The Economist weighs-in with two new articles about FATCA:
Taxing America’s Diaspora: FATCA’s flaws
Dropping the bomb: America’s fierce campaign against tax cheats is doing more harm than good
These are both great commenting opportunities.
Thanks to Innocente for pointing-out the additional article.
I made a comment – good article
This story is developing legs.
Done, aka the Honeebadger.
I sent them a thick letter of information. I wonder if this prompted them.
This week’s Economist has two articles on FATCA, the one linked above by Deckard and this one:
“Dropping the bomb: America’s fierce campaign against tax cheats is doing more harm than good”
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21605911-americas-fierce-campaign-against-tax-cheats-doing-more-harm-good-dropping
This is also a fine article even mentioning the Dutch BinckBank anti-discrimination case that was discussed at IBS previously:
The Economist articles are great! Suggest adding comments.
Commented this to both – will also try email directly to authors:
“Canada is a battleground state for FATCA; Canada’s FATCA IGA will most likely wind up in our Supreme Court.
Due to Canada’s proximity and close ties to US, hundreds of thousands of Canadians are also so-called ‘US persons’ under FATCA. Some were born in US while Canadian parents were visiting, working or studying there – or due to medical necessity (common practice in rural eastern Canada where closest maternity ward is across the border). Others immigrated to Canada decades ago, and understood they were losing US citizenship by becoming Canadians.
“ Now Canada is in the unenviable position of being world’s leader of so-called ‘undeclared foreign accounts by US persons.’ Of course, these untold thousands of financial accounts are also the legitimate local bank accounts of Canadian citizens working and living in Canada.
“With its FATCA IGA, the Canadian government stripped hundreds of thousands of Canadians of their right to freedom from national origin discrimination. They did so because a foreign state demanded it. This is the only Canadian law that legislates against a single group of Canadians based upon their place of birth.
“Noted constitutional scholar Peter Hogg opined that the FATCA IGA would violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ prohibition on national origin discrimination. Canada’s opposition parties opposed the IGA on similar grounds, only to have it forced though our Parliament by the Conservative majority government.
“Now up to 1 million Canadians are on a collision course with legally mandated discrimination. In response, a grassroots organization – Alliance for Defence of Canadian Sovereignty – has formed to challenge the FATCA IGA in Canada’s Supreme Court.
“Suggest readers Google: Peter+Hogg+FATCA+letter; and also Alliance+Defence+Canadian+Sovereignty+FATCA”
Is anyone a GLOBE & MAIL “Unlimited” subscriber?
This new article sounds relevant, but is behind a paywall.
It would be great if a subscriber could read and summarize.
GLOBE & MAIL JUNE 27
JOSH WINGROVE
“Five bills likely to stoke Harper’s conflict with Supreme Court”
If M. Wente continues to cover this issue, I may actually subscribe to G&M myself!
FATCA is turning into a story of persecution and discrimination. The Government has to be put into the position to avoid discrimination, either all resident citizen’s data is sent or no resident citizen’s data is sent to the IRS. It has to be an all or nothing situation.
In reality we’re all hoping the Government would never be able to conceal such a Bill in the Budget and avoid public scrutiny. It’s seems now that the Government chose the discrimination route and with the media now becoming more aware that a public debate on FATCA could ever be avoided in future.
Hopefully the debate of should a resident citizen’s private financial data be sent to a foreign power automatically, with no right of recourse, without any notice whatsoever be allowed?
Like there are rules of the road and it’s high time the rules concerning FATCA be put into law as well.
What is sad about this is even if it goes to supreme court Harper is already trying to appoint
someone to the supreme court and they will just force supreme court to say FATCA is fine in Canada. Just like they just appointed a new privacy commissioner to do everything U.S. wants. Even though it breaks Canada’s laws. We keep saying it breaks privacy laws, discrimination laws, Charter of rights laws and the conservatives will just appoint their people in power to say yes to everything that the U.S. wants.
The second Economist article starts:
No, FATCA is tasteless – telling it like it is.
The article ends with (referring to future OECD regulations):
Yes, America is less upright than the “tax havens” it deplores (as it labels all other countries tax havens and all “US Persons in those countries” tax evaders).
Related to those further Harper moves :
The tragic state of Canadian democracy starts:
and
@Wondering
This is a good article by Josh Wingrove. The part of relevance to FATCA is:
That Economist article is now paywall >:(
I just posted this at The Economist to the 2nd article.
“IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary….
“We hold these truths to be self-evident….
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny….
“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution…: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent….”
The above is nothing but the whining of a bunch of “tax cheats.”
Either that or the United States of America today is beyond shame.
Thanks, Shovel, showing clearly that History Speaks and we should learn from it — The Declaration of Independence also says:
We need those departed guys! We need them now!!
GwEvil,
You can register for free with The Economist and read those articles (and others). That’s what I did and I can still open those links.
Thanks calgary411!
A better headline, would have been “Dropping the “F” bomb on them” 🙂
A lot of lively commenting over at the Economist Article. A good time to jump in as the Economist is read globally.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21605907-americas-new-law-tax-compliance-heavy-handed-inequitable-and-hypocritical-fatcas-flaws/comments?page=1#sort-comments
Right on! The final chapter on FATCA has yet to be written as the US begins to experience its damaging effects. . The crop has been planted by those foolish sowers on Capitol Hill, but its bitter fruit has yet to mature before it is ready to be harvested..Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
While there is discussion of the original Declaration of Independence, it reminded me that I rewrote the Declaration in the very early days of Brock.
Here is a link to the rewrite. It was incredible how closely aligned it was to our cause and how it just took some minor revisions to reflect our situation.
With the Fourth of July less than a week away, does anyone have any ideas for how we could update this and get our message out there?
Here is a link to the 2012 version. 2014 changes would just be minor.
The changes from the original are in caps.
https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/02/24/2012-declaration-of-independence/
Michael S. Kirsch, the pro-CBT debater, is commenting on the second Economist article (Dropping the Bomb) under the pen name “A Reasoned Voice.”
Kirsch is using his usual BS arguments in favor of CBT and getting back quite an earful from who I suspect as being some Brockers.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21605911-americas-fierce-campaign-against-tax-cheats-doing-more-harm-good-dropping/comments#sort-comments
You have to dig into the replies to read Kirsch’s arguments, there is a thread with like 17 replies that contains his arguments for CBT. Here is part of it.
A Reasoned Voice:
“I will elaborate on my personal beliefs that residence based taxation is not good fiscal policy. At least here, I do have a bit more knowledge of the subject than on FATCA in general.
I do understand that the rest of the world does it differently, but that doesn’t mean I think it is good policy. In general the U.S. should try to fit better in the world, and should only differ when there is good reason when we do it differently. Personally I do feel there is good reason, but I certainly respect those who see it otherwise, I don’t see a perfect solution.
My reasoning is based on the fact that in the real world, taxes don’t directly pay for services, but rather most government services are amortized over many years, and many government things government provides are essentially insurance policies, not services. (E.g. if one has a fire at one’s house, one doesn’t pay the cost of the firemen. We all pay a much smaller amount per year. The system would not work if people could only pay their taxes in the years of high fire probability.)
Despite the fact that you aren’t using any direct services, there is still significant benefit to being a citizen. E.g. if war breaks out, you can get on a plane and move back to the U.S. and be immediately protected by the U.S. military. The system wouldn’t work if we only paid for the military in war years.
Another example is public education. The annual taxes we pay for a student in public school is a fraction of the annual cost of educating that student. But if a parent pays taxes their entire life, there are years they are paying school taxes when they have no student in school, so the costs are essentially amortized. If we allow people to only pay school taxes when they have children in school, the system breaks.
Look, I get that these are simplistic examples, there are all kinds of details and exceptions. I’m sure you can point out differences with your specific situation.
I am simply pointing out why philosophically and fiscally I favor some citizenship based taxation.”
Kirsch needs to be hammered!
It is bullshit like this that politicians like Levin, Grassley, Schumer, Rangel etc use to justify screwing expats.
And, on the other Economist article, FATCA Flaws http://www.economist.com/node/21605907/comments#comments, one commenter is a gem among the others:
Thanks for reminding me why I would never consider leaving the country I chose to live in to go back to the country I was accidentally born in.
Kirsch should stop beating around the bush and just say that he’s against Americans emigrating and having any citizenship other than US, because clearly he supports punishing those who do.