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.
This one fits right in with my thesis that lots and lots of nice and polite proper-thinking Canadians will have no problem letting the FATCA lady sing a dirge for US persons.
I have done nothing as compared to you others. Just happen to have thought about all this for years now and decided to do a full turtle..
I also sent her the video!
*Hi Neil:
Thought I’d bring this to your attention. There are close to 1,000,000 US persons in Canada, many accidental, that feel that the IRS is on a vendetta against us and Canadian sovereignty.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/09/22/linda-mcquaig-and-neil-brooks-traitors-to-canada-on-fatca/
@usxcanada
There will be very few Canadians who will remain untouched by this issue, as pretty much every Canadian family’s got one, or at least knows one (USP).
Could prove lucrative for those ‘polite proper-thinking Canadians’ who agree with Ms McQuaig. Why not receive compensation for doing the proper thing?
@ Tim
While I greatly appreciate your amazing research abilities
and posts, I have to strongly disagree with your attack on the Canadian left. Right after Obama was elected, I spoke to a number of dyed in the wool Conservatives who expressed admiration for Obama and wished that he was our Prime Minister instead of Harper. Of course I also heard this more universally from those on the left.
Mostly everyone later became disappointed.
I’m also of the opinion that very few people, including the US Congress , really understand the negative implications of FATCA and what a complete mess the IRS has made of the regulations. So, I wouldn’t be surprised that someone who didn’t understand FATCA might express approval of the attack on tax evasion that FATCA was supposed to be designed for. And, I also wouldn’t be surprised if many didn’t understand the implications of US citizenship based taxation.
After all, many of the participants on this site were unaware of their possible US tax obligations and the complications and penalties involved until the summer of 2011 and have been educating themselves ever since.
@joe smith
You might ask Ms Mcquaig if she feels it’s within the rights of the Eritrean government to tax its citizens in Canada too.
Not entirely satisfactory…
Thanks for passing this along.
I appreciate all the difficulties that recent changes in US tax law and enforcement practices have caused US citizens living abroad. We obviously were not dealing with any of those issues in the book.
Our broad point was quite simple – in order for modern income taxes to be enforceable, particularly against the wealthy, every financial institution in the world should have to report the income earned by depositors to the country in which those depositors might be liable to pay tax. There is no question that we are very very slowly moving in that direction and FACTA turned out to be an incredibly important initiative in achieving that objective. A number of countries are now entering into reciprocal arrangements with the US to exchange this financial information.
It is the case that US taxes on the basis of citizenship, but that is an entirely different issue. It would be odd to argue (I think) that if one is opposed to that basis of tax jurisdiction that therefore you should be opposed to all efforts to prevent the evasion of the rule – including efforts that might go some way to reducing the evasion of taxes on the more than $21 trillion of assets held in tax havens around the world.
Be well,
Neil
*I apologize my for my attacks on the left they were not intended when I wrote this up last night. However, there is more to this than just Linda McQuaig. I will try to figure out if I can go back and edit my original not well written post. I have suspected some in Canada have been sympathetic to going along with FATCA(not just in the banking industry) but some who actually think what the US is doing is a good thing from a public policy standpoint. I have had my eye on a particular organization and certain individuals for a long time and was pretty estatic that a smoked em out last night.
*Tell Neil those agreements if implemented in Canda would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What does he think about that.
You can do it. Her publicly-presented (in her column) email is
Linda McQuaig <lmcquaig@sympatico.ca>
You can do it
<NBrooks@osgoode.yorku.ca>
Point taken
Be well,
Neil
Neil Brooks
Osgoode Hall Law School
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M3J 1P3
——————————-
Neil:
Thanks. But not very satisfactory to those who have left the USA, have no contact with it, and now are facing civil and criminal prosecution by one of the most dangerous nations in the world.
Best,
name
The argument about whether FATCA is the right remedy for a problem, is like arguing that because you happen to have a sledgehammer handy, that it is the right tool to use when you need to adjust a tiny loose screw. Or a blowtorch when you wanted to light the pilot light on your stove.
If McQuaig and Brooks are arguing that the world needs FATCA as a remedy, they ignore that even IF, (and I think it would be very un-academic and naive to accept that IF at face value as presented in US propaganda – particularly by the IRS who gave tax breaks to banks that repeatedly broke anti-money laundering and other laws http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2011/apr/10/tax-evaders-wall-shame/ ) IF it was designed to fix a problem of global tax evasion, the US itself does not want it to apply to US banks and others with vested interests INSIDE the US http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704377004575651134154809918.html . And, the US and IRS doesn’t give a damn about the ordinary citizen anywhere – in the US or out. This is really becoming more about US preferential treatment of US banks and corporations, and the US economy profiting from being a huge domestic tax haven itself “We’re the biggest tax haven in the world,” says Robert Goulder, editor-in-chief of U.S.-based Tax Notes International . “People joke about the Cayman Islands. The biggest haven is an island, all right. It’s either Manhattan or Great Britain.” http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/051811_irs_cheats_latinamerica/us-and-its-banks-called-worlds-biggest-tax-haven/ – as in Just Me’s DATCA angle. And if you read this paper I link to below, the US is all about keeping assets inside the US, and preventing US citizens from investing elsewhere, conveniently ignoring that over 6 million individuals (and >1 million in Canada) already were born and live OUTSIDE the US, and most, or many are never coming back. So those assets were never inside the US, and were not produced or originated there. The US assumptions about this are glaringly evident here: Joint Committee on Taxation, Sept. 6, 2011 (JCX-42-11),
prepared for the Public Hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance
of Sept. 8, 2011, “Present Law and Issues in U.S. Taxation of
Cross-Border Income,” p. 93, available at http://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4355.
“PRESENT LAW AND ISSUES IN U.S. TAXATION
OF CROSS-BORDER INCOME
Scheduled for a Public Hearing
Before the
SENATE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
on September 8, 2011
Prepared by the Staff
of the
JOINT COMMITTEE ON TAXATION”
In deciding how to control our assets, and ensure that individual US deemed citizens everywhere have no incentive to save, invest and hold money outside the US economy, there is the huge flaw of the US government assuming that we are living elsewhere for the singular purpose of managing and maximizing investments, like a corporation, and that our behaviour and choices are primarily based on some overarching values that only some economist could possibly think are the ones that determine who to marry, and where to live and have a family. My family moved here because my parent was offered a job, needed one, and thought it was a better place to live. But, I stayed here (since age 3) because it was the only real home I knew, and married and raised a family here. I don’t even know much about finances or the markets, or until recently, US vs. Canadian taxation. So it is an utter fallacy to believe that imposing FATCA as conceived and designed so far, persecuting the everyday US individuals and families who have a Canadian bank account will result in us pulling up stakes and moving our pitiful savings to the US. And that is insane anyway, because it assumes that we have the option to profit from US investments – unfettered by the Canadian tax system. Or that we have any knowledge of how the two intersect – and have enough assets to make that a reason to uproot an entire family on that basis. Or that any of what we own and saved ever had a US source to begin with.
Canada, and academics should be challenging the US right to assert a claim to the fruits of labour and goods produced or amassed entirely outside the boundaries of the US, created by individuals paying tax and enjoying the services of another sovereign country like Canada. Can McQuaig or Brooks justify an economic, tax, or asset reporting relationship as imposed by the US inside Canada based solely on an accident of birth and genetics? And extend that to those born in Canada as duals? I’d like to read that argument if they can. And, the explanation of how that would profit Canada as a nation – given that 1/32 or more inside Canada would be held liable for their lifetimes and beyond through their estates. The only reason that it hasn’t come to an impasse before this is that it wasn’t well known, or well enforced. It is too big an elephant to be ignored now.
The main problem is US residents and corporations. They are the ones that profit by choosing whether to maintain assets inside or outside the US. But FATCA is mostly concentrating on those of us legitimately outside the US – subject to two different tax and legislative systems. Which is convenient for those in the IRS and US government selling it to US resident taxpayers, but makes us scapegoats and distorts our lives in painful ways. And perhaps Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks have not considered what the unique extraterritorial-citizenship based tax system of the US has morphed into, even more so as fed by FATCA. Perhaps they need to consider what that uniqueness means as powered by FATCA and the power of the US to tap Canadian resident citizens and taxpayers. Just the example of the US treatment of the sale of our Canadian sited primary residence http://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/u-s-persons-must-pay-capital-gains-tax-on-sale-of-principal-residence-makes-upward-mobility-difficult/ – if we’re lucky enough to have one, should prove illuminating, since it is the biggest asset most will ever own, and one which we invest in as our nest egg http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/oca-bc.nsf/eng/ca02108.html – to sell when we are seniors and to fund our retirement and longterm care. Or, the impact of the US staking claim to that part of our estate, through the rules the penalize and restrict non-US spouses and children from full inheriting from a US parent or spouse http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/2012/09/diaspora-taxes-inheritance-tax.html in Canada, even if that person is a dual, lives in Canada, and the property is entirely Canadian funded and sited. And in the case of spouses, probably the property was bought and maintained by them both. I hardly think that McQuaig or Brooks could justify the de facto confiscation of the Canadian family home – the largest asset any family will probably ever have http://www.lfpress.com/2012/09/09/canadians-high-on-home-ownership , which could result from the illegitimate result of a US or global attempt to shut down ‘tax havens’. But that is what happens when US citizenship based taxation is applied in Canada and other countries.
The paper “Present Law and Issues in U.S. Taxation of
Cross-Border Income,” p. 93, available at http://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4355. and others of the like, muse that the FEIE and Foreign tax credits could be considered US subsidies to other countries if it offsets non-US tax imposed on US citizens abroad where they live, and they get credit, to avoid double taxation under the treaty – and thus owe no US tax. Which is a very twisted way of justifying that all those deemed US taxable persons should pay to support the US no matter what. And that argument has been used by those who continue to try and get rid of the FEIE and Foreign Tax credits. http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/mark-nestman/2011/11/04/another-tax-attack-on-us-citizens-living-abroad
@Badger
Wonderful comment.
The title to this post is:
Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks Traitors to Canada on FATCA
True, but actually McQuig and Brooks are traitors to all free people everywhere. That said, Professor Brooks explained that the book was written without consideration of the the issue of citizenship-based taxation. He just says that as a general principle banks should report income to the country where the income should be taxed. The problem is that this is an issue that mostly affects US citizens and FATCA is for the primary purpose of hunting US citizens.
In any case, I don’t know why everybody is so bothered by people like Mcquig and Brooks. Name a single person who is not directly affected by this who cares about this issue. It takes too much energy to understand it. Actually, I just thought of one person – Mr. Mopsick.
And in case, people like McQuaig and Brooks are simply to heavenly to be of any earthly use. So, don’t get upset about them. If you are going to get upset, get upset about your “friends and family” who have no empathy and are happy to see the noose close around your neck.
“If we don’t hang together, we will hang separately!”
@badger
Thank you for that.
@renounceuscitizenship
Living up to one’s ideals can most certainly bring you closer to heaven, at least in many of the minds who aspire to. What’s disconcerting to me is that the message that those like McQuaig brings actually resonates well with quite a few Canadians and the NDP, who we thought would naturally be champions of our cause. Now I’m starting to see flaws in that kind of reasoning.
@renounce, thanks. and @bubblebustin too.
I know they don’t have any comprehension of all the links in the US chains that I feel constrained and shackled by – of which FATCA in design and application is just one. I think it is the issue of those inside our own Canadian backyard justifying the horrific injustice that is FATCA (as part of US citizenship-based taxation), and results in the US threatening and stealing from us and our Canadian families. And the authors have a certain influence in Canada. I don’t want the NDP or other allies to use what they have written as support to dismiss our concerns. I have given up on the idea that any Americans will assist us, or comprehend, but thought the view from Canada, outside the US might give those here a bit more perspective.
And as I am not a journalist, researcher or academic, and if I as an ordinary person, can see how some of the details are fitting together, and find corroboration, I expect a more critical, responsible and objective view from those with more resources – and established access to an audience. And some of their audience are allies – like at least part of the NDP, here in Canada. To say when discussing FATCA that “It is the case that US taxes on the basis of citizenship, but that is an entirely different issue” shows complete ignorance of why FATCA is abusive to duals and those living permanently outside of the US. And I doubt the depth of true understanding of the collateral damage when the individual bears the full brunt of legislation enacted without regard or safeguards. Plus, the banks and corporate interests all have dedicated departments and huge resources to make their voices and objections known, and try to get favourable adjustments. As we have seen, the IRS believes that ” no fish is too small to fry” even if they wanted whales, and we’re only krill – and possibly unintended krill at that.
When huge industrial ships and nets drag the ocean for tuna and the more commercially valuable catch, the many other creatures drown or are mangled in the process.
*I admit with hindsight my original post had too much passion and anger in it however, I think some very good questions have been raised. I think it is being way too generous to say McQuaig and Brooks have no understanding of the full ramifactions of FATCA. If you read the link I published and then read on the next few pages when they discuss the tax ramifications of renounciation of citizenship I think they know exactly what they are talking about. I also think the singleing out of Canadian Banks for lobbying against FATCA(in fact in a way too limited manner in the minds of many here) is no accident. You also have realize they are both Canadians but they wrote what they wrote in a book directed to an American audience.
Now I do appreciate that Prof. Brooks appeared to be much open minded than for example Linda Beale(who I personally have tangled with in the past in perhaps not the most appropriate manner). In fact I would like to know for example if Linda McQuaig knows Linda Beale for example, it would be real amusing as Joe Smith has tangled with Beale much more than I have. My gut sense is people really don’t change their mind on FATCA. If you hate it the first time you hear about it I don’t think you really change your mind if you love it the first time you hear about it. The issue I think is McQuaig and Brooks are giving aid and comfort to those in Washington such as Nicole Tichon who are in fact directly lobbying against the Canadian Government, the Canadian Bankers Association, and in fact the New Democratic Party of Canada too.
Tim – At the level of nothing but logic. If McQuaig-Brooks didn’t really understand the full implications of what they were writing, given the kind of writing that they do, they should not have undertaken to expound on FATCA in that way. If they did understand, they deserve your every scathe. Either way, they incur shame. You owe no apologies.
Tim, however this plays out, we owe it to you that what has been written in Linda McQuaig and Neil Brook’s book regarding FATCA has seen the light of day here. I would like to see both Professor Brooks and Linda McQuaig delve more completely into how this affects their fellow Canadians who happen to be US persons and explain exactly how they come to the conclusion we all should be persecuted, ourselves and Canada robbed of Canadian monies, registered savings, capital gains in the homes we’ve lived in, raised Canadian families in. Just what is their motivation for writing a book directed to an American audience?
@calgary411
Cha-ching.
*@Bubblebustin
Yup
What the video above while she is introduced as working for the Toronto Star notice how many times she talks “us Americans”, “we Americans”, “our American Government.”
This is the same person who in another video below talks about how Canada needs to stand up to the US more often.
*Its going to get worse. I have another post coming about how I believe there is evidence that the Salvation Army of Canada is indirectly giving money to groups lobbying in favor of FATCA in the US and to and to an outspoken anti tax haven campaigner who has called for all non compliant US Persons overseas to be rounded up and thrown in jail ala Joe Smith’s video.
Neil Brooks
Osgoode Hall Law School
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M3J 1P3
——————–
Dear Neil:
In the United States, it is a federal crime to discriminate against an individual based on their national origin. US law writes:
Federal laws prohibit discrimination based on a person’s national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sex, and familial status. Laws prohibiting national origin discrimination make it illegal to discriminate because of a person’s birthplace, ancestry, culture or language. This means people cannot be denied equal opportunity because they or their family are from another country, because they have a name or accent associated with a national origin group, because they participate in certain customs associated with a national origin group, or because they are married to or associate with people of a certain national origin. http://www.justice.gov/crt/legalinfo/natorigin.php
FATCA seeks for individuals to be discriminated against based on their national origin. In your book, Billionaires’ Ball, by defending FATCA you are advocating for US federal crimes to be forced upon innocent Canadian citizens who are identified as having a US national origin. Is it normal in Canada for tax law professors to advocate for their innocent fellow citizens to be criminalized with US federal law violations?
Where I live, the financial institutions where I pay my bills and save for retirement are refusing to accept US persons as new clients due to FATCA. Yet, I’m not wealthy, I don’t bank offshore (except for in the US), I don’t owe the US government any taxes and I am tax compliant. So, why do you feel that crime must be practiced against me simply because I violated no laws and did nothing wrong?
It is possible that you had no idea that FATCA is criminal and is harming innocent civilians. Yet, I hope that you will reconsider your position and focus on opposing crime instead of defending its practice.
Sincerely
[SwissPinoy]
No response from McQuaig…