February 3, 2014 UPDATE: Urgent:
Public submissions can be made from anywhere in the world. All that is required is a name, email address and phone number. But you will have to be quick as the link will be closed at midnight on Wed 5th Feb New Zealand time. I hope you will find time to express your opinion to them. The link is here:
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/make-submission/50SCFE_SCF_00DBHOH_BILL12926_1/taxation-annual-rates-employee-allowances-and-remedial (scroll down to “make an online submission”)
Osgood’s excellent recent analysis of FATCA IGA ‘enabling’ legislation in New Zealand has inspired another article at The New American.
Under the pretext of extracting more wealth and personal information from Americans living abroad by smashing all remaining vestiges of privacy, the Obama administration’s Treasury Department is bullying authorities around the world into signing unconstitutional pseudo-treaties with drastic implications for individual rights. Developments in New Zealand, where officials are already jumping onboard the deeply controversial U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) bandwagon, illustrate the problems well.
Alex hits a home run again. I understand that this plus other the articles on FATCA here, here and here will be in their print version too. Every new article helps, so keep chipping away at it Brockers! Reach out to every journalist you can!
This is another very good article and brings out in clear terms some fundamental points about FATCA and CBT – from the perspective of the U.S. – dominate nationality is U.S. nationality and trumps any other nationality. In other words, for dual citizens US nationality takes precedence and the individual nation must change its laws to bow to the US. In effect, this results in a portion of the wealth of the dual citizen and individual nation being paid to the US treasury. I just wish that the main international media would carry these stories!
@Just Me
Incredible work in helping to get this published !!! Thanks for working with Alex on this. I don’t know how widely read The New American is, but this will surely raise the profile of the issue here. NZ attempts to legislate this by stealth are slowly being undermined.
Now, if only we can get a NZ journo to pay attention ……
@Osgood,
As you know, the The Ministry of Justice has recently published the advice that found this “Tax Bill” appeared consistent with the Bill of Rights Act 1990.
How does one spell BullS*** ?
They say…
It certainly doesn’t specifically mention FATCA in the opinion, so to be charitable, maybe they don’t understand what it is or that it is there…??
The IGA of course requires both New Zealand financial institutions and the New Zealand Inland Revenue to collect and disclose personal information about New Zealand residents (Kiwi Citizens) to a foreign government (USG) based solely on their US citizenship (accidental or dual), U.S. Personhood designation, or US national origin.
So, as we think, these amendments clearly authorize unlawful discrimination as defined in the Human Rights Act and limit the rights of New Zealanders to be free from such discrimination.
So, it would be interesting to query the Attorney General what is the justification and analysis that they have applied in continuing to find that this Bill is consistent with the Bill of Rights Act? Do they NOT understand what the IGA is? I doubt that they do, but maybe they do, and cynically declaring it ok, to check a box on their so called due diligence process? What do you think?
@Just Me
I can’t speak for the MoJ, but Chris Finlayson, the Attorney-General certainly IS aware of these issues as I have written him several times dating back before the first reading of the Bill in early December. I have received one reply, which was either utter incompetence, or a deliberate stalling tactic, as they referred me to the advice provided on a completely unrelated, but similarly named bill.
My most recent correspondence to the AG has requested that the MoJ advice you highlighted be updated to justify the findings, or that they note that it is still under review. Still waiting for a reply.
This is ridiculous given that submissions are due in 2 weeks time, and the public is not in full possession of the facts.
Forgive me if I have missed this information posted elsewhere.
@Just Me, have you and Osgood seen this critically important document:
‘Regulatory Impact Statement’ (date?) – prepared by NZ Inland Revenue
http://taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2013-ris-arearm-bill-04.pdf
I got to it from here: http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/17435-new-u-s-tax-regime-trampling-rights-in-new-zealand-and-beyond
The document is gut wrenching in the coldblooded weighing and subsequent dismissal of the NZ citizenship rights, social impact, economic wellbeing, privacy, human rights and best interests of NZ CITIZENS (which this NZ government dismisses by calling them “United States taxpayers” and “US persons resident in NZ” throughout, but only ‘NZ residents’, not NZ citizens or even duals).
‘Social impact’ on NZ citizens and residents is acknowledged and dismissed as not worthy of weight in light of the potential penalties, liabilities and denial of access to US financial markets. As I read it, it admits that “privacy rights will be impaired” and the “proposed option” (signing an IGA) and enabling domestic legislation will result in discrimination against ‘US persons’ in NZ as a certainty, (thus the need for NZ domestic law to be changed in order to allow for smooth implementation (see ex. bottom page 2).
I couldn’t figure out how to cut and paste from the pdf, (or to use the ‘find’ function) probably disabled, but there are many very choice quotes to consider and highlight. I was trying to make a copy, highlight the word ‘NZ’ and replace it with ‘Canada’ in red for impact.
If one substitutes the word ‘Canada’ for NZ, then I believe this is an insight into what Canada might have considered and weighed – but with far more of us and far more integration and historical migration in the mix.
Some of the exact stock phrases are there that we have seen before re; not commenting on the US extraterritorial CBT system and FATCA due to ‘respect’ for US ‘right’ to tax as it sees fit – exactly as phrased by some in Canada and elsewhere – though there is a reference to US exceptionality. NZ also says that it might suffer ‘reputational risk’ if it is perceived as not supporting FATCA – as if not supporting FATCA is exactly equivalent to not being committed to efforts against tax evasion. And I think there was reference to FATCA as the precursor to a global standard -which is ridiculous given the differences between CBT and RBT.
I am posting this here because I am not sure that a separate post would make sense if those with a particular interest in NZ were searching IBS.
I am having technical trouble with the document (no success copying or pasting ) . I considered trying to make a parallel document that would graphically illustrate what impact it would have if we substituted the word Canada/Canadians for NZ (and that is something that nationals of other countries could do too for their own nations) as I think a post raising parallels with possibilities for Canadians would be a useful tool.
Another potent use of the document is to use it as a concrete and undeniable example of the cold blooded weighing and dismissal of the rights and interests of citizens (and legal tax residents) by the governments of countries in IGA negotiations; in order to critique the ‘information’ the Harper government provided in ‘answer’ to MP Hsu and Brison – and the seriousness of the implications of an IGA signed by Canada.
For example;
if a smaller country like NZ has some type of document like this where they are going to enshrine the US-tax-law definition of a ‘US person’ and incorporate them into NZ domestic tax laws, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t a tactic/idea/issue that Harper and Canada’s Finance Ministry has explored (via the Justice Department, Privacy Commissioner, – just as NZ has) and hasn’t at least considered and weighed – though in Canada, duals and greencard holders (and snowbirds etc.) are far greater in number, historic integration and interrelationships within all levels of Canadian society, government, economy, etc.
@badger
Yes indeed. The Regulatory Impact Statement is a disgrace. The full analysis of this document was posted here: https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/01/11/updated-analysis-and-comment-on-new-zealands-stealth-fatca-enabling-legislation/
I believe that the analysis was used by Alex Newman as a basis for his article in the New American. It is still not too late to put in a submission to the New Zealand government about your thoughts on this. Public submissions can be made from anywhere in the world. All that is required is a name, email address and phone number. But you will have to be quick as the link will be closed at midnight on Wed 5th Feb New Zealand time. I hope you will find time to express your opinion to them. The link is here:
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/make-submission/50SCFE_SCF_00DBHOH_BILL12926_1/taxation-annual-rates-employee-allowances-and-remedial (scroll down to “make an online submission”)
From James Jatras, RepealFATCA.com:
http://www.repealfatca.com/index.asp?idmenu=4&idsubmenu=147&title=republicans-launch-abolish-fatca-petition-site
In addition, Solomon Yue, Jr., Republican National Committeeman for Oregon and chief sponsor of the RNC resolution, has written to New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United States, Mike Moore, to inform him of the Abolish FATCA petition and of the resolution. In his February 2 message to Ambassador Moore, Mr. Yue wrote:
My co-sponsors and I believe this law violates not only 7.6 million overseas American citizens’ right to privacy, but also the rights of your citizens residing in the U.S. FATCA’s intergovernmental agreements feature reciprocity of exchange of individuals’ financial information. It is designed to be a “big data” collection scheme on our citizens as well as yours.
We are committed to defend the basic human rights of our overseas citizens, including their right to privacy, to make a living, to have banking services, and to protect their private property against the 30% “withholding” of US-source payments without due process. [ . . . ]
This resolution will also be forwarded to other foreign Embassies in Washington D.C.
1. Text of Solomon Yue’s message to Ambassador Moore
Sorry Osgood and Just Me and all, for the revisiting of what you already did on another thread – I didn’t realize that earlier post was drawn from the same document. I am constantly rediscovering things and thinking they are new.
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@badger
The more places it is posted, the more it gets seen. I really have meant to do an post on the latest James Jatras article that Calgary also showed here, and I put on another comment thread, but busy doing my submission to the NZ Select Committee and haven’t gotten to it. You would think this should be easy one to do, as well as I know the subject, but for some reason I struggle.
Sorry if it’s been posted somewhere else. Have you seen that article:
Banks calm fears on tax deal with US
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11205829
“Parliament’s finance and expenditure committee last week heard from submitters worried that New Zealanders with joint accounts with US spouses or partners could have their details supplied to US tax authorities.
But ANZ risk programme director Conon Kilner told the committee yesterday: “That’s not what we’re going to do. We will only report the customer data of the US person.”
Uhm… it doesn’t really make sense. So, for joint accounts with a New Zealander, they will only send the name, birthdate of the US spouse, but not the account information. Is that how people should interpret that? Still doesn’t solve the accidental American or double citizens cases.
@noone…
Thanks for the link
I am in email exchange with the journalist that wrote this…. It was severely edited by his Editors, and we are talking on Monday about the whole range of FATCA subjects…
Here is something I said back in an email…
If you were talking to him, what 5 key points would you want to make?