Some of you may wonder whether your private banking information was sent by your bank to Canada CRA, for subsequent turnover to the United States Internal Revenue Service — because you have some U.S. indicia.
For the few who are willing to do this, I ask that you make the above very specific request to your bank officer (see draft letter below). If your bank refuses to provide you with this information, or makes it difficult, get the name of the individual you spoke to and write down what was said and when. Best would be a refusal in writing.
I am looking for a single brave soul willing do this, which would find its way into an affidavit for our litigation.
I personally think that it is outrageous that “our” banks do not automatically notify a person if they have been reported to the CRA arm of IRS — but that is another issue.
Here is a draft letter that you could send to your bank customer service representative or simply provide this message by phone to the rep. Do NOT spend any time going to another official at the bank. A draft:
“Local Bank officer,
I am a customer at your bank and have [ ] bank accounts.
I understand that on September 30, 2015 Canada CRA turned over private banking information on 155,000 accounts to the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Some of this bank account information was provided by your bank to CRA.
Please tell me whether your bank passed on any of my banking information to CRA for the subsequent transfer of the data to the IRS.
I need this information in writing by [date].
If you are unable to comply with my request, kindly provide your reasons.
Thank you,”
Makes no difference whether you have one dollar (below so-called threshold of today) in your account or $100,000, or whether you have or do not have any U.S. indicia. A refusal is a refusal. I personally have no account greater than $50k but did ask my own bank for this information.
Refusals from the banks might be helpful in the litigation. You can reach me through the ADCS website.
Assume that your name will be made public should this be part of our litigation.
See below December 1 2015 letter I sent to Canadian Bankers Association and their (not surprising) December 2 response:
My letter:
“December 1, 2015
[XXXXXXXXXX]
Media Relations Specialist
Canadian Bankers Association
Dear Ms. [XXXXXX],
Could you please pass this email on to your legal department?
I am the Chair of an organization (Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty) that is funding a lawsuit against Canada’s Attorney General and Minister of National Revenue.
We argue that the FATCA IGA enabling legislation that your association supports violates Canada’s sovereignty as a nation and the Charter rights of Canadians.
A key component of the legislation is the transfer of private banking information, without consent, of Canadian citizens deemed by the United States to be “U.S. persons”, to Canada CRA, for subsequent turnover to U.S. IRS.
Recently it has come to my attention that some of your banks are not advising their customers, when they ask, whether their private banking information has in fact been turned over to CRA for the purpose of transfer to IRS.
I need to know whether CBA has a position on this issue.
Do you advise your banks to provide this information, upon request of the customer, or do you advise that this information must be withheld for whatever reason? Does CBA feel that such customer requests are reasonable — or not?
I am not asking whether the banks will confirm to customer whether private banking data have been passed by CRA to IRS, only whether the data have been passed by the individual bank to CRA for the purpose of transfer to IRS.
If CBA has no position on this question please confirm.
Please provide a response by end of business day December 4.
I will make public CBA’s response.
Thank you,
Stephen Kish
Chair
Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty”
CBA response:
“Dear … Kish,
Thank you for your letter.
As you know, the requirements of the FATCA IGA are included in the Income Tax Act. The Canadian Bankers Association does not provide any recommendations or direction on how to comply with these requirements.
Instead, banks rely on the technical guidance from the Canada Revenue Agency. You can find out more about the CRA guidance at the link below or contact the CRA directly.
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/nhncdrprtng/gdnc-eng.html
[XXXXX]”
Seeking a few brave Canadians willing to ask simple question to their banks.
I was wondering myself if the IRS shared my tax details with the UK. There should be no reason to as I am resident in the US but if they did it by mistake I would be pretty angry.
I am more than happy to do this. I’ve already asked them a few years ago what they would do and they said, they would obey the Bank Act of Canada. Now that there is an IGA, I am curious.
Could someone who has time please create a draft letter that we can use and put it in the comments?
In fact, I will go so far as to inform them that I have indeed US indicia and I was wondering if they knew that and if they are going now, with this info, to rat me out to the CRA. I will then see if they are willing to tell me what they plan to do.
I had one thought – in an unrelated fight against UK banks for hundred of thousands of customers suing UK banks in small claims court, would there be any discrimination laws that a individual could sue a Canadian bank in small claims court for a small fee, not risk court costs, and perhaps make a few bucks in the process?
Certainly the in the UK, the bank fees fiasco cost UK banks dearly having to payout companion of 100s of millions of pounds, pay for admin, and solicitors to show up across the UK’s small claim courts across the country.
It reached the point where the BBC set up a DIY sue the banks website page to facilitate your lawsuit.
My personal experience is that most banks are still pretty clueless about FATCA at the branch level. The CBA should be doing more to educate their members, but they won’t. Some may recall how I made an effort to have them come up with some guidelines for banks to use when curing indicia, but they refused.
I worked at a credit union and they updated everyone’s accounts with either birth certificates or passports. Every member had to bring in one or the other. My birth certificate was already on file, but I removed it (tee hee) and gave them my passport with the instructions not to put my country of birth in the computer – which they didn’t as a favour to me. Other people’s they were for sure. But they credit union was only passing info on to the CRA on members with total accounts (not any one but all combined) over $50G.
@Prairiegirl. That is very scary. What happens when all financial institutions in Canada demand either a birth certificate or passport to maintain an account? Apparently, that is normal practice in Europe.
Prairiegirl, what happens if you only have a drivers License. I know many people that dont have Passports.
if you don’t travel outside the country you dont need a passport for anything.
Petros,
As you suggested, I now have on this post a draft letter some might consider . I hope that a few brave souls will approach the banks so that we can have some affidavits on this in the litigation.
Prairegirl and Marie,
Yes, very scarey.
I think the more important question though is what the bank customers will do when the banks demand this information. This is one person’s response on Brock:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/10/16/what-will-and-what-should-canadians-do-when-the-irs-comes-calling/
Other possible eventual considerations for CBA or banks to discriminate?
http://www.ontario.ca/faq/what-type-birth-certificate-needed-passport-application
What type of birth certificate is needed for a passport application?
Some passport applications require a long form birth certificate which provides the parental information of the subject and more information than a short form birth certificate.
A short form birth certificate includes basic information and can be used as identification. It includes this information:
last name
given name(s)
date of birth
certificate number
birthplace
sex
date of registration
registration number, and
date issued
A long form birth certificate is a certified copy of the birth registration. You might need it if you:
move to another country
become an executor for a foreign estate
are adopting a child abroad, or
fill out certain citizenship or immigration documents
If you are unsure if you need a short form certificate or long form certificate, please check with the Ministry, government agency, or person requesting the document before you order.
Before you order a birth certificate, check the Passport Canada list of acceptable documents to ensure you are ordering the correct version.
Non-US-compliant Canadians born in USA who have decided NOT to ‘do the right thing’ (note: this is sarcasm) must continue to keep one step ahead of the wolves (both American and Canadian varieties). So far, lying about US birthplace has been enough to keep the dreaded fact of birth on the plantation hidden, but won’t be forever as PrarieGirl suggests in her comment above.
Other ways to avoid capture by would be American slave owners and/or their bounty hunters include but are not limited to:
– renew your Canadian PASSPORT WITHOUT PLACE OF BIRTH and CONTINUE TO LIE about where you were born. If they question you at the bank about the missing birthplace on your passport, shrug and say you do not know how that happened, you were born in the first Canadian town/city you ever lived in.
– find someone who can MODIFY PLACE OF BIRTH on your passport/birth certificate, or (if the cat is already out of the bag) provide you with a COUNTERFEIT CLN.
– claim you renounced but do not have a CLN to prove it (risky as FFI may presume guilty without proof of non-USness)
– avoid FFI’s – buy real estate, gold, etc.
– keep savings in a non-US person family member’s name
– split funds amongst various financial institutions.
All these things buy time, some are very illegal, and none are ideal solutions, but a second class Canadian citizen determined to remain a ‘US tax cheat’ according to American law, has to do what he/she can to survive in a dog eat dog world. Get used to the fact that ‘doing the right thing’ now means something completely different than what you were taught all your growing up years.
Petros: I want to thank you very much for responding to Stephen’s request. Once again, on behalf of all of us, you are stepping out where many of us fear to tread. I hope there are some other brave souls out there to keep you company.
@SecondClassCanadian
Passport with no country of birth… if u travel… some countries may not let u in without that info
Real Estate… this sucker could screw the crap out of u if it’s ever sold if its in your name… capital gains…
U have to have a lot of trust for someone to put something or hand something of value to someone to *hold* for u… even a partner… if things go wrong… u will have nothing….
The only thing that is certain…. the mattress bank in a fire proof box hidden in your home… because of this crap…. u can not grow your funds for your old age…
When we originally obtained our Cdn passports in 2007, due to the new border initiative, we had to get our first child’s long form birth certificate, but not our second. #1 was born out of wedlock.
I will now have to check it to see if she is saddled with my birthplace. I think she is.
@US_Foreign_Person,
Like I said, there is no perfect solution. It’s a constant game of keeping one step ahead, looking over your shoulder, and accepting that your life has limitations that were not there before.
So, you want to travel on your Canadian passport without a place of birth to a country where this is not allowed? Too bad. You ain’t going there.
Worried about capital gains on your real estate that you have your ill gotten gains (sarcasm) invested in? Then make sure you sell before you go over the capital gains exemption limit. Or put the real estate in your spouse’s name and be very careful not to piss him/her off too much.
Life is a crapshoot.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/india-receives-financial-info-from-us-under-fatca-finance-ministry/articleshow/50024629.cms
India’s Finance Ministry is giving the press a false impression that it’s receiving reciprocal information from the US.
How on earth can you US share information when US bank’s don’t send equivalent information to the IRS? For that to happen the US Congress needs to vote in changes to US law and overcome the well finance banking lobby who opposes such measures.
India’s Finance Ministry may have received some information, but it scrappy information at best not automatic information exchange or the same quality that India’s bank would send to the IRS.
@Don
You’re right. The information the IRS is giving other countries can be easily found on US tax forms filed by people living in these countries.
@Bubblebustin,
Nah. They will be giving them the data filed by the banks that they use to match against tax returns. Loads of people don’t file etc.
@Neill
I think they are sending the info from forms that are used at the bank for non-resident customers with a foreign addy… info is at hand… fast to get… but the ones that are using US addys… good luck in finding them… when one use to open an account… any id was fine… now they want to do a DNA run for a simple account for the every day person… unless u got loads… then its… do u want some coffee or tea before we get started?
@SecondClassCanadian
U are correct… its keeping one step ahead… best thing is to keep it as simple as possible… Cash is king… it will always be…
Not everyone has a passport but everyone should have a birth certificate – although it may damn you as an American, ha. I also bank with RBC and they have never asked for my birth cert or passport, I can’t remember if I gave them my birth cert when I opened the account. The credit union also made everyone sign a fatca form stating whether they were a citizen or resident of the united states. I looked them in the eye and said, I don’t consider myself a citizen of the U.S. and checked the no box and signed. Over half the workers at that credit union are dual citizens because our town is right on the border and I know some of them lied on their paperwork too. At this credit union they would then update the computer based on your ID and fatca form which would then get you flagged as US person indicia at head office where they would decide whether or not to report your balances to CRA.
Super lousy thing is I am a volunteer for several organizations and have to sign this stupid fatca form for every bank account I sign on.
My results were mentioned in an earlier thread.
1. In 2015, TD Canada Trust refused twice to answer my question but then answered my third attempt. The answer was that they had not supplied my information to the CRA for forwarding to the IRS. (LATER, I mailed a copy of my CLN with TD Canada Trust’s variation of W-8BEN.)
2. In 2003, TD Waterhouse, in Canada not the US, supplied some of my information directly to the IRS, including US withholding that TD Waterhouse in Canada deducted from Canadian sourced interest income in my account in Canada (in addition to Canadian withholding that they properly deducted since I live in Japan).
@Prairiegirl
Remember the day when you didn’t care about who you showed your birth certificate to? Those days are gone for Americans abroad.
“everyone should have a birth certificate”
Some still only have a baptismal certificate.
Depending on what country they were born in, and various other circumstances such as a race or religion which the country’s government dislikes, they might not have either.
In Japan, government-administered family registration documents prove every person’s[*] existence, Japanese citizenship, birth, and position in the family. If a woman[**] escaped from an abusive husband and then gave birth too soon after escaping, she cannot register the baby’s birth as a child of her new partner. In order to register the baby’s birth, she has to get cooperation from the estranged husband. I think there are a few hundred non-existent stateless people who were born in Japan to Japanese parents but whose mothers didn’t register them for this reason. They are unable to go to school, unable to get the mandatory[***] national health insurance, etc.
[* In some instances, foreigners aren’t persons. This is one such instance.]
[** Jean Drapeau wasn’t Japanese.]
[*** Contradictory laws? Sure. Japan isn’t even exceptional in this regard.]
@SecondClassCanadian – I have always advocated ‘cloning’ your Canadian passport and changing the place of birth. At this stage it’s doubtful some 18 year old kid working at a bank is going to have the knowledge or expertise to differentiate between a good clone or a real passport.
With the CLN you’ll have to have an embosser made up to put the seal of the US State Depth on the form.
Of course all this is illegal, but in my opinion taking away resident citizen’s financial rights isn’t much different.
When I go back abroad, apart from setting up an IBS style lawsuit, finding expertise to change documents will be my other immediate task. The US Government has no right to do what it’s down in foreign countries.