Author Archives: calgary411

Call 1-888-416-8333, state what you’d like to discuss and give your name and phone number — YOU MAY BE CALLED BACK TO BE ON-AIR!

http://www.cbc.ca/checkup/contact/ to suggest this discussion should be continued.

RepealFATCA.com Roundup: News and Commentary on the Approaching FATCA ‘Train Wreck’

March 20th, 2014:

This RepealFATCA.com bulletin rounds up some important news and commentary from around the world on the looming July 1, 2014, “train wreck” of the “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” (FATCA). The headlines:

1.  Even Tax Compliance Experts Decry Looming “Train Wreck,” Impossibility of Meeting IRS’s Requirements.

2.  Treasury (Inadvertently) Admits FATCA is a “Fishing Expedition.”

3.  Lack of “Reciprocity” Fatally Undermines Both FATCA and OECD “Information Exchange.”

4.  Rob Portman (Ohio): Big Pickup in Senate for Repealing FATCA.

5.  Canadians Fight Back.

Presenter for this session: John Richardson, Citizenshipsolutions.ca

($20 to offset costs – payable at the door)

CALGARY, AB – Saturday, APRIL 19, 2014, 2:30 – 5:30 p.m.

http://www.kensingtonlegion.ca/ (free parking /Legion restaurant will be open)

Map: North Calgary Kensington Royal Canadian Legion No. 264, 1910 Kensington Road NW, Calgary, AB

This session comes with the “No one But Someone Who Is Going Through This Can Really Understand” element. John Richardson, like us who need information and SUPPORT, is a US Person in Canada.

A lot of grass-roots volunteerism by generous persons committed to this goes into these sessions. We don’t offer polish; we do offer information and support to help you come to the right decision for you and your family.

(John will be leaving for the airport right after the session as he will present at the Edmonton Information Session, Sunday, April 20, 2014, details to be announced.)

I hope to meet MANY Calgary and area persons on April 19th — this is your Alberta opportunity to attend ours in the series of Canadian and European information sessions.

From Elizabeth May, “Island Times” March 20, 2014: What’s up with FATCA? An issue that should concern more than those Canadians with ties to the US

Thank you, Elizabeth May, for referring to us as what we are: Canadians! We appreciate that very much.

… and her email to me today:

Dear Ms. Tapanila,

Thank you for your message regarding the US Foreign Account Tax Compliancy Act (FATCA) and what it means for Canadians. I share your concerns on this urgent matter, and I will continue to work to ensure that Canadians do not suffer financial penalties as a result of this legislation.

As you are likely aware, on February 5 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced that an inter-governmental agreement with US officials to implement FATCA had been reached. Although Minister Flaherty claimed to have negotiated hard-won concessions from the US, the reality is that this agreement remains largely unchanged from when it was first announced.

Under FATCA, Canadian banks will soon be required to search their account records for the personal information of US citizens, their children, and all those who through some accident of family or work history acquired some characteristic of interest to the IRS, and report the findings to the Canada Revenue Agency, who will then provide the information to US officials.

This legislation is slated to come into effect globally on July 1, 2014, and thus it is imperative that Canadians with US citizenship or legal status take steps to educate themselves about what these changes mean for them.

Continue reading →

Today’s TED Talks (from Vancouver, Canada) is worth a listen. What Edward Snowden says about the internet, pertains and resonates for me re FATCA:

It too bothers me so much for people to say “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” You’re giving up your rights! You’re saying “I don’t think I’m going to need them — “these guys” are going to do the right thing.” I agree that: Your rights matter because you never know when you’re going to need them. They should not be taken away without due process.

Privacy — What does it matter?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Here’s the explanation to the “secret court” reference: How a Court Secretly Evolved, Extending U.S. Spies’ Reach” by CHARLIE SAVAGE and LAURA POITRAS, NY Times, MARCH 11, 2014

and here’s a link to the: TED talk video, including transcript

Many interesting points, among them:

Who I am (Edward Snowden) doesn’t matter at all.

We don’t have to give up our privacy to have good government.

Is it really “Terrorism” we’re stopping? Or is it that justification provokes an emotional response? (Just as justification of FATCA as the term “Tax Evasion” provokes an emotional response.)

Re NSA “Boundless Information terminology” and how much interception: NSA says to tell you that would invade your privacy.

More communications are being intercepted by the NSA in America about Americans than in Russia about Russians.

Related: Debates: Does the NSA mass surveillance program violate privacy and due process?

Or some ask: Does Edward Snowden even exist?

Antidote:
An antidote is a substance which can counteract a form of poisoning.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Sometimes life knocks you on your ass… get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

This is hereby our Gratitude Journal. All expressions of gratitude (I know I have many, including the blue sky outside my window) welcome. It’s worth a try! Thanks for the idea, OMG!

Continue reading →

Cross-post from Blaze at Maple Sandbox:

Another significant submission for our side. After I sent him our news release about retaining Joe Arvay, privacy lawyer Michael Power (who was a law school classmate of Elizabeth May) forwarded me a link to an announcement and submission to Finance Canada from the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association on FATCA.

I just posted it at Sandbox and tweeted it.

http://maplesandbox.ca/2014/b-c-freedom-of-information-and-privacy-association-speaks-out-against-fatca-iga/

It’s strongly against the IGA.

Now, I want to know why Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has been quiet since the IGA was announced. I have e-mailed a contact there three times and my messages have been ignored.

Please feel free to cross post at Brock.

*************************

“We oppose (the FATCA IGA) on a number of grounds, but we will restrict our comments to the large scale infringement of privacy rights.”

That is the beginning of a four page Submission by the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association to Finance Canada.

They challenge several aspects of the IGA as well as challenge the authority of the federal government to regulate credit unions.

They also state clearly their agreement with Peter Hogg.

BCFIPA Concludes:

There are considerable difficulties involved in any attempt to implement a FATCA IGA in this country and those will almost certainly result in extensive litigation and damage to people and institutions which are in no way connected to tax evasion in this country or in the United States.

Therefore, we urge you not to proceed with this wholesale infringement of the constitutionally guaranteed privacy rights of Canadians.

Thanks to privacy lawyer Michael Power who e-mailed me the BCFIPA Announcement with the link to the actual submission.

Thanks to Maple Sandbox and privacy lawyer, Michael Power, for the sharing of this submission!

From PLAN (Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network) a membership-based non-profit organization, established by and for families committed to ensuring the safety, security and well-being of our relatives with disabilities.

RDSPs and FATCA: Warning to People With Disabilities With Any Connection to the U.S.

My comment and my sincere thanks to this incredible organization:

My friends at PLAN, I thank you so much for providing the WARNING STICKER that all Canadian Registered Accounts, including the RDSP, should have for anyone deemed to be a ‘US Person’ in Canada. It is negligent that this has not been accomplished before now by those who offer these products. (I have paid over $2,000 in US taxes for the Canadian government’s contribution of bonds and grants to my son’s RDSP, for which I am the Holder. There is no other way to say it — these are $$$$ stolen from Canada’s taxpayers who provided the funds for those grants and bonds — and also from the Canada’s treasury to go to the US.)

I object to my Canadian-born son (born to me in Canada before I became a Canadian citizen in 1975) now being being referred to by the Canadian government and the Canadian Bankers Association, respectively, as “a U.S. citizen resident in Canada” and “a U.S. taxpayer resident in Canada”. He has never been registered with the US, never lived in the US, never got any benefit from the US – only from Canada and for those benefits I am forever thankful.

Hopefully, I am no longer described that way as I have officially renounced my US citizenship and now have a Certificate of Loss of Nationality that I can show my local CANADIAN “foreign financial institution” when I am asked if there is any reason the US would consider me a ‘US person’ in order to turn over account information to the CRA to then turn over to the US IRS. I cannot renounce on behalf of my son, even with a court order.

I can’t thank you enough, PLAN, for the needed warning to Canadian families who would not have an ounce of extra strength left over after caring for family members who have some type of disability to deal with US tax and financial account reporting to the US on top of that. In addition they most likely do not have any extra money to fork out to US tax law and accounting professionals year after year after year for compliance of US tax and reporting for which there would likely be no taxes owed. I was “lucky enough” to have retirement savings to pay for coming into compliance. Some families may be like my family and have a son or daughter who would be entrapped into US citizenship and this year-after-year-after-year absurdity and stress for no (or very little) actual tax owed to the US.

Bless you for saving other families what mine has experienced in the past several years. This is just the awareness I’ve been working for.

US Persons in Canada are now deemed 2nd class citizens — and this should not happen to Canada’s most vulnerable.

This, my friends at Isaac Brock, is the awareness to the right families that I have been working for. I will sleep a little better tonight KNOWING that this information will now better get to the ones I want it to reach.

From an email that I sent to some politicians who attended last evening’s (March 12) Liberal MP Ralph Goodale Calgary reception:

“disgusted”, one of my ‘US Person’ friends, spoke with you this evening at the Ralph Goodale reception and sent me your email contact information. I hope it is OK if I take the liberty to pass on to you an email that I sent to Honourable Ralph Goodale (below). Note that in that email I ask Mr. Goodale what his vote will be on the IGA implementation. He, this evening, said that MPs will not get to vote on the IGA but it will go to the Executive Committee. How is this possible in a “democracy”? If one of you could elaborate on that process, I’d be very grateful.

I also found a 2011 piece from Mr. Goodale, “Fighting The “Long Arm” Of The U.S. Tax-Man”: http://www.ralphgoodale.ca/blog/fighting-the-long-arm-of-the-u-s-tax-man/.

I believe Mr. Goodale could and should educate Justin Trudeau on the realities of FATCA for Canada and its ‘US Person’ CANADIAN citizens and residents. Mr. Trudeau’s answers to my questions re FATCA at the recent Okotoks meet and greet were not encouraging. There will be an approximate one million Canadians (or as we are now being referred to by the Government of Canada and Canadian Bankers Association, ‘US citizens resident in Canada’ and ‘US taxpayers resident in Canada – how insulting – we are CANADIANS!) and their families and business partners and friends for whom there will be one issue come voting time: extra-territorial FATCA law in Canada.

etc.

Thanks very much for your interest. I encourage you to pass this information on to anyone who might have an interest. This WILL affect and be a cost to every Canadian.

Regards,
Carol Tapanila

From: caroltapanila
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 9:39 AM
To: ralph.goodale@parl.gc.ca
Subject: Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act Law in Canada

Honourable Member of Parliament Goodale,

I will be attending your Liberal reception tomorrow, Wednesday, March 12th, in Calgary. FATCA and the signing of the IGA with the US will have a bearing on any federal Canadian budget. I would appreciate your views and what your vote as a Canadian MP will be for the intergovernmental agreement.

etc.

NOTE: Mr. Goodale supports our fight for this and still feels as he did in his 2011 statement (in link above)
*********
Sent this morning to MP Irwin Cotler in an attempt to get clarification on whether or not MPs will be able to vote on the IGA (not yet answered, of course):

Dear Mr. Cotler,

Yesterday one of us was advised by an MP that there will be no vote in Parliament on the pending FATCA IGA legislation, but that the “decision” will be made by “executive committee.”

Questions: Is this statement correct? Can the IGA bill come into law without approval of Parliament? If this is the case, is Senate approval also not required?

We would appreciate an answer, if at all possible, by the end of the week.

Thank you for your help.

“IRSCompliantForever”

************
Subsequently, NativeCanadian’s report on this morning’s attempt for clarification:

Just got off the phone with Flaherty’s office. I was told this draft proposal for Fatca has passed consultations. This is the process where our letters recently sent for feedback will be considered and the IGA may be “tweaked”. Once the tweaking is done, the IGA will be tabled and be voted on by our MP’s. The “tweaked” IGA will be made public. …

UPDATE:
We HAD information on a vote by MPs on a “tweaked” IGA.

But, as we are now getting further conflicting information from different sources, we still don’t know and are back to –

Yet to determine:

A Free Vote

OR

A Party Vote

OR

No Vote at All

by all Canadian MPs

on the FATCA intergovernmental agreement (IGA) as negotiated with the US?

What might be the case is that the IGA does not need Parliament so the actual MP vote on the IGA won’t matter that much,

BUT

the ACT TO IMPLEMENT THE IGA will matter, and that is what we SHOULD care about.

Hard-hitting alternatives for this Conservative Government and all MPs on how they can stop, better analyze the consequences and not recklessly change what Canadians hold as values if the signed Intergovernmental Agreement with the US for FATCA is implemented. At the very least, let’s have some open discussion with ALL of Canada …

Richardson / Kish Finance Canada Submission, March 10, 2014

John Richardson and Stephen Kish give very specific reasoning the Department of Finance has not likely seen before in:

. Why there should be NO Canadian participation in FATCA;

and

. Specific recommendations in the event that Canada does participate in FATCA.

The Government of Canada should not assist the United States in general, and in any manner with the facilitation and/or implementation of FATCA on Canadian soil.

March 10, 2014

Tax Policy Branch
Canada Department of Finance

Enclosed please find PDF and and Word attachment versions of a proposal by John Richardson and Stephen Kish to Canada Finance entitled “Request for changes in legislative proposal to establish IGA between U.S. and Canada for the enhanced exchange of tax information.”

Mr. Richardson and I hope that you will find the comments to be useful.

Regards,

John Richardson
Barrister and Solicitor,
Toronto

Stephen Kish, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
University of Toronto
Toronto

We welcome your comments on this submission. We worked hard on it.