UPDATE SEPTEMBER 19, 2015: SEE ALSO DISCLAIMER AND LITIGATION UPDATES.
[This post, which began in May and having over 1000 revisions and 2000 comments, is being retired from service and updates. It lived through the success of reaching a total of $500,000 in donations from our kind, dear supporters who had little money to give, the hope and disappointment with the summary trial decision, and the certainty that we are now finally moving on to the Charter trial.]
CANADIAN CHARTER TRIAL UPDATE:
— We have instructed the Arvay team to prepare for the “Constitutional-Charter” trial. This means that our focus now, as it was in the beginning of our lawsuit, is on the Charter trial.
Unless there is a new expense in the future that we have not anticipated, the monies from your donations will be sufficient to take us through the “constitutional-charter” trial in Federal Court. However, to pay other legal bills we will need additional donations from our supporters, and a request for donations will appear on another post soon.
OUR LITIGATION HISTORY:
One year ago, on August 11, 2014, Litigator Joseph Arvay filed a FATCA IGA lawsuit in Canada Federal Court on behalf of Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen, the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty (en français), and all peoples.
Because of a Government delay we initiated a “summary trial”, using a portion of the arguments, which offered the possibility of preventing private banking information from being turned over to the IRS before September 30, 2015. See Alliance’s Claims, our Alliance blog, and AUGUST 4-5 SUMMARY TRIAL FILINGS in LITIGATION UPDATES.
Just reading about the sad state of affairs in Greece;
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-20/collateral-has-run-out-jpm-warns-ecb-will-use-greek-nuclear-option-if-no-monday-deal
According to Wikipedia there are 3,000,000 Greek ExPats in the USA.
Having signed an IGA, I think it is time for Greece to pass the Overseas Greek Patriot Act.
They need to tax all those Greek Citizens living in the US with offshore financial accounts, they are naturally offshore being accounts in Athens Ohio and not Athens Greece.
Greece needs to compel the USA to start requiring all US banks to look for Greek indica and ask the following;
1. Are you a Greek Person?
2. Do you have a Greek Parent or Grand Parent?
3. Where were you born?
The USA needs to provide all US financial account information on said Greek Persons, it makes no difference if a Greek Person does not speak Greek and has never been to Greece. The law is the law.
I am sure that requiring said Greek Persons to start paying their fair share would alleviate the burden of Greeks in the Greek Homeland.
Yes, I am serious!!!
@George: And the U.S.A. banks must register and provide the data in Greek, of course.
http://www.FATCALegalAction.com SSL security certificate expired now for over a week after I Tweeted them. I will be after Republicans Abroad more forcefully if not remedied. Maybe a clear sign that ADCS and ADCS Leadership and ADCS lawsuit have greater relative trust = the one to back.
@ JC
I don’t think that site changed from the first day it was put up (certainly the thermometer never budged off its original $100K mark) so maybe Jim Bopp is doing everything more or less out of sight, perhaps by necessity. Anyway I hope progress is being made on that front too but I much prefer the openness of the ADCS which obviously cannot share trial strategies but is keeping us informed of pretty much everything else.
@George
Melbourne, Australia is the world’s third largest Greek city. I think the Australian Government would think twice about signing IGA’s for other countries if it where for Greece, or for that matter – the UK, Italy, China, New Zealand, Vietnam, India etc.
Australian citizens born in the United States aren’t important.
https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/AboutMelbourne/History/Pages/multiculturalhistory.aspx
@JC re: “Maybe a clear sign that ADCS and ADCS Leadership and ADCS lawsuit have greater relative trust = the one to back. ”
Spoken like a true Australian.
Showing my age……
Remember how years ago when you opened a bank account there was a question on Race?
I was repulsed at that at the time…….
Today, asking for Country of Birth is indeed equally repulsive.
Asking Nationality OK as long as it is under the proviso as to on what basis are you here in this country.
George: GATCA asks EVERYBODY what country and what city they were born. And the world loves it
@Mark Twain; not quite….
“Notwithstanding subparagraph A(1), the place of birth is not required to be reported unless the
Reporting Financial Institution is otherwise required to obtain and report it under domestic law
and it is available in the electronically searchable data maintained by the Reporting Financial
Institution.”
http://www.oecd.org/ctp/exchange-of-tax-information/automatic-exchange-financial-account-information-common-reporting-standard.pdf
So if domestic law does not require gathering it……
I note that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia does not have a FATCA IGA pending or signed. Now, I am a little behind in updating my website (linked from all my IBS posts) but one bank replies:
Dear Mr. Alciere,
On a transactional account in NLB Tutunska banka, a person may have the following currencies: MKD, EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, SEK, NOK, JPY, DKK, AUD, CAD.
Now, that bank has registered with FATCA; but if banks in that country are free to allow accounts in all those currencies and banks in that country do not have to register with FATCA then that would be one option for a place to open a FATCA-defiant bank if there isn’t one already. I have confirmed that at least one bank there is not registered under FATCA.
Update on the above:
The FATCA-noncompliant banks in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are savings banks offering accounts in local currency.
The French are raising a stink about U.S. espionage.
If they’re so angry about U.S. intelligence activities why did they sign a Model 1 IGA on 14 November 2013? The data to be handed over is also none of the U.S. Government’s business.
I often think I am years behind here. This (just saw) yesterday may be good for people new to the site:
FATCA Forum: Peter Dunn on the Human Consequences of FATCA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a04byPzXOA0
Allison Christians on CNBC Toronto re: FATCA
Based on the ruling yesterday by the US Supreme Court on an Obamacare related matter, it is clear that the US Justice system is now merely an hallucination …. as in “the law is not what it says in writing but rather what we choose it to be on any given day”. Oh God I pray that the Canadian Justices are more faithful to Canadian Law than their US counterparts are to their US Law.
I pray that the Canadian judges in our lawsuit are not being paid by the current government to try to keep the US as a “friend” of Canada. The media has been told to “shut up” about it, that is very clear. I think Canada is about to explode in many ways… people have had enough..
@nervousinvestor
I realize that there are differing opinions on the Affordable Care Act, but aren’t we asking the Canadian Supreme Court (ultimately when the case reaches that point) to do something similar in character to what the US Supreme Court did yesterday? The law itself (C-31) is none too favorable to our side, and if the courts rule based solely on the text of the law itself, it won’t be a happy day for our side. Indeed, we are asking the courts to take a larger view of things and consider the law’s relationship to other laws and the Income Tax Treaty (in the case of the summary trial) or the Charter (in the case of the potential later full trial).
Without commenting on whether I agree or disagree with yesterday’s decision, I think we are in fact asking the Canadian courts to go beyond a mere reading of the text of the law and consider the larger picture.
Yes, Dash1729, doesn’t the lawsuit allege the IGA violates the “spirit” of the law, or something like that?
1.) The IGA-enabling Canadian legislation, if it says the bank must require U.S. persons to demonstrate that they are IRS-compliant, is also a violation of the Official Languages Act, because it requires somebody, even a Yankee Bostonian in Quebec City on vacation, to have completed IRS forms in English, thereby denying her right to use French. It’s not just the bankers in Quebec who are required.
2.) If a bank requires, in the fine print terms and conditions, that you must consent to the transfer of information, it is not only a bank policy, but a governmental policy. Unlike a baker who won’t bake a cake for a same-sex “wedding” ceremony, [but the customers can go to another baker and anybody is free to open a bake shop next door,] a bank can enjoy protection from competition. That is, a FATCA-noncompliant bank wants to open next door, and FATCA-compliant bank protests that the town isn’t big enough to support another bank. Or at least in many countries that is the case.
@Tom
C’est vrai. I am sadly a unilingual English speaker but people do have the right to service in either official language. If you look at the following website:
https://www.investorsedge.cibc.com/ie/getting-started/open-account/other-fr.html
you see that all the forms except the US tax forms are available in French. And the W-8BEN–which as I understand it is required even for people without a hint of a “US taint”–is available only in English.
I don’t think we should hang our hats solely on this issue though–I’m glad there are other legal issues involved we can raise. I’ve seen US government customs forms at preclearance locations in Quebec that respect Quebec’s language laws and are printed in both Canadian official languages. Your point is an important one but if it were the only point we could make it would be too easy for the US gov’t to print up French language versions of a few of these forms and get around it.
@Dash1729 & Bubbles
I dont see things that way at all. I see the request in our lawsuit as 1) demanding that the letter of the Charter of Rights be enforced in defence of Canadians and Canadian Sovereignty and b) in the specifics, on August 4 &5, the IGA be stuck out due to its conflicts with the Income Tax Act and the US / Canada Tax Treaty.
In the US case, the Obamacare law was badly written (whether or not one agrees with its concepts). The Supremes have chosen to ignore the plain language in the Law and adopt a more convoluted interpretation to avoid upsetting the Obamacare infrastructure.
Am I wrong? I believe that our cause is Righteous … the US one in reference, not so much.
@nervousinvestor
You are not wrong! The US Supremes have ruled in such a way as to protect Obama’s legacy both on Obamacare and the same sex wedding issue. And two female justices should have recused themselves from the latter because they officiated at gay weddings prior to hearing the case. So much for objectivity! Our case is apples to their oranges. First, it won’t be driven by ideology since our Supremes have clearly ruled against the Conservative gov’t and won‘t hesitate to do so again. And second, our case is about a country’s sovereignty and therefore much larger than either of the American cases since the IGA runs roughshod over Charter rights (e.g. the protection against discrimination based on country of origin).
@nervousinvestor
I agree with you that both the letter and the spirit of the Charter supports our side–however the Charter unfortunately the Charter isn’t in play during the summary trial–only in a later potential full trial.
When it comes to the summary trial, essentially we are saying that one law conflicts with another law (and an existing treaty) and asking the court to resolve that conflict. I don’t know enough about Canadian law to know how, by precedent, Canadian courts typically resolve such conflicts. Presumably Arvay and team are the experts in that regard. But it seems to me that, in essence, we are asking the court to abide by the existing Income Tax Act and the government is asking the court to abide by C-31.
That’s how I see the summary trial, in any event. Resolving that conflict seems to me to require the court to do more than just look at what the law says literally.
And–again–a literal reading of the Charter definitely does support our side–but we don’t seem to be at that stage of the proceedings yet. I hope we do get there eventually.
I prefer to keep the focus here on the Canada lawsuit–not on US legal proceedings on which people on both sides tend to have strong feelings but feelings that are irrelevant to our Canadian matter here.
Since I’ve mentioned the Green Party opposes FATCA I also queried the Libertarian Party of Canada.
Who is better, Green or Libertarian, is outside the scope of this website.
If you vote for a candidate who supports FATCA or won’t say, you’re just as guilty as the rest of them.
This statement came from the Libertarian Party of Canada’s Director of Communications, David Clement:
Hi Tom,
We oppose Facta and would not comply with US agencies to force Americans
living in Canada to comply with a US law.
Thank you for your question.
David Clement, Director of Communications
@TomAlciere,
Maybe you could send him another email but rephrase…
“Dear David;
Thank you for your response. I appreciate your parties stance “We oppose Facta and would not comply with US agencies to force Americans living in Canada to comply with a US law.”
While this is a problem for “Americans living in Canada” what is your parties position with regards to FATCA on Canadian Citizens living in Canada who are deemed by a foreign government (USA) to be Americans?
On _________, the Hon_________ actually referred to Canadian Citizens with clinging US Nationality as “Americans living in Canada.” I want to determine if your party considers US Citizenship to be paramount citizenship in cases of Canadian Citizens that are considered American by the United States.
Yours,
@Dash1729
The Primary thrust in my view is the Charter one. The Aug 4 &5 hearing is in my view to get a permanent injunction given the inconsistencies between the various laws. Those inconsistencies can be “fixed” by a sick conniving Government yet would allow the delay in transferring information to the US pending the actual Charter matter being heard. That is MY PERSONAL view. As a resident of another Commonwealth country it is the Charter Challenge that means most to me for the world wide precedent that would be set.