Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 4 of 11 (Year 2017)

1,720 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 4 of 11 (Year 2017)”

1. This might already have been posted (can’t keep up lately) but isn’t it ironic that Bill Morneau tweeted;
   “In Washington today to meet with Treasury Secretary @stevenmnuchin1 to discuss helping middle class families on both sides of the border.” https://twitter.com/Bill_Morneau/status/836970682810499072

   Yeah, like abusing the Canadian tax revenues extracted from every Canadian taxpayer to defend and enable and enforce a foreign extraterritorial law on law abiding Canadian citizens and residents with local legal Canadian accounts and savings.

2. Joe Arvay’s trying to take down BC’s foreign buyers tax. Apparently foreigners have charter rights.

   https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/b-c-foreign-buyers-tax-030727902.html

3. EmBee: Thanks so much for posting Jim Jatras’ IRS Medic interview. It did my heart good! Go, Jim!

4. @MNM @EmBee

   I don’t think there’s anything Jim doesn’t get right about FATCA.

5. U.S. Agents Raid Caterpillar Over Offshore Tax Practices
   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/business/caterpillar-raid-tax-practices.html

   The transfers were not legitimate business transactions, but were made solely to take advantage of a lower tax rate Caterpillar had negotiated with Switzerland, Senator Carl M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said at the time. Caterpillar has said its effective United States tax rate was 29 percent. In Switzerland, the company negotiated a tax rate of 4 to 6 percent.

   The priorities of those who have been kicked out of DC will continue to move forward through bureaucratic inertia until someone explicitly stands up and forces them to move in another direction.

6. If Trump Spoils Privacy Pact, We’ll Pull It, EU Official Warns
   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-02/if-trump-spoils-privacy-pact-we-ll-pull-it-eu-official-warns

   The pact, clinched last year, was meant to keep data flowing across the Atlantic while ensuring that Europeans enjoyed safeguards from the snooping by American security services. The Privacy Shield plugged holes that led EU judges to overturn a previous accord dating back to 2000, and was greeted with relief by U.S. companies that process personal data from billing details to messaging platforms.

7. Alternate Facts: I am both amused and ticked when someone at American Expatriates Facebook page tries to speak for me, doesn’t quote me and misrepresents me. I don’t Facebook, twitter etc. I have never posted there and don’t intend to nor would I want to, or know how to.
   Having said that, I realise everything is basically public. I am entitled to my feelings and my own opinions, without them being badly paraphrased.

   To say that I am willfully non compliant is a misnomer. I do not recognise USG jurisdiction over me. I am not an American. Would you submit to any country’s laws that have no jurisdiction over you? Should I also be complaint with Somalia’s tax laws?
   If you are a poster here at Brock, I would appreciate if you did not speak for me over at AE. I realise I can’t enforce that, I only ask as a courtesy.
   I have given up a lot of privacy rights as a plaintiff, which I understand and accept. However, being misquoted or attributing positions to me that are not mine, was not in the bargain, albeit the collateral effect.

   I am quite capable of speaking for myself and defending my positions. You are under no requirement or compulsion to speak for me.
   I respect what the admin of AE is doing; I choose not to join that group or forum.

8. @ Canadian Ginny
   I don’t know what prompted your comment but it made me teary thinking about how much privacy you have lost since standing forth to challenge our government. Privacy is a precious, vital part of being human and if governments (or the powers behind them) succeed in stripping away every last thread of it we will be nothing more than cattle, shuffling up the chute to oblivion. This bleak future seemed to get closer when I read recently about an American flying out of the USA who found himself in a lineup on the boarding ramp with all of his fellow passengers waiting to have a retina scan which was being administered by two armed agents. It was a privacy ambush, another DHS invasive action in the pretense of “security”. When’s enough enough? Thank goodness for the ADCS lawsuit which is calling out the FATCA IGA.

9. Well, it boggles the (or at least MY) mind…

   More on this *perhaps discriminatory* practice for the benefit of southern states:
   CBC News: “Snowbirds may soon be allowed 8 months in U.S., but could risk provincial health benefits — U.S. lawmakers ponder law to allow Canadians to stay longer without paying U.S. income tax”

   Despite heightened tensions around the U.S. border, a bipartisan bill currently before Congress would allow Canadians — and Canadians only — over the age of 55 to stay south of the border for up to eight months of the year, provided they own a home or have signed a rental agreement for the duration of their stay.

10. @calgary411,
    Seems like a good thing to me. Freeing a bunch of people from the crazy American tax system who just want to eat ice creams on the beach.

11. @ Neill
    While the snowbirds enjoy their ice cream on US beaches (possibly up to 8 months a year, if the legislation passes) and spend their Canadian earned dollars there, the US economy gets a big lick of maple ice cream. Meanwhile the IRS gets its licks in from Americans living in Canada who may not even be snowbirds. Plus for snowbirds, minus for Canada and double plus for the USA. What a deal! Sounds like something Sunny Boy Trudeau will lap up like the US poodle he is.

12. IRS only gets its licks from US citizens in Canada if they bother to comply and pay. Most don’t.

13. EmBee: Bingo! If the law passes, my Canadian snowbird friends will be able to enjoy their fun in the sun even longer …. tax free …. while I sit here in my Canadian home, winter after winter, in eternal damnation because, technically speaking, I am still a US citizen! I will not cross the border until US law no longer brands me a tax-evading felon.

    I hasten to add that I am very happy at home in Canada but I still want the same rights to travel as every other Canadian.

    If Congress is magnanimously considering welcoming my neighbours for extended periods of time it had better keep its promise to ME and all my compatriots.

14. EU citizens appear to have much better privacy protections and people demanding it vis a vis the US than Canadians do.

    I don’t see anything about the federal Privacy Commissioner of Canada vowing to protect us, even as the Canadian owned data under FATCA flows to the US – despite over-reporting (ex. http://maplesandbox.ca/2016/cra-gave-irs-bank-records-under-50000/ ), and the Beyond the Border ramps up to let US border officials violate our constitutional and Charter rights on Canadian soil ( http://globalnews.ca/news/3251407/border-strip-search-detention-questions-court-challenge/ ).

15. Further to the above that the EU is protecting its citizens and residents privacy more than Canada’s Privacy Commissioner;

    ‘For a more open border, Trudeau sacrifices privacy’
    “The PM quietly agreed to share more info about Canadians with the U.S. in meeting with Obama
    Thomas Walkom Star Touch

    When the hyperbole is cleared away, Justin Trudeau’s pilgrimage to Washington has produced one clear result.

    Canada’s new Liberal government says it will push through a long-delayed plan to share with Washington biographic and other information on Canadian citizens travelling overland to the U.S.”
    “….On Friday, Daniel Therrien, the current federal privacy commissioner, said he won’t comment on this week’s announcement about information sharing until he sees what precisely the government is proposing….”
    http://startouch.thestar.com/screens/7b78cb9c-bfbe-493f-bdd7-53365acdf207%7C_0.html

16. How does this accord with the FATCA IGA and the over sharing of Canadian personal and financial data that it is very clear has already taken place?
    https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-news/news-and-announcements/2016/bg_161206/

17. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/taxes-internal-revenue-service-fatca-united-states-1.3954789

    However, as recently as Nov. 2016, the Privacy Commissioner seems to be okay with FATCA despite knowing that information was over reported;
    “November 1st, 2016 / 11:15 a.m.

    Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

    Copy this link:

    Daniel Therrien

    I’ll put it at the level of policy objective. That issue, of course, was raised in the context of FATCA, as an example. The first step, I think, is to determine whether the agreement between Canada and another state—here the United States—for tax purposes is trying to achieve a legitimate purpose. In the case of FATCA, the objective was to avoid tax evasion, which is a legitimate purpose.

    In general terms, first, the purpose must be identified. Is it a legitimate purpose? Then, ensure that the information that being shared is consistent with that purpose and does not go beyond that purpose. If you follow these rules, yes, the information of certain Canadian individuals or companies may be shared, but it will be because an analysis will have been made that there is a valid policy objective to be achieved and that no more than what needs to be shared for that purpose is shared.”
    https://openparliament.ca/committees/ethics/42-1/32/daniel-therrien-4/

    We know and he knows that in practice, in implementing the FATCA IGA, the CRA and the FIs have NOT restricted themselves to; “.. what needs to be shared for that purpose is shared”.

    And still as individuals we are having to obtain justice through the courts – while the CRA and Justice Dept. are content to misuse our own tax monies to defend the abuse of Canadian constitutional and Charter rights, and we see no public commitment to defend the privacy rights of Canadians by the Privacy Commissioner on the issue of FATCA.

18. Tuesday, March 7, 2017
    ‘How much revenue has FATCA raised and at what offsetting compliance costs?’

    By William Byrnes
    http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/intfinlaw/2017/03/how-much-revenue-has-fatca-raised-and-at-what-offsetting-compliance-costs.html

    Notes that FATCA has not brought in the revenue projected, the huge costs, and that re ‘reciprocity’; “The U.S. has not agreed to globally exchange information pursuant to the OECD’s CRS.”

19. @ badger
    From William Byrnes’ paper …

    It appears that the primary purpose of FATCA was for the U.S. government to obtain otherwise private financial information and control of the global financial industry.

    He gets it! He really, really gets it!

    The tax revenue projections, which were used to validate the passage of FATCA did not show FATCA raising any significant tax revenue annually. In fact, except for the extraordinary penalties assessed, little additional tax has been collected. In comparison to the annual on budget spending by the U.S. government, the actual amount of tax collected by FATCA is statistically insignificant.

    I loved reading his research into the dodgy origins of that $100B number. Mr. Blum stated, “You just have to take a guess at it.” Darn fine paper, I’d say.
    CONCLUSION:
    “Thus, excepting FBAR penalties, it appears FATCA will soon cost more money than it brings in if Congress approves the additional FATCA budget.”

20. Tax evasion is always overestimated because it’s fun to fantasize about, easy to dream about spending the recovered tax money, and nobody can prove you wrong (it’s like Hollywood thinking that people who download movies illegally would have paid full price for them). So maybe FATCA really is about control, not about recovering money. Conspiracy vs incompetence… Now that Trump has left the Trans-Pacific Partnership, for instance, analysis of the US negotiation tactics shows just how much the US had to win by imposing various favorable rules into the treaty. In fact many partners, Mexico and Canada included, felt strong-armed into making concessions. The US made very little. FATCA and its notorious IGAs are the same. If FATCA were just about tax evasion, the US could have bypassed CBT in the IGAs and granted exemptions to bona fide residents of foreign countries.

21. @ All the Wednesday #fatca Tweeties
    Good work. You are keeping the compliance condors subdued today. I’m not a tweetie but I hope doing many #fatca searches helps in some way.
    @ fellow Brockers
    Don’t miss the new (to me at least) cartoon posted by John Hanson before it scrolls down the page.
    https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23fatca

22. @Embee – do you mean this one? https://twitter.com/JohnXHanson/status/839524999870435328 – to link to a specific tweet right click on the date/time of the tweet when you’re viewing it, and ‘copy link address’ (and paste it where you want the link to show).

    And, yes, this is a great cartoon – hadn’t seen it before.

23. @ Karen
    Yep, that’s the one. Glad you captured the link because I don’t see that tweet on #fatca now. So tweets work the same as getting the URL for a specific wordpress comment. Nice to know, thanks! (A “right click” on my computer involves the “control-option” keys.)

24. Bloomberg has an interesting article today: U.S. Emerging as ‘Leading’ Tax, Secrecy Haven, EU Report Says.
    https://www.bna.com/us-emerging-leading-n57982084891/

    The only problem is that the ire it contains isn’t really matched by the actual EU report, which is much more measured.
    http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2017/598602/EPRS_IDA(2017)598602_EN.pdf

25. If you like flow charts you’ll appreciate this tweet from FixTheTaxTreaty:
    https://twitter.com/FixTheTaxTreaty/status/840320488219922432

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