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.
once i was able to set an assistant manager straight on exactly what “local client base” meant and her confirming with “head office” van city has been great to deal with
they could not care if i was born in timbukto or mars they were just happy to have my business 🙂 which is what a business should be….not an investative arm of a foreign gov’t…..
thanks middle finger
Anywhere in Ontario? if anyone knows
@ Bruno and all
Here is a link to information on credit unions which was collected in 2014 0n Maple Sandbox. This post contains lots of info, mostly in the earlier comments:
http://maplesandbox.ca/2014/are-other-canadian-credit-unions-being-as-responsible-about-fatca-as-vancity/comment-page-3/#comments
I did research for BC. Others did some for other provinces. More research on credit unions and FATCA still needs to be done.
@Bruno Several Ontario credit unions are complying with FATCA. I know Meriden and LIbro are among them.
Your Neughbourhhod Credit Union is planning to comply but they made it clear to me they have no interest in knowing where I was born.
I closed my 33 year account with Canada Trust (now TD) and my 14 year account with LIbro. I am now a very happy customer of Your Neighbourhood Credit Union. They are mainly based in the Guelph-Kitchner-Waterloo area but they opened a branch in London Ontario a few years ago.
I know someone else who opened an account with Your Neighbourhood more recently. That individual was not asked any questions about birthplace or citizenship.
@Blaze, you may want to do further research on your credit union. It is merging (or has merged) with Community First CU. I don’t know if they’re off the hook due to local client base, but assets look to be $1.5 billion.
https://www.yncu.com/SharedContent/documents/YNCU-CFCU-MERGER-FAQ.pdf
Ha. This is my hometown…
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/25/canada-revenue-agency-mailed-sin-numbers-to-wrong-people-twice-mp_n_9774382.html
@All
I got a response from Minister Morneau today.
April 26, 2016 Reply from The Honourable Bill Morneau, P.C., M.P.
It is quite depressing to those hoping this government might be working on something behind the scenes. Litigation is the only way. He did say that Canada would not assist in collecting taxes or penalties for anyone resident in Canada at the time and mentioned FBAR’s. No one in this government has so far made this statement.
thanks blaze
only appear to be 3 credit unions in the Soo
i checked northren credit union online and it asked all the citizen ship questions
Cheryl
Your reply from the Minister of Finance is now included in the comment you made. Thanks for sharing it.
Calgary. Methinks Mr. Morneau’s letter deserves its’ own post so it won’t get lost. He seems to get it. It will be interesting to keep on his case about the lack of reciprocity. He is the first Lib. to confirm they won’t help collect anything the IRS claims against a Canadian and I think his distinction that CRA-IRS transfer of information cannot legally be used by the IRS to impose FBAR fines is a new commitment. Not so sure the IRS would respect the distinction.
OK – will do. http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/04/26/reply-from-the-finance-minister-the-honourable-bill-morneau/
(I was only able to include the link rather than the whole letter within the post.)
@ Cheryl
I found the same response from Morneau in my inbox today. It took him/them since last November to put that together and it reads very similar to the Conservative talking points when they held the reins of power. [sigh] All hopes are now pinned on our judicial system which I hope proves itself worthy of the faith that Ginny has in it.
@EmBee I have greater faith in the Csnadian than the American courts but I just don’t know. It all seems so stacked against us. I guess they all just hope they’ll wear us out…ain’t gonna happen.
@bruno,
If you’re in the Soo, Community First (merging with Your Neighbourhood CU that Blaze is with) is the old steelworkers’ CU renamed a few years back.
Also, there is a red bank branch at the old Kmart location that seems to stick its fingers in its ears and yell lalalala if you say anything about being tied to the bully to the south.
The Canadian government will bravely stand up and protect its citizens against human rights violations, well, only when the offending abuser is small enough …
http://www.internationalman.com/articles/this-appalling-practice-is-only-used-in-two-nations-and-the-us-is-one-of-th
Hypocritical cowards.
I found Morneau’s reply to be argumentatively awkward, no doubt because defending the indefensible is not an easy task.
Examples:
* Morneau claims to be sympathetic, yet takes no actions to protect us.
* The claim that privacy is being protected is ridiculous, the Canadian government looses control over the data as soon as it is transferred over to the IRS. Once in the hands of the US government, names will appear on secret lists, we all know this is going to happen, it’s been proven to be happening already for some time.
* Morneau labels you as “US person”, seemingly unaware that it’s a derogatory term to the person he is responding to, anyone labeling me as a “US person” is going to get it right back in the face!
* Morneau is seemingly unaware that we have a Charter to protect minorities against the tyranny of a majority, and attempts to justify the wrongs by proudly pointing out that 110 other countries are also ganging up on their own citizens who are deemed to be “US persons”!
* Morneau states that the IGA is a better outcome than allowing the US to levy additional taxes on Canadian banks with business in the US. So, let me think about that for a minute, it’s better to save the banks from earning a 30% lesser gigantic profit than it is with protecting basic human rights?
* Morneau actually advises you to consult with the abuser to ensure that you “receive appropriate advice”, um, that’s definitely NOT good advise.
I printed out Morneau’s reply letter so that I could ceremoniously rip it to shreds, I just got a whole lot more pissed off!
As for the court action, it’s worth a try for sure, but we may find that the court will put aside all integrity and rule in favour of discrimination. This is not a typical case like the others that did not involves billions of bank profits. If the courts won’t help us, we’ll just have to keep on fighting, there’s no way I’m going to bend over to this degrading treatment.
@ The MOM
Thank you.. i will give both a look =)
@Middle Finger: sounds like the basis for an excellent repsonse to his letter….
@The Mom: YNCU for some reason did not apply for Local Client Base. However, they made it clear to me in 2014 they did not want to know where I was born.
The other person I know who opened an account with YNCU in 2015 also was not asked about POB.
YNCU send a notice to members about the merger with Community First. I don’t know where they stand on FATCA. The London Branch was the credit union for municipal, school board, firefighters, police officers, library, Labatt’s and London Liife before merging with YNCU a few years ago. So, they seem to be doing mergers with mainly employer type credit unions.
There are more mergers of credit unions all the time. I don’t know what will happen if YNCU merges with Meridien, Libro, DesJardins or one of the other larger ones.
I am at a complete loss to understand why all credit unions are not claiming Local Client Base like Vancity did. VanCity is huge and is the largest CU in Canada. So, if they can do it, why aren’t the rest of them?
@Middlefinger I agree 100% with you.
You may want to consider reposting your comment in the thread started for the reply so that it is not lost.
@Blaze
“I am at a complete loss to understand why all credit unions are not claiming Local Client Base like Vancity did. VanCity is huge and is the largest CU in Canada. So, if they can do it, why aren’t the rest of them?”
Good question. Especially if the credit union only accepts Canadian residents. Some credit unions only accept residents from within their province. For example, Vancity accepts only BC residents. Vancity has my loyalty now. I’ll never go back to TD or RBC.
“Ha. This is my hometown…
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/25/canada-revenue-agency-mailed-sin-numbers-to-wrong-people-twice-mp_n_9774382.html”
Twice? I thought primitive tribes could count all the way up to 3.
In 1980, two people named Norman Diamond, with different middle initials and different SINs, moved to Toronto. The former Revenue Canada mailed me documents with his name and SIN.
The IRS is worse though. So is the US Department of Justice.
@Blaze
I reposted with additional rebuttal in the other thread.
Whoever replies back to that racist prick who thinks it’s acceptable to label us as “US Persons”, feel free to plagiarize from what I wrote.
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What the fine print giveth, the bold print taketh away:
They learn otherwise, but only if they read further after being told in boldface that the account must exceed 50 grand:
@Brockers, I have said this before but I think it is imperative to broaden the argument beyond sacraficing some Canadian Citizens for tax reasons to a foreign power.
It is now fact that the Government of Canada has sacraficed Canadian Citizens to a FOREIGN POWER because they have some degree of tenuous taint with the USA. This needs to be told over and over again to the media and directly in the face to politicians.
It is now reasonable for such tainted Canadian Citizens to be “gun shy” as to the other shoe dropping.
The US House Armed Services Committee has now drafted a law to require young women to register for the USA Draft,
I believe that is now time to forcefully ask this Government if it will aid the US Government in finding such young women who are “hiding in Canada” with their Canadian Passport to avoid registering.
This will be US Law.
The last government and this government keep referring to US Law.
They refuse to call said affected persons Canadian Citizens!!!
So not only must young Canadian Women file all sorts of tax returns with a FOREIGN POWER, said young women must now also register to fight in the wars that said FOREIGN POWER starts!!
IF the government can justify FATCAing said young women, there is an identical legal argument that they will aid in drafting them for a FOREIGN POWER.