Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Globe article suggests Canada ready to surrender to FATCA

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 35 Comments

Globe article discussing Canada, FATCA and IGS

FATCA represents the most egregious example of extra-territorial reach the U.S. has ever attempted. It will turn all the world’s banks into IRS auditors – at their own expense of course – and apply U.S. tax law on every country that allows it to happen. Its impact is so onerous that, while the Act is now legally in force, implementation has been delayed several times because the U.S. can’t produce a set of enforceable rules to make it work.

Why should we care? Because the Harper government is in the middle of negotiations with the U.S. to produce an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) that would impose U.S. tax law on Canada and turn Canadian banks into IRS auditors. Should this go forward, it would represent a colossal surrender of Canadian sovereignty and likely violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Let the comments roll!

Will Harper go down in Canadian history as the PM who turned Canada over to the United States on a silver platter?

 

35 thoughts on “Globe article suggests Canada ready to surrender to FATCA”

  1. @Tim

    “the current government is trying to hedge their bets on FATCA” is to say they hope FATCA will derail on its own before they have to take a position? 

  4. Re: “Will Harper go down in Canadian history as the PM who turned Canada over to the United States on a silver platter?”

    And, lets point out at every opportunity, that if he does, it will be impossible to forget when he chose to do it – during the very time of Canadian celebrations and remembrance of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Which is one of the most Canadian and easy to remember of symbolic historic dates learned in school, other than that of Confederation.

    Perhaps we should make a point of prefacing all our comments on Canadian sites – like the CBC, or Globe, or Star, and all correspondence with MPs, with a phrase that recalls this. Something like; “This is a particularly craven betrayal of over one million Canadian citizens, residents, and their households – that in the midst of our proud sovereign nation’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, and our victorious resistance against US arrogance and incursion; the Harper government’s (and CBA?) betrayal of Canadian citizens and residents is particularly significant. What other Canadian government and political party will want to be forever known in our history books for cravenly colluding to turn over the legal, made-in-Canada assets of their brethren, to be greedily plundered by the US Treasury and IRS?”

  6. Interesting places that this story is generating discussion – for example, at this site:

    (caveat, I’m not endorsing the site, and language in thread entitled “IRS trying to f— Canada and the rest of the world” – may offend some IBS readers, though I think that most entries were interesting – since they posit angles as to how Canada should respond to FATCA that have occurred here at IBS before)

    http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=157549&sid=448ca7fb999b912605a85f9f008b139e&start=0

    Note to IBS administrators – if you think this isn’t worthy to post, I’m fine with it being excised. Just found it an interesting artefact – pointing to how this story is gaining some traction in Canada.

  7. @bager  As to FATCA thread on http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=157549&sid=448ca7fb999b912605a85f9f008b139e&start=0, I tried to post a list of websites to the Star Destroyer blog, but was blocked by the moderator who seemed to think that my only purpose was to promote another site.

    Here is my response, followed by the initial rejection email (sorry, the carriage returns got stripped when I copied):

    Dear Governer Tarkin, I think you may have misconstrued the intent of my post. I noticed that there was quite a valid debate about US extraterritorial imperialistic tax policy and how it affects people’s rights and very existance in the Star Destroyer thread: “Re: IRS trying to f*** Canada and the rest of the world”, and I thought it would be good to provide a list of websites with further information on this problem where heated debates are occuring and information is provided to all free of charge. The list of sites included lawyers who blog about the issues in the interest of spreading information and fostering debate independantly of their core business and do so in the public interest, several not for profit sites dedicated to blogging about problems US persons face abroad, a YouTube channel covering a meeting that was held in Canada with members of Isaac Brock, Canadian Progressive, Green Party, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, an anglican bishop, and several legal experts, as well as the global non-profit NGO “American Citizens Abroad” that has an active lobby in Washington through the Americans Abroad Caucus and Americans Abroad Week. Their Geneva-based executive director who had lived in Geneva for many years even took it upon herself to move back to Washington to set up a permenant ACA liason office there to be present as much as possible and try to get Congress to end the madness. I think that the members of Star Destroyer who posted in the thread would like to know about all of these different sites and organizations, and we in the movement would be happy to hear from them on the various blogs. I see that the mission of your website is “Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid people”. Well, FATCA and FBAR provide plenty of oppourtunity to critisize stupid people and stupid, destructive, and arrogant policies. The FATBARDT (FATCA, FBAR, Double Taxation) mess threatens to cost the world economy trillions in compliance costs (money that could be invested in science to solve our energy and food problems), destroy many hard working people all over the world, and will bring little increased revenue to the US. Perhaps the link to http://hodgen.com/ looks like an advertisement for legal services, which was not my intent, and perhaps I should have instead linked directly to the blog part of his website which deals with FATCA, FBAR and OVDI issues and is open to comments from people all over the world: http://hodgen.com/yet-another-fbar-minnow-to-the-guillotine/ And I may have forgotten to add: http://www.fatcareport.com/, a page containing numerous other links to FATCA-related material. Please reconsider, and let me know if my post has been definitively deleted (and not just held in Draft as is the case on WordPress based sites, I don’t know about your blogging platform), so that if you reconsider I can resubmit the list of sites. Sincerely Yours in the Spirit of:NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION,Jefferson D. Tomas (nom de plume)
    De : “registrations@stardestroyer.net” <registrations@stardestroyer.net>
    À : JeffDTom <stopdoubletaxation@yahoo.fr>
    Envoyé le : Vendredi 1 février 2013 14h12
    Objet : Post disapproved – “Re: IRS trying to fuck Canada and the rest of the world”

    Hello JeffDTom,

    You are receiving this notification because your post “Re: IRS trying to
    f*** Canada and the rest of the world” at “StarDestroyer.Net BBS” was
    disapproved by a moderator or administrator.

    The following reason was given for the disapproval:

    The reported message has the only purpose to advertise for a website or
    another product.

    —
    Signing off, Imperial HQ

    @bagder I don’t know if you have already tried to post there, but the moderation seemed to take more than a day. It would certainly be good if we could get connected with the people who commented on the thread there. They seemed to have some knowledge of the issues and an exchange with them might be fruitful.

    The fact that the rules of their site appear to allow unfettered use of one of the most interesting and magical words in the English language today (see hillarious video on “proper English” below–at your own risk as the “word” is used) is fine. It is their site. But I hope that they will accept a list of useful websites from us.

    _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4kZUrGBMCA Who created this? The narrarator has an American accent, but does this have something to do with Monty Python? http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/m/monty_python/the_usage_of_fuck.html

    Monty certainly has crafted a few other bawdy lyrics such as the “P**** Song” and “Sit on My Face”

  8. Going on with Monty Python, I wish the following ditty could be re-recorded to mention the IRS, Geither, Schulmann instead of the FCC, EPA, Condolezza, Dubya Bushie-poo and Haliburton. 

    Warning, this video contains the magical word, watch and listen at own risk, though I do find it infinitely more tasteful than the Lily Allen song featuring the magical word:



    And here is some Monty Python inspiration “The Bright Side of Life” to sing while Mr. FATBARDT crucifies us on the FBAR cross:



  10. Simply put, I feel that any Canadian who allows the US to partake of his/her banking information is undertaking economic treason against Canada. That could be a potential argument against FATCA. That’s why I refuse to submit any tax information because of the situation that I’m in. I live in Canada, I was born in Canada. Why the hell should I have to open up my bank accounts to the IRS because my spouse was born in the US of A? HELL NO!

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