I thought the results of the Israeli court case deserved their own post.
According to the report, the judge in this case has determined that our expectation of privacy in the modern world is limited. Therefore, Israel must comply with the United States FATCA demands and perform the transfer to the U.S. of the (excuse me) private financial information of Israeli citizens living in Israel just because they have some sort of nominal association with the U.S.
The issue that was completely missed in this case was discrimination, a shocking oversight considering the historical background of the judge’s nation. I hope that Mr. Arvay in his prosecution of the Canadian lawsuit will stress this point heavily. Regardless of whether or not privacy must be held as a limited “right” in modern society, it should be equally limited and not more limited for some citizens than for others. As it now stands in Israel, Canada and every other country in the world, those deemed by the United States to be Americans have even greater limitations placed on their privacy than any other members of their populations.
That is the issue. That is the injustice. That is the wrong. That is our cause.
So some Jews are more equal than others. Especially the ones with no Yankee taint.
The simple fact is that the United States is a greedy, paranoid, rogue-nation which happens to be concentrating its efforts on stealing the wealth of other nations to pay for their sycophantic listless ne’er-do-well homelander voters.
It is a pity that too many other nations buy into the self-aggrandizement of the United States as a “friend to all” and “the greatest country in the world” and have effectively neutered their own sovereignty: Israel included.
Justice Mazuz: Congress has spoken.
@bubblebustin
Yes, but if you know Israeli judges, probably more like: Justice Mazuz: thank you bankers for the nice schmear, now it’s all fixed for ya.
“When it’s all said and done: All roads lead to renunciation”
@MuzzledNoMore
Thanks, this does deserve its own post. Mr. Arvay is an excellent person to represent us in court on the point of discrimination. Let’s hope our Canadian lawsuit has a better outcome with the next phase. Israelis with American taint have been thrown under the bus with the Israeli FATCA decision.
@Bob– I agree. Some will do it the official way (pay the extortionist $2,350). Others of us will go the DIY route (no CLN desired). In the mean time, I will continue to lie to anyone who asks me– “My name is BC Doc. I was born in Montreal.”
Great. Wonderful to know you, BC_Doc,
My wife was born in…uh…uh… Burnaby…yeah…that’s it. 😀
“So some Jews are more equal than others. Especially the ones with no Yankee taint.”
Yeah…but then they’re God’s chosen people. It should work out alright for them.
*cough*…*hack*…Bulls—.
Hard to believe a Supreme Court could “miss” the discrimination issue, but the fix was likely in on this one the minute the lower court issued a stop order. The Israeli court’s comment that privacy should not be expected, despite the laws, despite the blatant discrimination, and despite abdicating sovereignty would not allow one to place much faith in their court system. “Despite the law…” great words to hear from a court. We shall see what our Courts are made of whenever the Canadian trial gets underway. Seems to be taking a long time.
One falls from dismay into more dismay. Nobody has the balls to stand up to America and say “Stop this robbing of our treasuries” and “Citizenship-based taxation is a violation of human rights”. And it IS because one pays and gets nothing in return. How crazy is that? But this whole world has gone insane.
I dont think any of these countries truly believes that their residents owe money to America. But the submission seems total. Where will any court of law stand by their own charter or constitution? Not for the faint-hearted. Even in America the constitution is being kicked in the face, and those on Washington are being paid to do the bidding of others.
Sometimes I wonder what this will lead to in all? One thing I am sure of is that life on Earth without any moral compass will be a living hell.
@MuzzledNoMore, you hit it right on target re;
“…The issue that was completely missed in this case was discrimination, a shocking oversight considering the historical background of the judge’s nation. I hope that Mr. Arvay in his prosecution of the Canadian lawsuit will stress this point heavily. Regardless of whether or not privacy must be held as a limited “right” in modern society, it should be equally limited and not more limited for some citizens than for others. As it now stands in Israel, Canada and every other country in the world, those deemed by the United States to be Americans have even greater limitations placed on their privacy than any other members of their populations….”..
I find it hard to believe that the laws governing privacy rights in Israel, Canada, Australia, NZ, the EU, UK, etc. give those governments a free pass to discriminate solely on the basis of national origin, parentage, or birthplace status – as defined extraterritorially by a foreign government – the US. None of those classifications are economic in nature. None can arguably predispose those with those characteristics to criminality. None of them justify the automatic presumption of guilt before innocence, or make the affected individuals more likely to be terror-funding-moneylaundering-druglord-tax-evaders than any of their fellow citizens and residents who are not also deemed by the foreign government of the US to be ‘UStaxablepersons’. Articles like this one http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-is-bank-leumi-telling-foreigners-to-close-their-accounts-and-whats-the-link-to-israels-malignant-black-economy/ parrot the US line that FATCA will target and ferret out criminals, whereas US parentage and birthplace are not logical indicators of criminality. And of course, FATCA is NOT reciprocal. And we know that the US is now on target to be the last and biggest tax haven standing http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/24/reuters-america-special-report-how-delaware-kept-america-safe-for-corporate-secrecy.html https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/25/war-of-words-eu-us-tax-avoidance-starbucks-apple-amazon http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/05/how-the-u-s-became-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-tax-havens/ http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-05/rotschild-admits-america-biggest-tax-haven-world-obama-slams-tax-evasion ………
And as for declarations of ‘constitutionality’, ( “…Justice Hanan Meltzer in part justified the law by noting its acceptance by the United States, saying this created a presumption of constitutionality.
“As long as the US law is in force, there is a presumption of constitutionality in regards to its purposes.”…” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/217717 ) we very well know – and so must that judge, that what is constitutional in the view of the US government has no merit since the constitutionality of FATCA in the US is already suspect and has never been tested, and further, since the US constitution is not law in Israel or anywhere else, whether FATCA is constitutional in the US where it was enacted has no bearing on whether it would meet tests of constitutionality elsewhere around the globe. We also know what a very very weak stick the assumption of ‘constitutionality’ actually is in practice here in Canada currently ( ex. “..even if the argument has less than a five-per-cent chance of success in the courts, it can still be “credible” – in other words, consistent…” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lawyers-lawsuit-highlights-ottawas-court-clashes-over-charter-rights/article26449862/ ).
Are there codified exceptions in Israel and Canada’s constitutions and legal system for anything the US demands? Is there an exception to our human, civil and international rights which only apply to those with a US birthplace/US parentage /US national origin? Where is that clause encoded in our Charter of Rights, or Israel’s Basic Laws of Human Dignity and Liberty?
I think this was effectively rigged. How do we even know how this specific judge was assigned and why?
The US pulls the strings behind the scenes all around the globe, with the threat of dropping the FATCA witholding nuclear bomb – and in the context of the other politics of international relations between the US and other nations. Might makes right. How do we know what other influence the US used behind the scenes?
Countries are willing to serve up a subgroup of their own citizens and residents, and ignore and debase their own laws and constitutions in order to satisfy the US bully and pacify banks.
And they are no doubt counting on opponents lacking access to the funding needed to mount appeals. And since challenges and appeals are also time consuming, the information gets into US hands in the meantime – no matter what future outcomes might be.
I’m waiting for an alien invasion or we all just say “Fuck it!’ and create multiple joke parties.
https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/14305426_1659183254397936_3806238967073773246_o.jpg
“Hockey Is Life…”
We want a hockey rink in every community, large or small; Government supplied “two-fours” once a week. We need to recover our hockey equipment manufacturing industry from the Americans and we will work towards that end through lower corporate taxes to entice all hockey-related manufacturers to Canada. All rink usage fees will be cut down to a toonie a game and goalies still play for free. All minor hockey rinks will be government subsidized.
The Canadian Hockey Party – dedicated to bringing hockey to the masses and taking over the planet, one hockey stick at a time.
In both official languages:
Nous voulons une patinoire de hockey dans toutes les collectivités , grandes ou petites ; Gouvernement a fourni «deux – pattes » une fois par semaine . Nous devons récupérer notre industrie de fabrication de matériel de hockey des Américains et nous allons travailler à cette fin par les impôts des sociétés plus bas pour attirer tous les fabricants liées au hockey au Canada . Tous les frais d’utilisation de la patinoire seront coupés à un toonie un jeu et les gardiens de but jouent toujours gratuitement . Toutes les patinoires de hockey mineur seront subventionnés par le gouvernement .
La Partie canadienne de hockey – dédié à apporter le hockey aux masses et en prenant sur la planète , bâton de hockey l’un à la fois.
“We shall see what our Courts are made of whenever the Canadian trial gets underway. Seems to be taking a long time.”
I’m not expecting much. We’ve heard the Government’s side: “Congress has spoken.”
Well, last I’ve heard, the United States Congress doesn’t speak for Canada…unless the government is nothing but a puppet and that smells suspiciously of TREASON!
“Countries are willing to serve up a subgroup of their own citizens and residents, and ignore and debase their own laws and constitutions in order to satisfy the US bully and pacify banks.
And they are no doubt counting on opponents lacking access to the funding needed to mount appeals. And since challenges and appeals are also time consuming, the information gets into US hands in the meantime – no matter what future outcomes might be.”
Obviously. As someone else said. “All roads lead to renunciation…” yet some despite renunciation will never be free.
And as for the Israeli judge and assumption that FATCA is constitutional – in the US – and his abuse of logic to make that a stand in de facto for constitutionality in Israel. Well, there is evidence that FATCA isn’t even constitutional in the US:
https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/tax-law/b/fatcacentral/archive/2013/03/05/irs-brushes-aside-the-constitution-to-make-way-for-fatca.aspx
03-05-2013 | 08:25 AM
Author: Allison Christians
‘IRS Brushes Aside the Constitution to Make Way for FATCA’
“…The executive branch does not have the power to authorize itself to enter into treaties without congressional oversight. It is the constitution that provides the treaty power, and Congress is expressly involved. Congress could have granted the executive specific authority in this case, as it has done in other cases, but it clearly did not do so here…”……
……………………………………………………
“………….Finally, I note that one other Q&A Sheppard mentions is also intriguing, though on the surface it seemed uncontroversial:
Existing IGAs will be interpreted to say that countries may choose the definition of an item in the final regulations which came later in time. Treasury will not amend IGAs wholesale when regulations change, Eggert explained.
This may seem benign–it provides flexibility despite the apparently rigid parameters of the documents (which are treaties, after all, and not so easy to just unilaterally alter at whim). But this is in fact very interesting as a legal matter because it quietly moves the world a little closer to yet another US tradition that many people in other countries find odd if not outright incompatible with international law, namely, the treatment of treaties as equal in legal status to other laws, including statutes and case law, so that treaties can be overridden at any time by a new statute or judicial decision. But it goes a further step to include regulations within that overriding scope–where they might not so clearly belong even under US law.
In other words, the IRS is saying that not only does the “last in time” rule apply to IGAs (as they would to any US international agreement), but we’ll apply the last in time rule to other countries too (even if under their own laws the treaty would override later-enacted domestic laws); moreover the last-in-time rule is now extended to treasury regulations (a unilateral law that will be used to “interpret” a bilateral agreement, yet another controversial treaty interpretation position), and finally we are going to make it the treaty partner’s choice to pick among the regimes to get the best result (which treats treaty partners not as negotiators in a bilateral agreement but rather in the same way as taxpayers subject to an elective regime).
It is getting progressively more difficult to keep up with the sheer volume of violations of laws and norms being undertaken by the IRS in order to get FATCA to work. It is rather disheartening (in the sense of being a scholar who studies legal process as though it matters) to realize that to many or most people involved in this project, all of these violations are just technicalities and semantics getting in the way of a result everyone wants.”
@all
What I do not understand is that all Governments know the damage FATCA is doing to dual citizens who but they justify FATCA and ignore the damage. It is like the PINK ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM everyone ignores it.
Why is this?
All roads lead to renunciation, whether or not it is formal. And don’t forget to protect your assets. large or small, from the USA money grab.
As Polly says, “Sometimes I wonder what this will lead to in all? One thing I am sure of is that life on Earth without any moral compass will be a living hell.”
I guess all we can do is try to keep our own moral compass and hope the Canadian lawsuit goes well. The probability that things will change for the better in the US is very close to zero.
Indeed, the entire issue is about discrimination and to even bring “privacy” into it, as important and correct as that should be, is a mistake, in today’s world, as can be seen in the judgment of the Israeli court. It is extremely shocking, to say the least, that a member of a high court would use an argument that “the expectation of privacy in the modern world is limited” (!!!) That should send any freedom loving person into a state of shock. It is also a very slippery slope and it should be clear to all that privacy has been deemed a relic of the past and any remaining vestiges of privacy must be eviscerated, totally and completely, forever. For the moment discrimination is still deemed as something that can’t be considered as acceptable. That too will most probably disappear as well, as the US practices it on a wide scale, through FATCA and in so many other ways within the country itself. With FATCA it has made discrimination “acceptable” and “legal”, having told countries who balked at the discrimination of FATCA and railed that it was against their constitutions and charters, to change their constitutions and charters to make FATCA reporting not be against their constitutions and charters. If no court challenge is made very soon to the discriminatory aspects of FATCA, then nobody should be surprised if in the not too distant future, a judge rules against the discriminatory aspects of FATCA by saying that a person must accept some discrimination in the modern world. Why? Because the U.S. says that it is all right to discriminate and they also say that privacy is a relic of the past and laws and human rights should also be forgotten. That, my friends is called a fascist dystopia and FATCA should make it as clear as day for all to see, that we are now not that far away from that scary place thanks to our “friends” in the ‘Land of the Free and the Brave’.
Very well said, Peter. That judge was a total sell-out.
“According to the report, the judge in this case has determined that our expectation of privacy in the modern world is limited.”
So Israel will release Mordechai Vanunu, Israel will offer asylum to Edward Snowden, the US will release Chelsea Manning and Jonathan Pollard, Beys Afroyim will renounce US citizenship, and Israel will provide the next Hitler with addresses of all Jews.
Did the judge go to law school in the US?
‘The FATCA, intended to hamper money-laundering schemes and tax evasion by US citizens, has drawn heavy criticism for its broad reach, as well as its application of US authority in sovereign countries.’
No, FATCA doesn’t apply in sovereign countries outside the US.
In order to disprove that, one would have to find a sovereign country outside the US.
‘American citizens living in Israel have also suffered secondary effects of FATCA, with some banks – such as Bank Leumi – refusing to open new accounts for US citizens, and even closing down existing accounts for customers with less than $50,000 in their accounts.’
And the judge upholds that. I guess my question was answered, the judge did go to law school in the US.
“the US line that FATCA will target and ferret out criminals, whereas US parentage and birthplace are not logical indicators of criminality”
Sure they are. You can’t become US president without one of those logical indicators.
@billy
“What I do not understand is that all Governments know the damage FATCA is doing to dual citizens who but they justify FATCA and ignore the damage. It is like the PINK ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM everyone ignores it.
Why is this?”
Because the governments have concluded that their banks being hit with 30% penalties is much worse than throwing their US Person citizens under the bus. When it comes to the power of US extortion, moral corruption knows no bounds.