WITNESS SEARCH UPDATE FOR CANADIAN FATCA IGA LAWSUIT:
WE STILL SEEK MORE CANADIAN WITNESSES:
Have you experienced marital stress or breakup, or medical or psychiatric illness because Canada turned you and your family over to a foreign country — or because you were afraid and entered into IRS compliance and suffered harm, or because you are in “hiding” and can’t afford to be IRS compliant or to renounce? Be a witness.
No single witness will be “perfect” from a litigation point of view. We will be seeking more witnesses (almost) right up to the time of submission of court documents. Your specific situation, that we cannot predict, might have unique characteristics that would be helpful in the lawsuit.
If you cannot be a witness, please tell a friend who you think might be interested.
— If you are interested in becoming a witness You will describe your harm in a written affidavit which will be made public and you can contact me at stephen.kish.chair@adcs-adsc.ca See our website at www.adcs-adsc-ca
FOR THOSE CANADIANS WHO ALREADY VOLUNTEERED: Unless you have already been informed by me or by our legal team that you will not be a witness, there is still the possibility — or (for some) likelihood — that you will be asked to be a witness. I’m sorry but I cannot estimate the time it will take for our legal team to get back to you with their decision. This is because they need to “mesh” the characteristics of all of the necessary witnesses and testimonies with the actual detailed submission that contains the entirety of their evidence, which are all still evolving. Please be patient in our getting back to you with a decision. Thank you for your help.
On the question: Is there too much emphasis on privacy here and not enough on discrimination and financial harm to Canadians and Canada?
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/04/18/april-14-2016-canadian-parliament-ethi-standing-committee-on-access-to-information-privacy-ethics/comment-page-3/#comment-7490738
@Blaze
I got a different embed code-it seemed a section was missing. Emailed it to you to compare.
@Marie Yep. A Liberal Hypocrite is a Hypocrite is a Hypocrite.
@Tricia Thanks for doing that embed properly. I don;t still have the code but I did a copy and paste direct from Twitter. I have had that problem trying to embed other tweets here, but using the code embeds the whole image at Sandbox.
Weird.
@Blaze
I certainly DO remember Ambassador Jacobsen. How utterly apropos that he now works for a
Canadianbank.I have noticed that each WordPress site seems to have a few differences with code and so on. I have to make changes when cross-posting and tweets are definitely different between the sites……no idea why
It’s like we all now have a powerful caveat on our citizenship. I am now a Canadian Citizen with “possible U.S. Personhood”. The result, “SEEK and DESTROY like a U.S. drone.
@MuzzledNoMore –from your post of April 18, 2016 at 9:39 am
” Were it not for Brock I don’t know where I’d be today.” So. True. I would be dead or locked up in a mental institution. it’s not any exaggeration to say this website saved my life at a very very dark time. i read it every day with love and profound gratitude for all that all of you do and contribute.
I suppose many of you also received a letter like this from “Mr. Departmental Correspondence Unit”. November 17, 2015….
— Can others please help LM find witness volunteers?
“Dear Mr. Kish:
We acknowledge receipt of your correspondence of November 17, 2015, which was referred by the
Office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, to the Minister of Finance, the Honourable Bill Morneau.
Please be assured that your comments will be brought to the Minister’s attention as soon as
possible.”
@Stephen: Yep I received the same robo response from the Correspondence Unit.
I suspect the “Child of the Charter” Minister didn’t even read anyone’s correspondence!
I also have no confidence that the Minister of Finance will do anything.
I hope LM’s witness works out. As you know, the ones I’ve suggested weren’t accepted.
In addition to the one I received via e-mail a few days ago, my husband received the same one via snail mail yesterday.
Don’t you love our new government? Reminds me of our old government.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36117058
Very odd interview with Boris Johnson – he looks like a man possessed.
His US taxpayer status, his CGT bill, and other US issues which have impacted his life more than any EU actions never is mentioned.
Is it really legal for the US and an IGA country to FATCA law firm trust accounts?
Have law societies in Canada had discussions with the CRA and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada concerning the effect the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) will have on solicitors’ trust accounts?
This is what is going on in NZ;
‘FATCA trust account discussions continue’
21 April 2016
The New Zealand Law Society says it is continuing its discussions with the New Zealand Bankers’ Association and Inland Revenue concerning the effect the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) will have on moneys held in solicitors’ trust accounts.
In a letter to law firm trust account administrators, the Law Society says the discussions have continued much longer than anticipated.
“It is hoped this matter will be resolved in the near future on a basis that will involve lawyers in significantly fewer obligations than previously contemplated,” it says.
The Law Society says that while it cannot give legal advice, it considers that in the meantime it is desirable that law firms which can elect, and wish to elect to be NFFEs (Non-Financial Foreign Entities), do not delay making this election.
“The benefit of making this election is to avoid the law firm and its trust account entity being financial institutions with all the attendant FATCA reporting obligations to Inland Revenue which that status involves.”……………
https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/news-and-communications/latest-news/news/fatca-trust-account-discussions-continue
Potential source for ADCS witnesses? FATCA letters starting to be noted online;
Am starting to see posts like this one;
http://canadianmoneyforum.com/index.php?s=19b4dab8f2d201ef59abd2f4829b53cb
Location
Ottawa
Question Oaken and FATCA
“Both my wife and I each received a letter from Oaken this week, it begins…
Dear xxxxxxx,
According to our records, you may be required to comply with a United States law known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA ).
Huh, what records? I never gave them any information about anything that might even slightly connect me to the U.S. of freaking A! Did anyone else get this letter? Are they sending it to all their customers, or do they target specific people they somehow think have U.S. person indicators?
There was nothing about FATCA compliance on the original application to open the account, so maybe they are just trying to correct that omission. If that’s the case, it was dumb to phase it “according to our records, you may be”. “
@Badger
Those Oaken comments make an interesting read to hear phrases like “accused of being American” being bandied about by ordinary Canadians in reference to FATCA.
I have been wondering what discussions the CBA had in Quebec re FATCA. I am not bilingual, so with the help of online translation, I was able to read chunks of this (searched for FATCA and then translated it).
Perhaps a Brocker fluent in French may see better what useful info there is from this source;
ex.
http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/commissions/cfp-41-1/journal-debats/CFP-151118.html
I did see some discussion of the implementation costs for FATCA.
Here are some other entries that came up;
http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/recherche/recherche-avancee.html?mcl=fatca
Going through it now, badger.
Merci beaucoup @Isabelle! My rudimentary school French was not up to the task.
I also posted this re any francophones in Canada who can see if they can engage with “Frederic Lefebvre, who represents in the French National Assembly all French citizens living in the United States and Canada”, re FATCA as he may be in Canada in 2016 (as per his April visit to the US; “while visiting cities throughout the U.S. and Canada, without doubt one of France’s largest overseas constituencies…..”)? He has publicly criticized FATCA in the past: http://www.frederic-lefebvre.org/tag/fatca/ .
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/fatca-and-canada/comment-page-6/#comment-7503272
– Passing mention about FATCA
– Then they get into FINTRAC (CANAFE) and what it is
– FATCA is was put into place because “Americans were opening up Swiss bank accounts to avoid paying taxes” (ha!)
– FATCA is turning into an international FATCA through regulations by the OECD, and this will come into effect in 2017. This will therefore make it that much more difficult for financial institutions to comply.
– It’s relatively easy for Desjardins to comply because most of the client base is in Québec, especially when compared to the more national banks.
– They flag fishy clients (e.g., a self-employed person making over $25k) and are required to report them to FINTRAC
– their method is based on risk management
– they need to know who their clients are, and if the clients do not respond to their inquiries, then they will be closing the account.
– they also ensure that no third parties are making payments or are beneficiaries without being appropriately identified. Third parties are sometimes an indicator of money laundering.
– They maintain lists of “poliically vulnerable foreigners” and monitor those accounts
– FINTRAC reporting is required for accounts of $10k or more and the information can be cross-referenced with other financial institutios, casinos, and police services across the country.
– They also mention “US Taxpayers,” explain CBT, and how they transfer the information to the CRA for the CRA to transfer to the IRS.
– Then they talk about watch list filtering, which is really about the more criminal element.
– At Desjardins, they have 130 people dedicated to this monitoring (tax avoidance / FATCA)
– They mention that even though they have partnerships around the world, they consider themselves to be a local bank (local client base?) – 99.8% of their revenue originates from Canada.
First question appears to be about a tax haven and there is a mention of a 2001 US Senate report, but nothing relevant to our interests. They do talk about offshore accounts, but their rationale is that just the fact that you have an offshore account is not indicative of anything illegal, there might be just cause for that. The problem is when you don’t report the offshore account.
M. Habel asked a question about FATCA in particular:
– ” Est-ce que, étant donné que le Canada va entrer dans — le 1er juillet, je crois, 2017 — dans cette entente, est-ce que, selon vous, il serait pertinent de créer un FATCA canadien, et, si oui, est-ce qu’il serait applicable d’en créer un?” Given that Canada has entered into the FATCA agreement wit the US, is it pertinent to create a Canadian FATCA?
(Keep in mind that this was in 2014… so already dated information)
– Canada is already adhering to the agreed upon reporting requirements.
– any reciprocal reporting for G20 countries will be done through OECD
– At the time, they were under the impression that the data dump would only take place in 2017. Haha.
– Question from M. Spénard: Since FATCA was implemented, have any of the banks moved? Shut down? The answer talks about the compliance costs related to FATCA, spread across all banks.
The second witness spoke mostly about tax evasion.
Seems to be mostly outdated information focussed on how the Desjardins Group dealt with tax evasion and FATCA compliance back in 2014.
–
re: Frederic Lefebvre, my ancestors have been here since the 1600s, so he is likely to have zero interest in what I have to say.
Doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try 🙂
Writing to my MP didn’t really generate any result so if you want me to communicate with this guy, I can try, but I want to make sure I hit on the right keywords.
Correction: I thought I was looking at the date of the meeting but it was the beginning of the session.
The meeting took place in December 2015. That being said, it seems they were still incorrect about some of their dates (e.g, compliance with FATCA IGA being effective July 1, 2017.)
I’m looking through the other links, and it’s more of the same… how different FIs are complying with reporting requirements and how this will all become standardized with an OECD reporting requirement.
Thanks @Isabelle. Have been wondering how this was all being received/rationalized in Quebec. And we haven’t really seen provincial level reactions (but maybe haven’t looked for them).
Still wondering how the feds got around the issue of FATCA applying to ALL FIs in Canada, yet credit unions (for the main) are provincially regulated. And several provinces have their own strict/er privacy laws.
Thanks, badger.
A search for *FATCA* on that site brings up this page of links: http://canadianmoneyforum.com/gtsearch.php?q=&siteurl=canadianmoneyforum.com%2Fshowthread.php%2F90577-Oaken-and-FATCA&ref=canadianmoneyforum.com%2Fforumdisplay.php%2F2-General-Personal-Finance-Talk%3Fs%3D58421eba90c602b47e6aff55aa62eb4b&ss=
so credit unions are safe ? or no .. dunno what up or down anymore with this b.s
@Don
“Very odd interview with Boris Johnson – he looks like a man possessed.”
The IRS probably cut him a deal in exchange for silence about the injustice of CBT, they definitely don’t want any publicity from the likes of a Boris.
@bruno
Vancity is safe, but you must be a resident of BC to qualify for membership.
https://www.vancity.com/PrivacyAndSecurity/YourPrivacy/FATCA/
I do not know about other credit unions. Maybe someone already made a list?