This was proposed by Just Me and seconded by a few others so I thought we could take a shot at it together.
The basic idea is to create a one page (maybe two) tract that could be used as a template – something that could be adapted to the local circumstances. It could be sent to journalists, passed out during demonstrations or just emailed to people we know who are still very confused about what FATCA is, what it means, and why they should care.
Here are the latest updates as of September 17, 21:51 Paris time.
What is FATCA?
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is an extra-territorial U.S. law that demands that all financial institutions in the world report to the United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the confidential account information of millions of people it classifies as “U.S. persons”.
What is a U.S. Person?
A U.S. Person can be a U.S. citizen, a Green Card Holder, or the citizen of another country who has a connection to the United States.
Here’s how you may have a US connection:
* born in the USA
* born outside the USA with one or two American parent(s)
* lived in the USA for a number of years
* visited too long in the USA in any given year
* married to a US person
* share signing authority on an account with a
US person
Chances are very good that you, or someone you know, is a U.S. Person. That means FATCA affects you personally. Millions of people worldwide who do not consider themselves to be U.S. citizens are still considered U.S. Persons by the U.S. government even if they have never lived or worked in the U.S., are citizens of another country, and have never held a U.S. passport or Green Card.
But I’m not a tax evader or a U.S. citizen or Green Card Holder!
Under FATCA you are presumed to be guilty until proven innocent.
If your local bank suspects you are a U.S. Person, they will require that you prove you aren’t.
If you clearly are a U.S. Person, and your country has signed an agreement with the United States (called an “IGA”), then your local bank will send your account information to your local government who will then turn it over to the United States.
Under these agreements, this will happen even if your country has strict laws protecting personal privacy. So far the following countries have either signed these agreements or have agreed to do so: UK, France, Germany…..
What will the United States do with that information?
Under American law U.S. Persons are also U.S. taxpayers. Those who live outside the United States are required to file tax returns, bank account reports and pay American taxes. This is true even if the U.S. Person earns no income and has no assets in the United States.
You might consider yourself a responsible tax-paying citizen of another country but the United States sees it differently. If they think you are a U.S. Person then they feel they have the right to add you to the American tax base.
There are others ways they could use that information. If enough countries are bullied into complying then the United States government will have a master list in their databases of all the people (and their assets) in the world who have any connection however innocent to the United States of America. That sounds a lot like the recent NSA scandals where the United States spied on citizens of other countries.
FATCA is spying by other means.
But I thought FATCA and all those reporting rules only applied to the rich?
Not true. FATCA impacts ALL U.S. Persons: rich, middle, or low income .
The filing threshold for one form, the FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report), is only 10,000 USD. This threshold is the total of all that person’s accounts (checking, savings, and retirement) combined – not the value of any one account. This means that even very low-income U.S. Persons must file and face stiff penalties – up to 500,000 USD and 5 years in jail – if they fail to do so. The American IRS can impose these fines even if the U.S. Person is too poor to file a tax return and doesn’t owe any tax.
I’m not a U.S. Person and I don’t have any connection to the United States. What does FATCA have to do with me?
FATCA impacts ALL citizens in ALL countries in three ways:
1. All financial institutions worldwide are affected by FATCA. The billions they will spend in compliance costs will be passed along to customers in all countries through higher FEES.
2. Local governments and local taxpayers will bear the cost of the staff and information systems required to implement FATCA in that country.
3. Existing privacy and anti-discrimination laws will have to be downgraded in every country in order to facilitate FATCA. This means that citizens everywhere can expect less protection of their privacy from their local government.
Part IV (What they can do about it)
Some ideas for this section:
Here I would point them to Isaac Brock first as a resource. As them to join us or pass the link around to people they know who are affected by FATCA.
Then we can list the other sites we think they would find useful: Maple Sandbox, ACA, AARO and so on.
This is a good idea Victoria and something that needs to be done. We did have a tract handout just done on regular printer paper that had encompassed the suggestions others listed. We handed that out to press, interested citizens, and even the police officer took one. A more permanent and final version would be great! That way whenever you are out and about you can just take a few with you. Keep some in your car, take to fall fairs, local pancake breakfasts, the Christmas parades held locally here every year. Halloween go to the mall and hand out to parents or leave some for people to take. Everywhere a large crowd will be, main street Saturday afternoon, anywhere you’ll have a short listed pamphlet to hand out. Perhaps copy and do a FREE ad at your local Kijiji or other Free listing site.
This is the kind of organization that frees us to be more effective in other areas. We don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel and the forum allows us to continue to tweak the message as new developments happen. Just me, thank you for the suggestion and Victoria, thank you for taking the initiative.
“Uncle Sam wouldn’t hurt me…. or would he????”
[?plus sketch of sweet young girl staring up at the recognizable legs and boots of Uncle Sam….]
@all
Great idea.
Please forgive me for posting in the wrong place… I wanted to post a new topic, but it appears that is only available to users with a login id and password, and it’s not obvious how to obtain one. Also couldn’t find any e-mail contact info for the Brock society or Eric.
I have an exciting media opportunity, and would like to present for group discussion which Brokers would be best suited to participate in a round-table discussion about FATCA, Ex-PATRIOT, and its impacts on Americans living abroad and American Expatriates. This is for a very popular podcast (one of top 50 on the Internet on any subject). I need to either collaborate with Eric or other Brock leadership to decide who to invite to participate, or (better in my opinion) describe the opportunity in detail in a new post so the community can discuss which Brockers would be best candidates.
Could someone post an e-mail address for how I can “contact the management”, else advise me how to post a new topic myself? I also suggest a contact button be added to the site’s about page. If it’s already there, it needs to be made more obvious – I looked and couldn’t find it.
Thanks!
At the last minute before Monday’s unplanned protest, Atticus and I scrambled to find a handout/fact sheet but didn’t have time to formulate one. Some brockers gave us suggestions. We used something that Calgary411 suggested, and managed to fit it onto one page by putting some of the paragraphs together and shortening the page margins whilst leaving the original text in place. In our rush, I forgot to add the url for issacbrocksociety to it.
Here is the link:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/12/05/a-fact-finding-forum-on-us-tax-grab-in-canada-official-press-release/comment-page-4/#comment-115172
Wondering had also given us a suggestion for a sample. Here is the post that wonderings draft handout is in, but can’t figure out how to link you to the exact comment #:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/09/06/g20-nations-agree-to-share-tax-info-by-2015/comment-page-4/#comments
I think that what Atticus and I used and what Wondering suggested – although both were well written, are probably too wordy for a fact sheet, but perhaps some of what is in the can be siphoned out,
Also one suggestion is a list of points re: how FATCA negatively impacts ALL Canadians, not just US-borns, which begs another question: are we creating a handout targeted towards Canadians?
Ways that FATCA hurts Canadians:
– procedures and computer system changes being made at all Canadian financial institutions are costing millions. All bank customers will pay for this through increased fees.
– once all the financial institutions in Canada have rounded up their ‘US persons’, they will pass their bank information to CRA who will then forward it to the IRS. Canadian taxpayers will pay for this new role by CRA as enforcer for the IRS.
– when the IRS has the bank balances of the unfortunate Canadians with a US connection, it will assess penalties as a percentage of the balance of these accounts unless they have already been voluntarily reported on to the USA on obscure reports called FBARS that virtually no one has even heard of. These penalties have the potential to bankrupt the Canadians who are required to pay them, forcing them to turn to social programs for assistance.
– Besides the negative impact to our social programs, the penalties paid to the USA takes real dollars out of the Canadian economy – money that was earned and already taxed in Canada.
– in addition to the cost to all Canadians in dollars terms, there is another even more important price that ALL Canadians will pay if our government agrees to allow USA access into the private banking details of some of us. And that is the threat to our hard won privacy rules, and to our anti-discrimination laws in our Charter of Rights.
-Today it is Canadians with a US birthplace whose privacy rights are being trampled on and who are being treated as second class citizens. Tomorrow it may be you. Once we go down that slippery slope, it is hard to back track.
Too wordy, I know, but I think these are 4 points that can be made more concisely
I thought it would be useful to include FATCA information provided by the Canadian Bankers Association to maybe give to those who find our allegations ‘far fetched’, or are sceptical to its effects on regular Canadians.
http://www.cba.ca/en/research-and-advocacy/47-regulatory-enviornment/598-foreign-account-tax-compliance-act-
@Whitekat, That is great! thank you. I just updated Part II with a version of what Wondering put up.
If everyone doesn’t mind, I’d like to make it suitable for many countries, not just Canada.
Then as we go along the Brockers from each country can customize to fit their local circumstances. For example, the Model I and Model II countries will be different. In other countries no IGA has been signed so that’s yet another case.
But I think the core stuff applies to every country. Your four points, for example. I’ll work on adding them once I get something to eat. 🙂
@PoliticalXpat,
No problem commenting anywhere you like – this a completely open forum and we are happy to see you here.
It’s also one that doesn’t have any “management” or steering committee or anything like that. I think I’m safe in saying that while we do have a beloved much respected founder, Peter Dunn, any leadership exercised here is purely and freely given by the community itself. We are all in this together. It’s a spontaneous decentralized no hierarchy organization (it’s kinda like open source now that I think about it).
I do see your conundrum and I for one would love to hear your proposal. I or someone else can certainly post on your behalf. Could you send something or maybe expand on your earlier comment here. We’ll see that it get published and then the Brockers can discuss. Will that work?
To PoliticalXpat,
Here, from the bottom of the home pages, you will find contact information and form to contact Petros, who contributes so much of his time to keeping this site going. http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/financial-contributions/
@Victoria, Not sure how I figured 4 points …feel free to summarize, eliminate or combine. I can neither spell nor count these days. Having a non-country specific template of sort is a good plan.
PoliticalXpat,
Welcome. Your idea is intriguing….can’t wait to hear more. As Victoria says, there is no management here, but there has been a lot of talk recently of creating a legit organization spin-off from this forum – one more thing to add to the growing list of ‘to do’s’! Brockers are becoming busy little elves.
@Victoria et al,
Thanks – I’m still not clear on whether everyone is allowed to post new threads or not. If so, I don’t see how to do it. There’s an “author login”, but it requires a password and I see no way to create a login acct myself.
Anyway, I’m now in touch with Peter via e-mail. Between us we’ll figure out the best way to present this opportunity to the Brock community.
Thanks again!
When the fact sheet is done could it be made to stay permanently at the top of the Brock main page so it’s always the first thing people see when opening up the enormous (even overwhelming) amount of information provided here? The reason I ask is because I put together a little factoid sheet which I have distributed like an oversized business card. It’s only designed to alert potential USPs and direct them to Brock. I have no idea if it has been effective or not. Here it is (12 point Arial font makes it possible to print 4 on a page) …
ALERT
Foreign Account Taxation Compliance Act
FATCA affects 1 million Canadian residents. If you
have any connection to the USA you need to know
what this US legislation is and how it will affect you,
your family and your bank. To find out more visit
isaacbrocksociety.ca.
Here’s how you may have a US connection:
* born in the USA
* born in Canada with US parent(s)
* lived in the USA for a number of years
* visited too long in the USA in any given year
* married to a US person
* share signing authority on an account with a
US person
ALL Canadian financial institutions are affected by
FATCA and their billions in compliance costs will
be passed along to ALL Canadians.
Hopefully when you learn about FATCA you will join
the opposition to it.
@PoliticalXpat,
Petros / Peter Dunn can give you permission to post or someone else can do it on your behalf. In my opinion, it would be best if it is your post, so replies and questions go directly to you. We’ll look forward to what you have.
How do you post a picture here? I have an idea for a graphic for the handout.
@PoliticalXpat,
You may want to contact Pacifica at isaacbrocksociety .ca
I recently obtained author rights here and it was Pacifica who set me up.
She’ll take you through the procedure, which is quite easy.
@Em, That is OUTSTANDING. Wow. I think the card idea is great.
Images – never tried to put one up in a comment. Let me look….
Ok I saved and then hit “edit” and now I have an editing.
Hit “img” (looks promising)
And now it wants a URL. Nuts.
Can anyone help?
If not just send the image via email and I’ll add it to the post. v_ferauge@yahoo.com
I know we’re going for a one-pager, but I think it’s important to include brief info that we always complain is left out of articles, or that is always brought up in comments, which needs to be corrected. I don’t think Canadians will pay attention unless they clearly see us as Canadians. Too much “US person” use turns many away, in my experience. I think we need to make it crystal clear, at the beginning of the info, that people who have been told they are not US persons, actually are being claimed as such.
@ Victoria
Re: posting a photo in the comments. I think you have to use something like photobucket.com or something similar. The_Animal posts photos here but he’s a photographer so he probably already uses an image hosting site.
@The Mom I think the focus should be initially on finding Canadians who DO have some kind of a US connection and for whom those “US person” words WILL resonate. If the IBS’ numbers are correct, the numbers start at 1 million and that doesn’t even include Canadian-born spouses, green card holders, snowbirds, etc. Don’t worry if the Canadians with absolutely no US connection ignore this at first.
I could be wrong but I get the impression from my only interaction with IBS–online–that the IBS is only a small handful of people. Focus on getting from a handful to a million people directly affected–then you’ll have a critical mass to get something done.
Of course I could be wrong about IBS being only a handful of people at present. In that case, my suggestion would be to change that impression–because that is the impression I’ve gotten so far and I assume others would too.
OK, I just updated with Em’s contribution, the graphic by Canadiangirl and I played a bit with questions and misconceptions I often hear about FATCA.
Still needs work. I’m sure there’s more to add. I think it needs a really powerful final paragraph too.
Just for info I’m thinking about this for a possible protest in either Paris, London or Berlin AND as something to pass out to EU lawmakers and journalists.
Once we get the core done, we can start customizing for each country/region.
And doing a quick re-read I think it needs to be punchier. I’m too wordy – I want to explain everything…..
@Victoria If the numbers of the number of expats is correct, the critical mass of so-called “US persons” is likely to different in Europe than in Canada–suggesting that perhaps a different message is needed there than in Canada.