CBC World at Six January 28, 2014, Starts @ 10:00 James Fitz-Morris: FATCA
NOTE: Looks like the link above refreshes to new date’s broadcast each day. I cannot find an archived link for CBC, The World at Six for January 28, 2014.
Government of Canada seeking RECIPROCITY … one of the biggest sticking points in the negotiations as the U.S. WON’T LET OTHER COUNTRIES’ LAWS TO BE ENFORCED ON ITS TERRITORY!
From Maple Sandbox: Finally a response, but few answers to Ted Hsu questions.
Let’s start reading and helping Ted Hsu in quest to get answers for us from the Canadian Parliament!
As bubblebustin points out:
Virginia La Torre Jeker believes that the US-Swiss Programme will serve as a template for banks in other countries:
http://taxconnections.com/taxblog/swiss-continue-to-cave-in/#.UufpvHmtuYU
Finally, the government “responds to Ted Hsu’s questions.
But, Dr. Hsu says:
You can see the response to my Order Paper Question on FATCA. It is a long response (226 pages in both official languages), but it’s surprising how few answers there are to a 55 part question! For instance, on page 75 I asked the Minister of Finance to provide a list of specific individuals and groups he had consulted with regarding FATCA and the response was simply that “The Government of Canada has consulted and has been contacted by individuals and groups to discuss the implications of FATCA and an IGA in Canada.” I also asked which studies and analyses the Department of Finance had undertaken with respect to FATCA, and was told that “The Department of Finance is reviewing the implications of FATCA on an ongoing basis. FATCA has raised a number of concerns in Canada- among both dual Canada-U.S. citizens and Canadian financial institutions.”
As Dr. Hsu also says:
We all deserve better answers from the government.
He’s asking for our help:
I know there is a lot of expertise out there to help analyse and pick through this response. So I invite you to do so on my facebook, and please let me know what you find.
Thank you!
Ted
I haven’t had time to review the “response” yet because I wanted to quickly get this posted. After we have had time to read this, I hope we will all pitch in and share a “lot of expertise ” to analsye this for Dr. Hsu.
Yikes! Lots to do. Help Dr. Hsu, do submission to help friends in New Zealand, write articles, organize information session. Have a life?
I understand from one of Dr. Hsu’s staff that “responses” to Scott Brison’s questions are expected later this week. I think we should be prepared for more weaseling.
US Senate Finance Committee Submission–Richardson, Yates and Kish
Cross-posted from Maple Sandbox: US Senate Finance Committee Submission — Richardson, Yates and Kish
Here’s an excellent submission (Request for Tax Rule Changes) to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.
This was written by *Toronto lawyer John Richardson, ***University of Toronto professor Dr. Stephen Kish and (this is huge!) **U.S. attorney Willard Yates. Mr. Yates’ involvement is significant because he retired from Office of Associate Chief Counsel (International) (ACCI), Internal Revenue Service after 31 years of service.
The 32 page comprehensive submission deals with everything from problems of citizenship based taxation to the financial and psychological costs of renouncing US citizenship. Despite the complexity of issues covered, it is quite easy to understand for most of us who have been around this issue for a while (although newbies may very well find it overwhelming and frightening).
The report is also posted at citizenshipsolutions.ca , John Richardson’s Canadian website designed to counsel US citizens abroad who find themselves having to live in a FATCA and FBAR world.
badger said:
January 26, 2014 at 2:48 pm
This goes a long way to explaining why NZ should not go any further with a FATCA IGA:
US Senate Finance Committee Submission–Richardson, Yates and KishPerhaps a submission could include it, preface it, and add any other comments that the submitter felt needed elaboration or was specific re NZ?
An example tweet:
#AskSnowden r u aware of #FATCA chasing all US persons via every bank in the Milky Way? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-EVF7CZt_w
News
Live Q&A with Edward Snowden: Thursday 23rd January, 8pm GMT, 3pm EST
Questions can be submitted on twitter on the day of the event using the #AskSnowden hashtag.
I’m moving this to the top.
PS: The other person referred to is Brocker ‘disgusted’. It was great to finally meet ‘disgusted’ and would love to meet more from Calgary and area. We talked to lots of FATCA interested people and passed out information at the end of the meeting. We both felt it was a worthwhile trip in the dark of the Alberta winter, although (with me driving) getting a little lost and a little late to the ‘meet and greet’.
From: carol tapanila
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2014 7:18 AM
To: Jeremy Broadhurst ; alex.lanthier@parl.gc.ca ; justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca
Subject: Re: REMINDER: Action required and Justin Trudeau ‘Meet and Greet’ in Okotoks last night
Thank you for your morning email soliciting my membership in the Liberal Party.
A so-called ‘US Person’ in Canada (born “accidentally” in a US hospital to Canadian parents – there for 5 days) and I drove from Calgary to Okotoks last night for the Justin Trudeau’s ‘meet and greet.’ From the back of the room I did ask Mr. Trudeau a very important question during his short Q&A,
“What will you and the Liberals do regarding FATCA when Parliament resumes and gets down to the business of running this country?”
He acknowledged the question and then said something like, “…for you in the audience who don’t know what FATCA is, it is about people who have made income in the United States…” then went into a comparison, talking about something else entirely. He left us with the impression that he doesn’t know what FATCA is or at the least is not well versed of the consequences of FATCA US extra-territorial law entering Canada. This US extra-territorial law coming into Canada will result in loss of dollars from Canada’s treasury and loss of its very sovereignty, entitling our country’s banks and credit unions (what the US refers to as “foreign financial institutions” for those persons in Canada who our Canadian financial institutions discover in search for ‘US Persons’ using US definitions of “indicia”). FATCA will be a cost to every Canadian taxpayer who also pays banking fees to cover the cost of implementing FATCA and has the ability to destroy the lives of those ‘US Persons’ in Canada who pay their taxes to the country in which they live and work and pay taxes and receive their services and benefits. We are Canadian.
I reached Mr. Trudeau as he greeted persons after his Q&A and asked:
“Will you answer if, with FATCA, ALL Canadians will have the same rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?”
There was an answer from Justin Trudeau, but not a straight and simple ‘Yes’ or ‘NO’.
Continue reading
I have been bounced from person to person this morning as I attempted to get a list of the attendees to the Calgary meeting with Minister of State (Finance) Sorenson this afternoon in Calgary at the Chamber of Commerce.
http://www.fin.gc.ca/notices-avis14/2014-01-15_1-eng.asp
My last was a call back from MP Joan Crockatt’s office (Calgary Centre). First of all I was asked my reason for wanting to have the list. I was told that FATCA would not be a subject up for discussion at the pre-consultation budget meeting.
I am a Canadian citizen who thinks FATCA should be part of the discussion for it will be a huge cost to Canada as a whole and for every Canadian taxpayer, not just those who will be deemed ‘US Persons in Canada’.
I am a Canadian citizen and for that reason expected a reasonable response.
It was suggested that I would better contact Michelle Rempel’s office (my MP) and ask to be a part of their pre-budget consultations. Also suggested was that I check Government of Canada, Finance online as there are opportunities to make submissions regarding the Budget from time to time. I was told that Canada is in arbitration with the US – and that is a good thing.
I am posting this so there is a record of my attempts at reasonably asking for a list of individuals attending a pre-budget meeting in my the city where I live — DENIED, told ‘the list’ is a “Closed List”.
I will also send yet another email on this to my Canadian Finance Minister Flaherty and to the opposition Finance critics.
This should be public information. Shame on Finance.
Does this make anyone else angry?
Off topic, this was on MP Joan Crockatt’s website and likely many of other MP websites.
I received links today from an Isaac Brock Society friend who says ‘Please feel free to post the links on Isaac Brock. I really don’t have the energy to start posting myself, so if it is OK I will send you anything I think might be useful (I get google alerts every day), and you can decide whether to post it or not.’
Yes, I absolutely will help out. I hope you too will find these contributions from Helen Burggraf to International Adviser, Tax & Regulation of interest and use.
IRS watchdog says agency’s offshore voluntary disclosure schemes too harsh
and:
CBC News: US FATCA Law Catches Unsuspecting Canadians in Its Crosshairs
Update January 16, 2014: Comments to this CBC News article are now closed.
I have sent a thank you to CBC reporters who interviewed me.
From: caroltapanila
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2014 9:03 AM
To: Amber Hildebrandt, CBC ; James Fitz-Morris
Cc: Prime Minister Stephen Harper ; Kevin.Shoom@fin.gc.ca ; Michelle.Rempel@parl.gc.ca ; Kevin.Shoom@fin.gc.ca
Subject: Another thank you for the awareness you’ve provided the Canadian public…
Amber and James,
I see that comments are closed for the CBC News article with so many comments. I thank the commenters who supported me and the persons who tried to answer questions and educate on what is happening with US FATCA law coming across our border. I hope that many now realize it is the US’s citizenship-based taxation that makes it possible for the US to leech funds from US Persons in Canada, their Canadian government and each Canadian taxpayer.
More and more will be underlined the absurdity and the unfairness of all of this but that will not be resolution. Some (like my for my son and others whose “foreign” identification will not show a US place of birth, MAY HE FORGIVE ME FOR HAVING SOLD HIM OUT, although his “foreign financial accounts” are identified in the Foreign Bank Account Reports that I’ve “complied with” and sent to the US). It will be that some can be more easily nabbed and put through the wringer of the injustice of FATCA combined with US citizenship-taxation than others. None of this will be equitable and none of it should be as US Person “ignorance” allows criminalization by the US.
With the coverage you have interviewed us for and CBC has provided, I hope that more in Canada have learned of the powerful club the US has with its citizenship-based taxation – and, in my family’s case, that a smaller segment ARE ENTRAPPED, no two ways about that. The US could do something about this. It appears they will not. I’m not holding my breath. And, I am in despair that the other governments of the world can not show some strength and solidarity in saying NO to FATCA that reaps so much collateral damage for their own people.
As has been said by others, and I agree, in regard to the “streamlined compliance”:
But why the hell SHOULD anyone have to? And if they don’t for whatever reason – whether they don’t qualify, or they don’t hear about until its too late, or they don’t want to – then all bets are off, and IRS can penalize them to their hearts content. Finance Minister Flaherty has expressed approval (given blessing to?) the Streamlined program.; this presumes that Canadians with a US status SHOULD make all efforts to become compliant with USA’s immoral citizenship based taxation laws.
I will support all US Persons in whatever choices they have to make for themselves and their families. Yes, we all have to make our own choices. We still hold out some hope that our Canadian government will say no to FATCA. We still want to know from our government if ALL Canadians have the same rights, no matter where they were born, their discrimination by “nationality”.
Even the thought of the US being able to tax gains in our very Canadian personal residence sales that Canada does not makes me want to scream.
So, again, I want to thank Gwen for helping get the CBC coverage better rolling and you two for so respectfully interviewing me. Because of you, there are others in Canada now aware and starting their own research so they can eventually make decisions for themselves and their own families. US Persons in Canada and around the world are so scattered. It is unfortunate that we are not one big US Person group that could go out in solidarity to express the outrage we feel about yet more US collateral damage, this time us!
We have all have a hurt of this betrayal that in no way will ever be erased. It is helping me to have spoken out.
Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity.
Carol Tapanila
PS: I would love the opportunity to reach the person who commented about her, in this instance profoundly disabled son, who will be affected. Above all, I am glad that I reached her in this story but I am unable to tell her that – unless she was able to sift through the many comments to see my tardy reply to her. Continue reading
Shadow Raider (and others like NotThatTara, badger, bubblebustin, Em, NotThatLisa) have referenced the US National Taxpayer Advocate Report to Congress, so here is my slow uptake to posting for IBS. IRSCompliant has posted at Maple Sandbox: Maple Sandbox re US Taxpayer Advocate Report to US Congress — with reference to NDP Murray Rankin Letter to Finance Minister James Flaherty
From Shadow Raider:
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson released her 2013 Report to Congress yesterday. As always, she included sections on international taxpayers and OVDP, and this time also one on FATCA.
As a bonus, Schubert posted there re US Chamber of Commerce, January 9, 2014: The Next Obamacare? FATCA Roll Out Flounders: US Chamber of Commerce Joins TAS in Dumping on FATCA
I quote from Schubert:
Unless our Finance Minister has taken leave of his senses, which I think extremely unlikely, I no longer think we’ll see a Canada-US IGA any time soon, if ever. With heavy-hitters like these in the US saying “wait a minute, what the hell are you doing and why?” why should Canada or any other country leap into an IGA with the US to sign onto something that seems to look like might actually get derailed or gutted PDQ.
Remember that previous US ambassador to Canada who, back in the Fall of 2011, advised everyone to “sit tight?” That’s starting to look like supremely good advice for many so-called US persons, especially “accidental” (I prefer “inadvertent” or “unwilling”) so-called Americans living in Canada (the parallels to Ted Cruz aka “border babies”). Let’s just wait and see how this train wreck is going to unfold now.
If I were one of that handful of countries that leapt into bed with the IRS via an IGA, or an FFI that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on compliance mechanisms, I think I’d start to feel a bit foolish (and very hard-done-by) right about now. And if I were a compliance maven with visions of fat fees from terrified offshore alleged Americans dancing in his/her head, I think I’d see those visions turning to mush.
We don’t want to count our chickens before they’re hatched, but maybe it’s time to take a deep breath, ignore the Chicken Littles in the compliance industry, “sit tight” and watch with fascination what seems more and more like a FATCA train wreck.
Nice news for a wintery Friday, anyway. Happy New Year, everyone.
May it be a happier New Year as we see more awareness of the disaster that FATCA will be, combined with US citizenship-based taxation. Let’s hope for change of the false equation being used to apprehend real tax evaders on the backs of all those who will be collateral damage, ruining so many non-aware families and individuals, leeching money from other sovereign country economies and not at all conducive to paying down US debt or enhancing how the US is seen by the rest of the world.
garbo999 suggests this as a separate post. Good idea!!
Sorry for this thread hijack but I have a comment about a Bloomberg article from yesterday. Perhaps this might be worth a separate thread? Accidental Tax Break Saves Wealthiest Americans $100 Billion
The article describes how Congress created a complex law targeting a certain class of the population to make them pay more tax. However, the rich folks who were targeted simply hired expensive lawyers to get around the law. Realizing that the same rich folks take frequent advantage of their 1st Amendment-mandated right to bribe Congress as they see fit, Congress refuses to modify the law.
garbo999 asks:
Anyone see the same future for FATCA? The rich tax dodgers will find myriad ways to escape FATCA while of course all the massive negative effects of FATCA for the little guy will remain in place (not to mention the billions that non-US financial institutions must spend to implement this lunacy as well as the loss of respect that goes with shoving a law down the throat of every other country in the world with an obviously false promise of reciprocity).
A related link at bloomberg: Wealthy N.Y. Residents Escape Tax With Trusts in Nevada
