Blaze has written a FATCA Christmas letter and Wish List to Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who is actively “negotiating” an IGA with the U.S. This was originally posted on Maple Sandbox http://maplesandbox.ca/2013/fatca-christmas-letter-to-jim-flaherty/#comments and is now posted here on Brock:
Dear Minister Flaherty:
You and your Conservative colleagues have again confirmed Santa’s Canadian citizenship. But, do you know the United States is also claiming Santa as theirs?!? They insist he lives in Alaska—despite his red and white suit and his HOH OHO postal code in Canada’s North Pole.
This is typical of the Americans. They are determined to turn as many people in the world as they can into “US persons.” So they snoop around like kids before Christmas, trying to find loot for U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service.
Don’t let the Americans claim Santa. Don’t let them claim up to one million other Canadians and their families either.
We are as Canadian as Santa. Perhaps even more so because many of us swore an Oath of Allegiance to Canada.
So, I’m sending you this holiday letter to tell you what is on our Christmas wish list (see attached).
We hope you will give us a joyous Christmas by granting our holiday wishes. If you do, we wish you and your colleagues a very Merry Christmas.
If you don’t, you will subject us to a third Christmas with the IRS Grinch and FATCA Monster threatening to run away with our private financial information on our Canadian earned, saved, invested and taxed money. In that case, we can only wish you a lump of coal in your stocking.
We have been very, very good Canadians. Please don’t be naughty and give away our rights to a foreign government.
Lynne Swanson Maple Sandbox (e-mail address was provided)
HERE IS THE WISH LIST THAT WAS ATTACHED:
1. Protection from the IRS Grinch who is threatening our honest lives in Canada with his partner the FATCA Monster.
2. An assurance from you that all Canadian citizens have the same rights regardless of where they were born.
3. A statement from you that Canadian banks must follow Canadian laws.
4. A promise from you that Canadian banking, privacy and human rights laws will not be changed for a foreign government.
5. Respect from you and the Conservative government for Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
6. A reply to the Open Letter that Maple Sandbox and Isaac Brock Society sent to you exactly one month before Christmas asking a simple question: Do all Canadians have the same rights under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
7. A reply to Order Paper Questions from Liberal MPs Ted Hsu and Scott Brison.
8. Assertion of Canadian sovereignty over Canadian laws and Santa’s home in the Arctic.
9. An announcement that Canada says “NO” to a FATCA IGA that compromises our rights.
10. A Happy 2014 free of demands from a foreign government.
http://maplesandbox.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/FATCA-Christmas-Letter-and-Wish-List.pdf
I had an idea that we should be mailing letters to CARP to make them aware of this issue. Seems they are already aware as irscompliant pointed out to me today. Here is a letter that they posted on their website from Jim Flaherty. This is a year old, however, and does not address the problem of the banks creating pariahs of US persons. Seems that part of the problem was overlooked when all this started.
http://www.carp.ca/2012/06/15/minister-flaherty-canada-continues-to-press-for-fair-tax-deal-with-united-states/
@bubblebustin @ everyone
Even with the ‘saving clause’ in a treaty – so when executed it is like no treaty. They are still applying a US law in another country based on citizenship. How can you break country A laws while in country B?
I’ve sent several things to them; also to the related Zoomer magazine (mostly an advertising mag for boomers who have enough money to buy things / travel — or at least before FATCA) to do with the snowbird issue, which I didn’t get any reply to. The Flaherty letter is the last I’ve seen in their CARP advocacy issues newsletter.
Here is their latest that I received by email today. http://www.imakenews.com/carp/ It would be great if someone had a way of reaching someone for them to take an interest.
Gotta watch out for those trigger happy “homelanders”. They tried to shoot down Santa Claus once.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bFATp6D48yE/Urkb8KPxZoI/AAAAAAAABpE/qSf4ar6TGPs/w600-h450-no/NORAD+intercepts+Santa_rs.jpg
More on the possible plight of snowbirds, if they will heed: Kelowna Capital News, Opinion: Banka: Snowbirds can face taxation in Canada and the U.S.
and there you have it
“As the U.S. taxation system is complex and confusing, the way to avoid it is to not purchase any U.S. property, ”
just one more reason to stay out of the us of a.