March 8, 2016 UPDATE: Legal fees paid — on to Federal Court for Charter trial contesting Canadian FATCA IGA legislation.
Canadians and International Supporters:
You came through once again: $594,970 for legal costs have now been donated and our outstanding legal bill is finally paid off.
Thanks especially to those who donated even though they never had any “spare” money to give, and despite this gave over and over and over again.
This last round of fundraising also shows that our Canadian lawsuit remains dependent on the kindness of our International Friends: There would be no lawsuit without their financial help.
Know that a very generous donation (today) from a supporter in the United States made it possible to pay off the remaining legal debt. Also please appreciate that there would be no lawsuit without the help of the Isaac Brock Society which has kindly let us use its website to solicit funds.
Our next step is the Constitutional-Charter trial in Federal Court.
For this we need more Canadian Witnesses, and my next post will be devoted only to a request for Witnesses willing to go public, like our Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen.
For the future: I want a win in Federal Court — and I want the new Liberal Government not to appeal that win.
Thank you all for your support,
Stephen Kish,
for the Directors,
Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty
Since coming to Canada in 2004, I ceased to vote in the USA. Since becoming a Canadian Citizen, I have only voted here in Canada. After renouncing US citizenship in 2014, I can no longer vote there but nothing really to miss. The Donald and Hilary are a tragic choice. If we are fortunate here in Canada the Liberal Party will bring back the values, rights and freedoms which Canadians had in pre-Harper times.
@Barbara
The form 4079 is really intended to assess a past relinquishment and should not be used for a renunciation, although some consulates still include it in the renunciation, process. If there is now no (financial) advantage of claiming a relinquishment , a renunciation may be the faster process. However I would refrain from US voting after you obtain your new citizenship, it would negate a relinquihment, but not a renunciation.
Isn’t it still the case the ATO and the CRA have received nothing but a promise from the US because the transfer of US data hasn’t been approved by Congress if ever. US banking lobbyists have been trying to stop this part of FATCA.
So in effect the ATO and CRA get nothing. Having that the ATO and CRA are not interested in any of their citizens who are US residents unlike FATCA US persons.
@Don
I believe the US sent other nations information they already had from IRS filings on interest.
@Charl – but exchange of info re interest earned has been happening with treaty countries for donkey’s years has it not ? I dont think that there is anything new there.
Exactly!!!! (A letter from the credit union)
Please see the e-mail response I received below on 6 October from the general counsel of the World Council of Credit Unions.
Dear Mr. Redmond,
In the US, the only information about non-resident aliens’ accounts being collected by IRS from US-based banks and credit unions is interest income reported on IRS Form 1099-INT. This reporting requirement only applies to interest income, so there is no reporting to the IRS concerning non-interest bearing accounts held by non-resident aliens at this time.
Other information about those accounts that FATCA requires non-US financial institutions to report to the IRS or the government of the country where they live–such as the non-resident aliens’ account balances on December 31st of each year–is not being submitted to the IRS by US institutions. This is because the statutory authority for that type of information collection on US-institutions is not in place.
That means that the US Treasury is likely only able to share with foreign governments the information reported to it from Form 1099-INT about non-resident aliens’ interest income (if any) on deposit accounts because that is the only information being collected.
Thanks.
Michael S. Edwards
VP and General Counsel
World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU)
Thank you for the confirmation Charl.
@Charl
And it was for that very reason why in decades past when I used to have a small account in the US for travel emergencies I used to insist to my bank at the time that it must NOT be held in an interest bearing account; I wanted NO complications with the IRS. Nor to have to get into any explanations with my home country. Of course, when FATCA was seen to be raising its head on the horizon I immediately closed the account completely.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/09/microsoft-court-case-hotmail-ireland-search-warrant
This case has similarities with US overreach issues.
Canadian authorities are being completely disingenuous regarding the receipt of like information from the IRS. They know full well that the exchange is one-sided, but continue to bleat about information sharing as if it is apple-to-apple reciprocity, which it isn’t. I would like to see them somehow forced to admit that they’re not getting anything they did not get pre-FATCA.
This is exactly true, John Canuck. As a matter of fact I just got a call from my congressman Bill Posey’s office acknowledging receipt of a letter I’d recently sent him. Congressman Posey is fighting to repeal FATCA, but I don’t know where he stands on RBT. I asked to speak with the congressman but the young man told me I’d have to go to Florida to do that. I said that I had two questions that I would like him to ask him instead. The first was to try and find out from the IRS what exactly they sent to the CRA under this first exchange of information. The second was to ask him where he stood on implementing residency based taxation. He said he’d get back to me, although he had his doubts that the IRS would give that information. He said he’d get back to me.
Taxation is stealing, period. Therefore, evading taxes is not the same thing as ripping off a government.
Now, then, if I could water that down a few orders of magnitude, the countries of the world that rely on sales taxes would do well to refuse to honour requests for co-operation. these would tax domestic activities such as salaries and wages earned within their borders, customs duties on imports and sales taxes on what passes through cash registers.
Taxes on income are a major invasion of privacy and were doomed to fail because people simply earned their investment income abroad, and there was no way to tax that without other countries surrendering their authority, so those other countries did so. Taxes on wages earned within a country, at least, involve some level of government protection of the wage earner, who can complain to the government about unsafe working conditions or unpaid wages. Even so, these invade personal privacy.
Sales taxes on items purchased with cash do not invade personal privacy. Sales taxes on automobiles require the government to know the selling price, and the government will quickly know the identity of the buyer anyway when the buyer puts the motorcar on the road.
@George:
FATCA does not create the conflict here. Even before FATCA there was FBAR requirements where you were required to report to U.S. Treasury while being forbidden to do so under Canadian law. One big question is whether such accounts were reported under FATCA in which case CRA broke the client confidentiality law and not the lawyer.
A new observation: To comply with FBAR requires endangering your personal information, granted. And the web page says FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK as if you’re a convicted child rapist required to report to the police department.
Well guess what else: The web page requires completing the .PDF and then saving it on your hard drive and then uploading the saved file. This leaves the data on the hard drive even if you “delete” it unless you know how to do a secure delete.
Just as many “old-stock” Canadians don’t care about other Canadians considered “U.S. Persons” under U.S.A. laws, the technically savvy filers won’t care about the newbies who will leave their “deleted” FBAR on the computer at the internet cafe. Oh yes, and you have to give them your email address and telephone number even if you have neither.
About Mr. Pape:
“He is one of the few who seem to have received one of those valuable documents so many decades ago. Hope he hung onto that document and can now use it to his advantage in solving his IRS claim to his Canadian money.”
Maybe he’s going to be a test case for whether section 877A is retroactive so many decades.
“In the US, the only information about non-resident aliens’ accounts being collected by IRS from US-based banks and credit unions is interest income reported on IRS Form 1099-INT.”
There at least three problems with that.
1. For US persons who have interest reported on Form 1099-INT, they also have dividends reported on Form 1099-DIV and sales of shares on Form 1099-B.
2. For Non Resident Aliens, interest and dividends are supposed to be reported on Form 1042-S.
3. IRS employees embezzle withholding from all of those forms, even after Monica Hernandez was arrested.
That quote from the ATO is maddening. Among other things, I don’t think you can read it and picture Australian citizens and residents IN Australia being affected by reporting to the U.S. It’s all about “off-shore”, and “non-resident”, and accounts that are hidden / non-transparent. Also essentially equates CRS with FATCA reporting.
“Beginning in 2017, close to 100 countries will be sharing non-resident data under the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS).”
@Tom Alciere: Taxation is invasive, no doubt. As such it should be made as simple and easy as possible. Advantages include preservation of privacy and lower compliance and collection costs. A simple taxation system can very well include progressive income tax. As for sales taxes, be careful what you wish for. I live in a country with high sales taxes (well, in fact VAT, not exactly the same thing I’m told), at 21% for most things. This doesn’t keep income tax low: it has a 50% tax bracket (quickly reached).
@Fred:
Exactly why the income tax has to go.
One rationalisation for the income tax is, the wealthy pay it out of their ill-gotten gains. They got picked by the bureaucrats to have agricultural subsidies, alcohol licences, bail-outs, banking licenses, casino licences, …all the way down the alphabet to taxi medallions and zoning variances, ways the government picked them to get rich and didn’t pick me, and by golly, they have to share their winnings. Somebody needs to tell such redistributors the task at hand is to eliminate those intrusions into what should be a free market. Got a deck of cards? Open a casino. Buy a house on the market and open a saloon. Nobody has to go in there and get drunk if they don’t want to, and you only serve the persons you want to serve. That’s how it would work in a free country.
Those who claim FATCA is a tool against tax evasion, what FATCA is, is US Tax Invasion against other countries.
Defeated Con artist Chris Alexader is quoted thus: “Suddenly we ended up in a campaign talking about second-class citizens? That concept does not exist in Canadian law…”
Can the Arvay team summon him as a witness? The FATCA IGA is illegal under Canadian law.
“what FATCA is, is US Tax Invasion against other countries”
Not when the amount of tax is $0.00.
FATCA is US Penalty Invasion against other countries.
Re: Writing to the Liberal Government
I also wrote to PM Designate Justin Trudeau the day after ADCS posted their letter. I wrote to my newly re-elected Conservative MP to let him know that I’ll be asking for his assistance once again on this matter. I encourage everyone to do the same.
Keep in mind that on Nov 4th the cabinet will be announced. At that point we’ll be able to direct our letters to the Minister of Finance, Minister of Revenue and the new members of the Finance Committee.
Has anyone else taken note that many of the original signers/players of the IGA are no longer?
Jim Flaherty has passed on and his replacement Joe Oliver lost his seat.
Stephen Harper is no longer PM, and is stepping down as Conservative leader.
Both Mike Allen (Mr. Congress has spoken) and James Rajotte (Standing Committee on Finance) have left politics. And Kerry Lynne Finley lost her seat. I just find it interesting.
Marie,
Thanks for sending the letter to Mr. Trudeau and to your MP.
Yes, as soon we know on November 4 who the new Attorney General and Minister of National Revenue will be we will need many more letters to be sent to these defendants.
I suppose my prediction is that the new Ministers will first ask for some time to consider their next step. Whatever they decide (e.g., aggressively defend our lawsuit like the Conservative Government vs. abandoning defence of lawsuit) will significantly impact on our litigation.
I am hoping that many others, like you, will also contact their MPs.
Could we please have a side bar link to sample letters sent to the new Canadian MPs? The great letters that have already been written are difficult to find, buried as they are in the bowels of IBS. Thanks.