Our FATCA IGA litigation trial DEEGAN ET AL. v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA ET AL., Court file number A-370-19, has just been held in Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal on March 30, 2022.
At the trial Canada’s lawyers argued that there was no significant Charter 8 (privacy) breach to the Canadian FATCA IGA legislation, especially since Canadians who the U.S. deems to be US persons, already have to comply with US tax law. We continue to feel differently.
Decision expected to be made in 4-6 (?) months.
Thanks to our Appellants Gwen and Kazia and to all of our supporters, over many years, who made it possible for us to get to the Appeal Court.
CANADIAN FATCA LITIGATION UPDATE —
LITIGATION PROGRESS: This is a lawsuit, begun in 2014, challenging the constitutionality of Canada’s FATCA IGA legislation, which was imposed on us by a foreign country, and which violates the privacy rights of Canadians (see our ADCS website).
The Trial (with three Justices) in Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal was held on March 30, 2022.
Our four ADCS Board members are John Richardson (co-chair and legal counsel), Patricia Moon (Treasurer), Carol Tapanila, and Stephen Kish (Chair).
The Canadian FATCA hunt and turnover are NOT hypothetical.
This year the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) told us that financial data on 901,000 accounts were turned over to the U.S. in 2019 and also discovered that most of the data did not have to be turned over under the so-called FATCA “agreement”:
“According to information released by the CRA in response to an access to information request, the account balances in 615,000 of the 901,000 records the agency transferred to the IRS in 2019 were below $50,000 U.S.
The year before, 610,000 of 900,000 accounts the CRA reported to the IRS fell below that threshold…
[This means that] The Canada Revenue Agency has been reporting hundreds of thousands of Canadian bank accounts to the Internal Revenue Service, despite the fact that they fall below the mandatory reporting level set in an agreement between Canada and the United States…
Mathieu Labrèche, spokesperson for the Canadian Bankers Association, said their members are simply following the [FATCA] law.”
John Richardson responded to this CBC article:
“The people impacted by this are your middle class neighbours who you have known for years. They are Canadian citizens living in Canada. They have a lingering/technical US citizenship because of the accident of a US birthplace. But, that’s it.
It’s bizarre that a subgroup of Canadian residents (identified by a US place of origin) could be subject to stricter reporting obligations to a country they don’t live in (USA) than to a country they do live in (Canada).
It’s clear that FATCA serves no public policy objective. It simply imposes costs and regulations on Canadian residents. The Government of Canada needs to end this agreement!”
For more details on our lawsuit see: Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty