I just came across this and my hands a shaking as I type this up. From the book Billionaires’ Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality.
I can’t copy past the exact text but if you go to the link you will see what I am talking about McQuaig and Brooks both criticise Canadian Banks and the Harper government for speaking out against FATCA(without any acknowledgement of the NDP’s role too). Both indicate that Canada has an obligation under the “laws of nature” and “societal justice” to help the United States get financial information on its citizens due to the huge degree income inequality in the US.
Neil Brooks
http://www.osgoode.yorku.ca/faculty/full-time/neil-brooks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_McQuaig
Linda McQuaig is a famous Canadian writer and journalist who worked for the Toronto Star and famously broke the Patti Starr case(relating to an Ontario Liberal MPP engaged in illegal campaign fundraising)
To McQuaig and Brooks I will see to it that your public reputation in Canada will become dirt if the two of you don’t recant public statements in favor of FATCA. I also think the NDP has to make a decision to acknowledge whether these individuals are NDP members and if so whether they should be expelled from the NDP.
I didn’t read the whole the thing yet, but the bit I read suggested that an easier way to deal with tax evasion is for foreign banks to automatically send tax information to the country where the client “resides”. (which I would have no problem with) So it may be that they were not sufficiently aware of the problems with citizenship based taxation when they wrote the book. I will have to read it later, but I suspect they may be ill informed rather than traitorous.
Too bad you can’t comment on google books!
@Tim- I agree with Canuck Doc. It seems that their preferred method of reporting is to have automatic reporting by each financial institution on none resident citizens who have accounts with them. This is basically reseidence based taxation but I don’t think they understand that Americans use citizenship based taxation which means that America would never go along with this reporting sysem.
America isn’t interested in what is good for the world and the world’s banking system but only in preserving their own peculiar irrational taxing regime.
*@recalcitrantexpat, you are so right. China, for example has no interest in what either its citizens or residents earn abroad because it practices pure territorial taxation by only taxing its residents and then only on their China income.
And that makes a lot of sense. Let every nation tax the income earned in its own country as it sees fit. Period. Not a half bad idea. Sounds pretty civilized to me.
We can comment to them directly. The book was published in 2010. Perhaps they have become better informed or perhaps we should better inform them on how the bigger affected population is being affected.
If there was an exchange of information based solely on residence and not on the citizenship or place of birth of the account holder, the witch hunt that is FATCA may be avoided. The U.S. banks may not like this since the U.S.is a major tax haven.
I do disagree with the line that it is not easy to acquire U.S. citizenship, as many Brockers would attest.
For sure they don’t understand the fallacy of that statement, Hazy2:
*The book was released not in 2010 but in March 2012. If you read futher after the section I linked to they clearly acknowledge that they know about citizenship based taxation and they support it along with the “Exit Tax.” These two are going down. I am posting an even more inflamatory post later this evening. In fact I am not at all surprised I know several sole Canadian citizen NDP members who support FATCA too. They told me they would die to become American citizens and can’t see how anyone would renounce their American citizenship and Obama was the greatest US president ever and all Canadians should be doing whatever they can to get him re-elected. When I told him that the NDP opposed FATCA one said despite the fact he was an NDP member he opposed their position if it was anti-FATCA and that dual citizens had an obligation to support “poor” people in South Central Los Angeles.
Reading some of what she’s written for the Star, I can see why Linda McQuaig is called the Michael Moore of Canada.
http://www.thestar.com/columnist/94538–mcquaig-linda
It’s sure to cause calamity in the minds of the left leaning press when they discover that they will need to rally behind the evil Harper government to fight FATCA. It would seem that a few in their ranks would rather throw USP’s and Canada’s sovereignty under the bus than do that. Who’s looking more right wing right now, Ms McQuaig, or Stephen Harper?
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1060026–mcquaig-the-great-northern-tax-haven
Thanks, Tim. Look forward to more on this.
I got the 2010 date from here: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/859721–excerpt-the-trouble-with-billionaires-by-linda-mcquaig-and-neil-brooks
From: The Trouble with Billionaires
by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks. Copyright © Linda McQuaig and Neil
Brooks, 2010. Reprinted with permission of Penguin Group (Canada).
*The book was published by the Unitarian Universalist Church for any of you who are Unitarian Universalists members.
Can anyone see Comments? for “The Great Northern Tax Haven”?
*It looks likes like there is an American version and a Canadian version. The American version was published in 2012 and is where the references to FATCA and citizenship based taxation are(In some ways doing this on the “sly” is even more distasteful). I will have to check if there is anything about FATCA in the 2010 Canadian version. I thought it was funny that there was no mention of Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, et all by name in the book. Then I realized was reading an American version. No one in the US cares about Stephen Harper or Jim Flaherty.
*I play basketball with Linda McQuaig and have asked her by email if she really favors the IRS going after me and two other fellow ball players.
*The American version was published by Beacon Press part of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Boston, MA
*Joe Smith
Great Joe. You are the best. I knew this was going to be a bombshell. Clearly at a personal level someone from McQuiag’s background( i.e. centre left/Toronto/media) is going to know a lot of a US Persons.
@joe smith
I’d love to hear her response. This is precious. One more opportunity for someone at Brock to enlighten someone in the press, although someone in the liberal elite of Canada may prove to be the biggest challenge of all.
You’ve already sent an email — good for you, Joe. What a godsend that you play basketball with Linda McQuaig! Thank you very much!
*Read “Shooting The Hippo” that Linda McQuaig wrote co-opting a report that my maternal “uncle” Hideo Mimoto (chief of the social security section at
Statistics Canada) wrote regarding the social security net in Canada.
“
Statistician Hideo Mimoto (chief of the social security section
at Statistics Canada) calculated that only 1 percent of the debt growth was due
to unemployment insurance, 4.5 percent was due to welfare programs, 6 percent
was due to the old age pension, and 3.4 percent was due to housing programs. He
also found that the amount we spent on social programs had not been growing any
faster than the growth in the overall economy.
In deciding to actively pursue the goal of price stability the
Bank of Canada, headed by John Crow, was serving the interests of the financial
elite. In calling for inflation to be reduced to 3 percent by the end of 1992
and 2 percent by the end of 1995 Crow ended up by overshooting the targets. In
the spring of 1994 inflation had dropped to zero and the country was mired in a
lingering recession. The dream of price stability had come to fruition.
Recall that Hideo Mimoto calculated that unemployment insurance
increases accounted for only 1 percent of the growth of the debt. By
comparison, his calculations showed the rising cost of interest payments
accounted for a staggering 70 percent of the debt growth. The baffling
phenomenon of higher taxes, fewer services and rising debt isn’t magic. It’s
the effect of high real interest rates.” ~Quoted from “Shoot The Hippo” by Linda McQuaig
I don’t believe that was correct. We’re seeing that the social security net in Canada has been affected by the national debt; that it has considerably more impact than the 1% that Mimoto calculated. Frankly if we spend more on society, coincidentally taxes have to rise. The only reason why there are fewer services is the cost cutting measures implemented. Only problem is that those cost-cutting measures in itself are not all that we have to do to get out of the financial situation that we’re in. And no…unfortunately for Linda McQuaig. It is a matter of ethics. You do not ask those who do not draw on the system to pay for those who do. The Uhited States despite its legislation of “citizen-based” taxation is in a moral bind. It has become the pariah of the world by inflicting onerous taxes and penalties on those who do not draw on the U.S. system. Their whole taxation viewpoint is “Screw the few to help the many.”
*This is a video of Linda McQuaig speaking in the US. I love when she talks in the US about “our” democracy or what “we” had here in here in the United States. What is she now an American. Michael Ignatieff II
Its an hour and twenty minute long video so others will have to watch the whole thing. The few minutes I have read are not really impressive. Again Count Iggy two. All this “us” “we” “our” American stuff.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0NsfOBCyN8
Just like Iggy
*Another video showing a more “Nationalist” position. Ms. McQuaig goes on and on about how Canada needs to “stand up” to the US more often but apparently not on FATCA or citizenship based taxation.
*I am holding off on my next post which will be even more dramatic unless I hear back that Linda McQuade has made “amends.” If she doesn’t there will be far more people I intend to go after under will include much of the non political infrastructure(groups not part of the actual NDP or Liberal parties) of the Canadian left.
*Tim, the “poor” people in South Central Los Angeles didn’t support me when I was broke, poor and jobless while living in S. California. Nor will they support me if I become jobless in Switzerland. So, anyone who claims that I must support the “poor” people in South Central Los Angeles needs to reexamine their thought processes.
I once knew one from Los Angeles while serving in the military, and he stole many valuables from me (a true story)
About time a few more Brockers showed some appreciation for Joe Smith …