March 8, 2016 UPDATE: Legal fees paid — on to Federal Court for Charter trial contesting Canadian FATCA IGA legislation.
Canadians and International Supporters:
You came through once again: $594,970 for legal costs have now been donated and our outstanding legal bill is finally paid off.
Thanks especially to those who donated even though they never had any “spare” money to give, and despite this gave over and over and over again.
This last round of fundraising also shows that our Canadian lawsuit remains dependent on the kindness of our International Friends: There would be no lawsuit without their financial help.
Know that a very generous donation (today) from a supporter in the United States made it possible to pay off the remaining legal debt. Also please appreciate that there would be no lawsuit without the help of the Isaac Brock Society which has kindly let us use its website to solicit funds.
Our next step is the Constitutional-Charter trial in Federal Court.
For this we need more Canadian Witnesses, and my next post will be devoted only to a request for Witnesses willing to go public, like our Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen.
For the future: I want a win in Federal Court — and I want the new Liberal Government not to appeal that win.
Thank you all for your support,
Stephen Kish,
for the Directors,
Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty
@Al
I assume this is your first comment here at Brock. You might do well to become familiar with what this site is about before making such comments as “begging for money….to avoid your obligation of compliance.” It is much more complicated than what you may be aware of. Many people who have lived in other countries all their lives but may have only been born in the US do not consider themselves US citizens. Particularly because they have never had any of the privileges of being a US citizen. All the US wants now, is their money. And no one here thinks the US is entitled to it.
The US has never done any due diligence nor “owned” the fact that they never enforced the law. For decades and decades. The manner in which they chose to approach this situation has been deplorable. So how about you make that same pitch to the US government about “responsibility?” before you come here telling us what to do?
@ Al
Since when is it a privilege to be a U.S.A. citizen whether they want to be or not? It’s like saying being a slave is a privilege, and if you don’t want the privilege, pay $2,350 USD to be freed.
@Al
I would hardly describe giving money (that is earned and taxed in Canada) over to the US as “growing up and facing my responsibility”. “Theft” is a more accurate description, considering that I am a Canadian who lives in Canada and who has never received any services or benefits from the US. And I have never considered myself to be a “real” American, having never lived there except as a very small child.
@Patricia Moon
Thank you for researching the bounty hunter issue. More scaremongering by Roy Berg.
@All
Happy New Year, especially to Gwen & Ginny and the ADCS team et al, who relentlessly keep up the battle against powerful forces.
Good morning@ Al. So nice of you to join our comment section. However, you neglected to call us all tax cheats. There you go, I fixed that for you and you didn’t even have to beg me to.
Al,
You’re pretty black and white and seemingly a *US Homelander Abroad*.
I determined, for many reasons in 1975, that being a US citizen was not, for me, a privilege when I chose to become a Canadian citizen in 1975. I purposely never registered my children as US Births Abroad. One of my children has renounced. The other is entrapped by *lack of requisite mental capacity*.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/12/31/its-not-the-taxes-its-the-effect-on-real-lives-stupid/comment-page-2/#comment-7035928
Such CHOICE might be OK for you for one of your children in the same situation. We all should have choice — an actual CLAIM to a US citizenship if our facts allow, never an automatic entrapment.
@ FuriousAC
My sincerest thanks for your kind comments and encouraging words. Yes, we shall get this done.
@Al
Any “privilege” I have in being a Canadian is granted by citizenship, not taxation. Same holds for US. Taxing an individual based on citizenship as the US does works to decrease the value of US citizenship, not substantiate it.
@Al, What an asinine comment!
Re: “As I was told before I complied with FATCA and FBAR “Being a US citizen is a privelege, and with privilege comes responsibility” “,
Do you always do and believe what you are told Al?
Re: ” Grow up and face your responsibility like many responsible Americans have already done!”
Growing up and facing responsibility involves doing more than just doing “what you are told”. It involves thinking for yourself and realizing when you and your loved ones are being fucked up the ass for no fault of your/their own, and then doing something to fight the injustice rather than just bending over as you have Al.
I am Canadian for fucks sake! I live and earn solely in Canada. My Canadian family pays a shit ton of taxes to the Canadian government already. I owe the USA fuck all! This fucking witch hunt of people based solely on place of birth (or parent’s place of birth) is just that – a witch hunt.
As an adult, Al, you are free to pay tribute to your master if you like, but don’t think that because YOU CHOOSE to do that, that the rest of us ‘US persons’ are obligated to pay for the so-called privilege of being born on the fucking plantation.
Al, read carefully these next words though I know you won’t get it: my responsibility (all our responsibility including yours and the governments of the countries we actually live in) is TO TELL USA TO FUCK OFF! To do anything less, is to admit we are nothing but chattel.
GROW UP AL!
Al,
I am a Canadian citizen. I was born in the United States and, as such, am also an American citizen, but I have lived permanently in Canada since the age of five. Since the age of 10 when I visited my grandparents for a whole summer I have not been physically present in the United States for more than 30 consecutive days. I am now 61. I have never worked in the United States. I hold no investments in the United States. Please tell me precisely what it is that I could possibly owe to the United States.
You know, though we are ripping on Al here, MANY Brock participants have in fact followed Al’s advice to ‘do as we are told’ and some have even gone so far as to express that they felt this was ‘doing the right thing.’ Yet, many support the FATCA fight, despite becoming US tax and reporting compliant.
Will Al eventually come to realize that he/she misunderstands the meaning of ‘doing the right thing’, rather than continue to chastise those who choose not to do what USA says?
Or is attempting to shame the non-compliant ones, really just an excuse that some(like Al), use to justify NOT standing up for the rights of Canadians in Canada, Australians in Australia, Swedes in Sweden, Japanese in Japan, Indians in India, etc?
Hi everyone! Happy New Year! I am back from sunny climes and ready to continue fighting the good fight. I am catching up on the comments and glad to see the fire is starting to burn again. Seems like it had died down to embers for a while there. Thank you to everyone who has posted positive, encouraging comments. It is nice to come home to 🙂
Ginny has articulated her anxiety about reaching our funding goals and I have to agree that this is also what keeps me up at night or wakes me up in the morning with a knot in my stomach. Ginny and I are not afraid of the big bad wolf…we are afraid of our endeavour petering out for lack of funds and will and that the rights of all designated “US persons” will be trampled upon with no resistance.
WE MUST continue to resist this bullying by all governments, starting with the US, but especially the chickensh** colluding governments around the world that have infringed on our freedoms and rights within our own home countries by signing IGA’s allowing FATCA.
We also still have a long way to go to educate ignorant homelanders like Al who don’t understand the peril we (and he himself) are in. This CANNOT be allowed to continue and we must show everyone the will and the way forward to fight this injustice. Surgite!
Al
It’s likely as many as 90% of expats don’t file 1040s. If I reside, receive services from my local government, and pay my local taxes for them.
When the US provides you nothing abroad, what gives the US the right to demand data from FFIs, set all the rules, and try to tax someone on the gaps between the two tax systems?
Have you ever left the US or spent more than 2 weeks abroad on holiday? Until you do the issues someone faces won’t become readily apparent.
Whoever “Al” is, he is woefully ignorant of the facts.
Don, says: ” Have you ever left the US or spent more than 2 weeks abroad on holiday? Until you do the issues someone faces won’t become readily apparent.”
We don’t actually know whether or not Al lives inside the USA, unless I am missing something.
Regardless, I think it is worth mentioning that there are compliant ‘US persons’ living outside USA who appear to be just fine with being ‘US tax and reporting compliant’, and expect that the rest of the ‘US persons’ regardless how tenuous the US connection should be too, or should renounce if they have a problem with it.
@PatCanadian
That 5% constitutionality compliance bar may sound familiar to you because I’ve brought it up a couple of times here on Brock. Until now, it hadn’t generated much interest. That latest article I found is better than the previous:
http://www.nationalmagazine.ca/Articles/November/The-whistleblower.aspx
Perhaps if the Trudeau government wanted to distinguish itself from the Harper one, it should be by following this advice:
“This case really shows the lack of support for government lawyers who are faced with very serious ethical problems … The government should have an office of professional responsibility where [government lawyers] can go and get ethical advice and where they or members of the public or anybody else can make a complaint about the conduct of a government lawyer.”
“AL” is a troll sent here to stir the pot. Nobody could be that stupid.
Hmmm, maybe Al is Roy Berg in disguise. His shot went beyond passive aggressive into the realm of outright malicious sniping. However his shot just bounced off me. I’m a born in Canada Canadian with Canadian parents who happened to live (legally) in the USA for awhile many years ago and I absolutely do NOT feel it’s my obligation to be a US tax slave forever simply because USCIS did not acknowlege my returned greencard. I do feel it’s a privilege to be able to donate to a lawsuit which is trying to deflect the USA’s attack on my country’s sovereignty. My only obligation is to the one country in which I have the privilege of being a citizen — Canada.
@AL, ““Being a US citizen is a privelege, and with privilege comes responsibility””
Most here do not want this imposed citizenship from a FOREIGN Government!!
Your government is imposing something, creating obligations with that imposition and making it difficult to get rid of it.
I say this sadly but US Citizenship is like a cold sore and the herpes virus.
@ Al Oh, Boy! My blood is boiling! I don’t know who you are, but how dare you lecture the individuals on this site “to grow up and face their responsibilities!” I am no longer a young woman. I left the US has a small child and I have lived for 42 years outside of it’s borders. I also have had citizenship of another country for decades. I know very little about being a US citizen. However, I know plenty about being a citizen of the country that RAISED me! I have always acted responsibly! Not even a parking ticket! File my taxes before they are due! Vote in every election! Volunteer in my community! THE US HAS ACTED IRRESPONSIBLY BY FAILING TO REVERSE CITIZENSHIP BASED TAXES! Yes, I’m yelling! CITZENSHIP BASED TAXES ARE AN ANTIQUITY THAT NEEDS TO BE ABOLISHED! They fail to recognize the terrible situation that they have thrown many individuals into! Maybe they should be responsible and get their affairs in order, starting with balancing their books and paying off debt! I was afraid of loosing my job when I discovered that I had an obligation to file a tax return and a FBAR. I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A SS# ! I am a signing authority on my employer’s general, trust and special trust accounts. You should be in my shoes for a day; specifically the day I had tell my employer, a lawyer, that the US government wanted to know everything about him, including his tax number for filing a tax return every year, where his accounts were kept, the highest balance in each account, account numbers, etc. Or the day I had to tell my spouse whose response was “I thought you took care of this when you took citizenship?” He isn’t happy about the money spent to comply or renounce! Thank God I didn’t owe! I was afraid for my 25 year marriage! Oh, we aren’t rich people either! A house built in 1973 with a leaky basement and a questionable furnace. We have one vehicle! And would you really want someone like me who knows nothing about the US really voting in an election?
@All: thanks for THIS link:
http://www.nationalmagazine.ca/Articles/November/The-whistleblower.aspx
Ed Schmidt. Whistleblower:
It was turned down by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada on the grounds that the allegations were unlikely to lead to an investigation.
As his 60th birthday approached, he felt duty-bound to have a court decide the matter. He filed a lawsuit in Federal Court on Dec. 14, 2012, seeking declarations on the correct interpretation of statutory provisions used to assess whether proposed legislation complies with the Charter or Bill of Rights.
Since 1993, his statement of claim says, those provisions have been interpreted to mean that proposed legislation must be “manifestly” inconsistent with the Charter or Bill of Rights in order to be declared not constitutionally compliant. If, in the opinion of counsel, a provision is “likely or even almost certainly” inconsistent with the Charter — even if the likelihood is 95 per cent or more — but an argument can be made that it is consistent — even if that argument has a less than five per cent chance of success — then there is no duty to inform the House of Commons that there is a potential Charter issue (unless the minister forms a different opinion.)
Mr. Schmidt is challenging a longstanding approach used by the Department of Justice,” said departmental spokesman Andrew Gowing. “Justice Canada is confident it is meeting its obligations under section 4.1 of the Department of Justice Act. As this matter is before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Schmidt believes this issue is important because the departmental standard of vetting bills “has the effect of shifting the burden of disciplining state law-making virtually entirely to the citizen.
“Instead of the state of self-restraint that Parliament has intended by putting in place these pre-enactment examinations, the current approach … means that it will virtually always be up to the citizen to discover and challenge legislation that does not conform to the Bill of Rights or the Charter or regulations that are not authorized,” he said in his court filing.
Schmidt’s whistleblowing successfully brought his issue to light. In March 2012, Federal Court Judge Simon Noël commented that there is “a higher interest at play” to assure the public that draft legislation is properly reviewed in line with what the legislation requires.
“It impacts on Parliament. It impacts on the executive. It impacts on the role of lawyers. It involves the Charter. If that’s not public importance I don’t know what is,” he said in ruling that the government should pay Schmidt’s legal costs in the interest of fairness.
And Ed Schmidt’s lawyer?
A familiar name here.
@ WhiteCat
Or, as Thomas Jefferson, the Dude on the Deuce, was fond of saying: Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
I don’t know who Al is, whether a troll, homelander, misinformed, righteous or what. But I am now rather glad he dropped by to give us a piece of his mind.
He has had the effect of stirring things up around here, and who knows? He may translate into being one of our best fund raisers.
If you are still reading, Al, did you read Anne#1’s post? This is just one real account of the actual damage done to people trying to live their lives in countries outside of the great USA. There are many similar stories from so many people in various countries on this site. Feel free to read them from our archives, we won’t charge you a dime.
Welcome back, partner Gwen. I tried to keep the home fires burning while you got away for a short time from FATCA days.
But it seems ” you can call me Al” did a better job than I. Just highlights how much further education and info we need to keep providing. Thanks, Petros for providing us this platform.
Al needs an education. His ignorance is horrendous … yet far from unique.
@ nervous investor
Agreed it is far from unique. Consider the percentage of US persons living abroad. Some are tax compliant, some have renounced, some are still unaware.
I have often thought we were preaching to the choir here at Brock. Al demonstrates we are not.
John Richardson travels across the world informing people about what is happening to us. Our work is not done here. If you are up to it Al, come on back and discover the facts and truth. We even welcome deniers.
At some point many of us didn’t believe this could or would happen. I am extending the proverbial olive branch to you Al. The more you know, the more you can do. Your choice. It just takes a little drop of bravery.And were all have that in us.
I’ve reread Al’s comment. That’s easy to do; it’s pretty short.
He didn’t call us tax evaders. He called us compliance evaders.
He does need an education though. Even those of us who were compliant, just like Al, still got in trouble.
I was comparatively lucky by getting in trouble for illegally telling the truth on tax returns when not knowing it was illegal, and getting out before FATCA. It looks like Al didn’t get in trouble for complying. But he still needs an education. FATCA is going to make trouble for him too.