel-shooter only ever lethally rivets the peasants who are scattered around out in the open in foreign fields. Oh well, at least the US made the usual heroic effort to smoke ’em out dead or alive while damning the torpedoes. The US specializes in crude. Bombs bursting in air, as some song once put it. A prime byproduct of crude is collateral damage. Brock offers up a lot of twisted unintended humor via persons imbued with a US-ness and privilege that manifests itself in impassioned and bombastic legalistic defense of presumed rights. Along the way, said self-defenders of the whole world (not just themselves) regularly throw thoroughly American hissy fits over how unjust it is for THEY THEMSELVES to actually become US collateral damage. Welcome to the rest of the world, where havoc routinely rains down at US whim on everyone who is without a fallout shelter. No discrimination there.
@usxcanada
I must admit that now when some student, particularly one from outside Europe, says that the U.S. is just a big bully, I am much more sympathetic than I used to be, even though I have disliked CBT for decades after having a very small scholarship taxed. It’s not right to have a tax code that many people can only live within by not following the rules since it gets ability to pay so wrong.
@Fred
I generally don’t think it’s a good idea to admit to not following the rules on a public forum, even when the rules are barking.
Allison Christians asked when the U.S. stopped thinking about Americans abroad as goodwill ambassadors. The U.S. generally stopped being interested in cultural diplomacy after it won the Cold War. Kirsch’s argument seems to be essentially the U.S. government’s argument: the U.S. no longer requires the services of its “goodwill ambassadors” abroad because the world is familiar with American culture from television and the movies. All the goodwill ambassadors just never realized that the U.S. government considered them to be surplus to requirements. FATCA is just one big pink slip. What the U.S. government hasn’t recognized its that the image of America presented in the media does not export well. See, for example, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/american-dream-world-diplomacy/410080/
I have heard young Britons say that they think Americans are very selfish and individualistic, which makes sense since their view of the U.S. seems to come from House of Cards, Big Bang Theory, and re-runs Friends. Americans are big on volunteering, but I can’t recall anyone on those shows doing much for charity.
My thanks to Allison Christians for a truly superb summation of our situation. Kudos also to the very fine interviewer who asked his questions and then allowed Allison to fully address what he had asked without interruption. This is a very useful resource for our continuing fight.
@Badger
These duplicitous ‘carve-outs’ the Harper government was “thrilled” to promote as so good for Canadians under our version of the IGA really only benefit Canadians who choose to rely on the final line of defence, that is the treaty’s revenue rule.
The Canadian government promotes US tax evasion as a reasonable way for Canadians to deal with the ill-effects of FATCA. It also leaves Canada’s permanent residents out in the cold. Chickenshit is right.
Does the Trudeau government really want to take up that torch?
bubblebustin,
Chickenshit and very hypocritical. Again, no one should have to resort to a work-around to bad law. As it stands, the Conservative government (in my eyes) absolutely promoted tax evasion as OK. Will the Liberal government agree that this kind of tax evasion is OK?
@bubblebustin, and @all,
forgot to mention that of course the Canadian government knows very well that when money is withdrawn from the TFSA, RESP or RDSP, or they are dissolved, it has to go somewhere. Where? Into a bank account which is FATCA reportable. So not only are they chickenshit, cowardly and counselling evasive strategies in order to work around the unconstitutional and possibly illegal situation they themselves imposed on Canadian citizens and residents without a mandate, they also endorse a strategy which has limited effectiveness.
I’ve recently come under fire for using terms of royalty (prince, king, etc.) and clinical terms (sociopath, narcissist), though perhaps less so for the political terms (demagogue, tyrant).
But I have to say that chickenshit works for me.
Just sent a link of the Allison Christians interview to Ms. Wilson-Raybould.
RE: RRSP, TFSA, RESP, RDSP
When Canadians invest in registered savings plans, where does the money come from? Chances are the cash comes from ordinary chequing or savings accounts which are both reportable. Since deposits and withdrawls get reported, all registered account transactions will be visible.
Marie,
I also forwarded the link to Canada’s Attorney General, but with one comment to her: I personally do not believe that same country exemption is a good solution to our problem. Allison mentioned this as only an imperfect example of a possible solution.
Thanks to those Canadians who sent me emails last night mentioning that they had sent letters to the AG, and thanks especially to our supporters from outside of Canada who are doing the same.
Stephen,
One issue to keep in mind is the same county exemption probably does pass Constitution muster in Canada.
@Stephen, the same-country exemption is a made-in-the-USA solution. It is not a Canadian solution. Our problem is with our own government. The tax treaty between USA and Canada presupposes that US can tax US citizens, just that Canada will not collect for them if they happen also to be a Canadian citizen. FATCA/FBAR/US CBT since 2008 has shown that the tax treaty does not protect Canadians enough. The US should under no circumstances have the right to tax any Canadian citizen resident in Canada on their non-USA based income. So in essence, FATCA exposes a problem that the same country exemption cannot rectify.
“The tax treaty between USA and Canada presupposes that US can tax US citizens, just that Canada will not collect for them if they happen also to be a Canadian citizen. FATCA/FBAR/US CBT since 2008 has shown that the tax treaty does not protect Canadians enough. The US should under no circumstances have the right to tax any Canadian citizen resident in Canada on their non-USA based income.”
The USA can collect income taxes from a Canadian citizen for taxes he owed to USA, before he became a Canadian citizen. The Conservative during the FATCA hearing said they will not collect taxes for income earned in Canada. This is not spelled out in tax treaty. The changes that recognized USA tax law in Canada occurred when the Liberal were in power in 1995. The government will not collect any FBAR taxes including non Canadian citizen.
The changes in 1995 tax treaty would run counter to Supreme Court decision in Harden Case
http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7322/index.do
“I’ve recently come under fire for using terms of royalty (prince, king, etc.) and clinical terms (sociopath, narcissist), though perhaps less so for the political terms (demagogue, tyrant).”
I didn’t notice anyone complaining about use of the words sociopath and narcissist. Sociopathy certainly has been demonstrated by an incumbent US government and a past Canadian government. People were arguing whether it’s too early to make a call on the new Canadian government but not about whether the words are suitable together with demagogue and tyrant, as far as I noticed.
On a personal level Trudeau’s father certainly demonstrated sociopathy and narcissism. Perhaps tyranny too, where even the Globe and Mail criticized the partial deindexation of tax brackets as “Make the Poor Pay.”
“One issue to keep in mind is the same county exemption probably does pass Constitution muster in Canada.”
Ouch, yes. But this site will remain important because it seeks liberty and justice for all of the US’s diaspora, not only for those who might be duals and/or might live in their other country of citizenship.
Besides, ET (CBT) still remains a paramount problem. Since FBAR itself isn’t even tax law, Title 31 US Code instead of 26 US Code, these are two separate roots of these two giant human rights violations.
@usxcanada re. The big Why
Is it not a universal reaction to cry out against injustice, no matter what form it takes? Would you prefer that everyone just lie down and take the beating, no matter how privileged you may think they are?
I can’t stop a US bomb from destroying a MSF hospital in Afghanistan (or a Canadian bomb killing Iraqi civilians) but I can write a letter to the new Liberal Attorney General, PM and other MP’s, and I can donate to the ADCS. As someone who appears to carry his/her own IRS battle scars, I hope that you are doing the same.
Mr. A –
I can write a letter to the new Liberal Attorney General, PM and other MP’s, and I can donate to the ADCS
… and I could lie slathered in ketchup for an hour across the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Consulate at high noon on the Fourth of July — if there were even a few who cared to do more than heap up endless bureaucratic words in appeal to powerless hacks or slather uncountable litigious $$$ into greasing the gears of the state or tippytoe over to the curb edge after imploring rent-a-cops for direction on what is to be done.
@ Mr. A (to USX)
” As someone who appears to carry his/her own IRS battle scars, I hope that you are doing the same.”
IRS battle scars don’t always cause people to fight the injustice. Not at all.
Just like USX, we also know where Roy A. Berg stands, and he himself says, “I have been affected personally as well as professionally by the OVDI/OVDP, and I have the scars to prove it.”
From Berg’s comments in:
https://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/the-taxpayer-the-irs-and-the-professionals-where-to-go-from-here/
@ usxcanada
and I could lie slathered in ketchup for an hour across the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Consulate at high noon on the Fourth of July
if you are willing to do this I will slather myself in mustard and join you
has to be the vanocuver consulate though……there is a great jap dog cart right down the street we can to afterwards as well
” I could lie slathered in ketchup ….”
that’s a new one…
Can I watch? I’ll leave my dog at home. She loves ketchup.
Everyone knows that I relish the idea of protesting in front of the US consulate in Vancouver.