Our four ADCS Board members are John Richardson (co-chair and legal counsel), Patricia Moon (Treasurer), Carol Tapanila, and Stephen Kish (Chair).
Canadians and International Supporters, we have now received sufficient donations to pay off the $45,000 installment for the legal fees bill for our Canadian FATCA lawsuit appeal. Thank you for your longstanding support.
As Embee says: “This lawsuit may have been overshadowed by these trying times but it’s still important to assert one’s right to justice and plead for common sense to prevail in whatever form US bully boy tactics threaten our well-being”
The FATCA Canada lawsuit began in 2014 and will likely be resolved only in the Supreme Court. Its simple aim is to strike down the FATCA IGA and enabling provisions of Canada’s Income Tax Act in their entirety. Stated differently: We want our nation’s sovereignty back.
A commenter reminded us that we will not receive any support from either Conservative or Liberal Canadian governments: “Harper signed the IGA (Flaherty did clearly point out it’s failings but it went ahead anyway) and Trudeau criticized the agreement and vowed to do something (he did nothing)”. This means that we are on our own.
Please help us to stay the course.
DONATIONS ARE NEEDED TO FUND a lawsuit attacking the constitutionality, regarding autonomy, privacy, and equality rights, of the Canadian FATCA IGA legislation that was imposed by the United States on Canada. We want our sovereignty back.
You can DONATE by cheque and cash in the mail, PayPal and transfers.
CANADIAN FATCA LITIGATION UPDATE May 21, 2020:
LITIGATION STATUS: The Notice of Appeal has been filed. This will be followed by the Appeal Book and the Memorandum of Fact and Law (the arguments). My (SK) personal guess is that the trial itself will take place during the first quarter of 2021.
The Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty and Gwen and Kazia have raised $45,000 in this first installment funding round (Thank you for your support!) for the legal expenses of our FATCA IGA lawsuit, now at the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal.
Justice Mactavish said that it is “important” to avoid consequences threatened by the U.S. But we say not at the expense of our Charter rights.Please help end one of the FATCA compliance laws that impact on all of our countries.
CBC says that, for 2018 tax year, information on 900,000 financial records of Canadian residents was turned over by Canada to U.S. IRS because of the Canadian FATCA law. Gwen and Kazia, two Canadian citizens having no meaningful relationship with the U.S., are appealing on your behalf two Federal Court decisions to the Canadian Court of Appeal.
The grounds for appeal will include violations against their autonomy (Charter section 7), privacy (8) and equality (15) as well as arguments that the ruling was improperly based on the finding that the Income Tax Act is primarily regulatory in nature, and that factors such as the relationship between Canada and United States were not properly dealt with. Fleshed out details of appeal grounds will be provided in the Factum, likely mid-year.
Gwen and Kazia ask for your help in paying for the legal costs of the appeal.
If you feel that the FATCA IGA is not good for Canada PLEASE DONATE.
Appellants and the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty thank you for your past support. SEE OUR WEBSITE FOR MORE DETAILS (ADCS-ADSC).
You can SEND DONATIONS by cheque, cash, PayPal (easiest), and transfers.
For more details see: Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty
From one twig to another … thanks Eurotwig. 🙂
@Duchesse;
I’ve had my own very painful, almost unbearably stressful years long experiences with the personal, familial and very tangible monetary costs of trying to effect a permanent solution to the problem my US citizenship came to represent once I became aware of the associated burden and complexities.
And I am of modest means – for a long time only precariously employed, and sometimes with no personal income at all. My donations have not been large – though of significant size to me at the time.
I believe that there were – and still are – growing and very compelling reasons to feel angry about FATCA being enabled in Canada and elsewhere, and to resist any attempts by the US to enforce extraterritorial CBT. I accept that not everyone feels the same – or to the same degree – and some might even feel numbed by years of reading about it or more detached from it outside the theoretical.
My suggestion was that If anyone can spare even a small sum, and feels deeply about this issue, they might consider directing some of that anger and feeling of injustice towards fuelling/funding the lawsuit fight if they haven’t so far. I cast no aspersions on those who feel that they can’t afford to donate.
That – it goes without saying – is entirely a voluntary personal decision dependent on individual and family circumstances – as well as other factors specific to each person.
I can only try to describe some of what I still find very compelling reasons why I think people should consider it if they can.
I was expecting to be able to send more but have just lost a 1/3 of my wages this month due to the coronavirus panic.
Almost there! I would have made it an exact $2,618 but I was not allowed to edit the figure.
Just sent the remainder. Thanks for all your hard work!
@Anonymous by necessity,
This ADCS litigation donation brightens up a rainy day. Thank you so much for your generosity and your continued support for this fight and real solution.
@Anonymous by necessity
Rainy day here too. Also brightened by your donation 🙂 This lawsuit may have been overshadowed by these trying times but it’s still important to assert one’s right to justice and plead for common sense to prevail in whatever form US bully boy tactics threaten our well-being.
So glad to see that we made this goal to support the lawsuit. Thank you to everyone involved.
Congrats Everyone. That looks awesome.
These are the articles referred to in the above post:
Bloomberg:
Washington Post:
In the Accidental Americans Facebook group Fabien Lehagre says that he has some “breaking news” regarding FATCA but it will have to wait.
Would anyone ok this website happen to know what it is?
Yes, I saw it too. Good job I wasn’t holding my breath.
I do hope they are not talking about yet another letter to the US government asking them to play nice (which I have just seen) because they are wasting their time.
If it’s something more earth shattering that that, I’m in the dark too.
I can’t imagine that Fabien would build suspence like this if it were just another stupid letter that he knows the US would throw into the trash can.
I’m hoping the breaking news is something like Ursula Van Der Leyden informing all EU member states that they must immediately withdraw from FATCA because it violates EU privacy law.
Privacy, data protection, anti discrimination, sovereignty, common decency, human rights….what does FATCA in combination with US tax code not trample on?
I would love to think you are right but I don’t think the EU are quite ready to stand up to the USA over this, it’s still far far easier to stand up to some whiny expats that can largely be stonewalled as has been proven by a decade of doing it.
That said pressure is growing, you can see the EU know they have been found out and that we know that they know this cannot continue as stands, certainly not as long as the complaints don’t go away and they won’t be.
We’ll just have to wait and see what Fabien has for us, but I doubt Fabien would be in a position to know if the EU were about to grow a pair and stand up for their residents. I don’t see them telling him first.
Still, fingers crossed.
The day that Germany has the Nord Stream 2 pipeline up and running will be the day that the EU will have stood up to the US . Amen.
I’m outing myself as the donor referred to in the post’s headline today because today is the 10th anniversary of my OMG day and donating is how I chose to “celebrate” it. (Note: ADCS emails Brock updated headlines for this post, but never reveals to us donor names)
The US caused me a lot of trouble with FATCA and their underhanded attempts with retroactive citizenship (I relinquished and believed myself to be a Canadian-only citizen since 1978).
I now have a CLN, recognising that I have not been a US citizen for some 40 years. I don’t volunteer my place of birth as a matter of principle in banking, and I’ve been asked. My principles have limits, though, and I can and will use my CLN if push comes to shove.
So, either way, I basically don’t have a horse in the ADCS race. But if I’d wanted to live under American laws, I could’ve just stayed there. I’ve no complaints about my life in the US nor had I any personal beefs with the US government until this day in 2011.
However, I feel that people outside the US should not be governed by US laws and I believe a legal victory against FATCA in any country will have some repercussions around the world. And I’m sure aware of the damage FATCA has caused and that it continues to derail people’s lives.
But the main reason I donated today was for me. Knowing it was the 10th anniversary of that awful OMG day (and the lengthy period of fallout from it) not surprisingly brought back dark memories. So I decided to throw those thoughts right back at them and make a big (for me, anyway) donation to ADCS today. It felt great hitting that Send button, my way of giving the bully a commemorative swift kick in the stomach (or elsewhere)!