Author Archives: schubert1975

Copious thanks to Jim Jatras for calling the following to our attention.

The government of Russia, and more specifically the Foreign Minister (and not, please note, their Finance Minister), has weighed into the FATCA discussion with this very forthright statement that any agreement between the US and Russia on FATCA must be fully reciprocal and must respect Russian sovereignty and must not impose foreign extraterritorial legislation on the actions of Russian institutions.

Here is the article from Russia Beyond the Headlines:

Moscow wants tax information exchanges with U.S. to be mutual, balanced

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In case you haven’t heard, the Conservative Party is holding a convention in Calgary, starting Thursday October 31 (how appropriate!) and running through the weekend.

Some of us are trying to figure a way of getting some FATCA coverage amongst the Conservative delegates to the convention in Calgary next weekend. Musing about circulating the FATCA flyer and maybe also a copy of Hsu’s Q-121 question to delegates as they arrive, but we’ve learned that (surprise surprise) the convention centre is private property and leafletting isn’t allowed on private property, there’s only one area of public ground near the convention where the police will allow this, and not many delegates are likely to wander by that spot. Sort of sounds like G-20 in Toronto, doesn’t it?

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I am delighted to report that Jim Jatras has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all US documentation of negotiations between the governments of Canada, Switzerland and the UK and the US for a FATCA IGA.

We can’t get information like this in Canada from an Access to Information request, because more than 30 years ago Parliament, in the enabling legislation, excluded from access all intergovernmental correspondence and related files. Not necessarily so in the US, it seems. And if we can get our hands on this information, no matter how long it takes, we can and will distribute this to the opposition parties and our media.

So, Jim Flaherty and the CBA, if you’re watching — if you aren’t playing fair ball and protecting Canada’s sovereignty, banking and privacy laws and the Charter rights of ALL Canadian citizens and legal residents, we will find out. And if you weren’t playing fair, you will pay the price and it will be your legacy.

Think about that very carefully. Be careful what you wish for and what you sign.

You’ve been warned.

Thank you Jim Jatras!  We owe you, at least a great Canadian brew, if you’re ever in town!

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The October 12 print edition of the prestigious international and widely-read weekly UK journal, The Economist, has this article about FATCA, also on this web link

The Economist: Expats and tax — Loopy Tax Rules Spur Expats to Renounce their American Citizenship: Overtaxed and over there

Good and balanced article. So much for the Treasury’s Stack of Lies. It will be impossible for the US to ignore this one.

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving, everyone! (Not you, Stack and Obama …)

Hi Linda.

In case you haven’t heard, your Leader, Tom Mulcair, has just issued a letter to a lot of us concerning the NDP’s position on FATCA, in tandem with a letter to Jim Flaherty by Murray Rankin, your party’s Revenue Critic. See link here http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/10/04/ndp/

Hmm … how does this match your published statements on FATCA?

My colleagues and I at Isaac Brock Society and Maple Sandbox cordially invite you to dinner, with the set menu depicted in the following photograph.

Sorry it’s not exactly haute cousine; we couldn’t find a better recipe on short notice. I think this one suits you to a “T.”

You are welcome to bring your spiritual buddy, Diane “merger” Francis, along with you.

Enjoy the crow. Bon appétit!

Cheers.

Your Canadian neighbours at Isaac Brock Society and Maple Sandbox

Lynne has a superb and very timely article on Financial Post website today.

Dual Canadian-American citizens: We are not tax cheats

Check it out, and please contribute to the comments. You may recognize the sources of a couple of them.

Like most other Canadians, I was outraged to learn that the Royal Bank of Canada has been laying off IT workers and replacing them with temporary foreign workers, with the intention of outsourcing their IT functions overseas. I was ever more outraged to learn in today’s news that RBC is not unique among Canadian chartered banks in doing this; several other members of the Canadian Bankers Association also stand accused in the media of the same practice, by some laid-off and even current IT workers from several banks other than RBC (specifically, CIBC, TD, Scotiabank and BMO).

See: Outsourcing bank jobs is common practice, say employees:  CIBC, TD, Scotiabank and BMO replaced Canadians with temporary foreign workers, claim hundreds of emails

Am I the only person who is wondering whether there is a connection between the outsourcing of the banks’ IT functions to less-expensive overseas contract workers, and the indications we hear of the banks’ preparations to comply with FATCA (which will entail some extensive and expensive IT systems work in these banks)?  Outsourcing all that IT work could help reduce the costs to the banks of rolling over and complying with IRS invasion of our citizens’ financial accounts.

Is it the case that not only are the banks preparing to throw Section 15 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms under the bus, as well as the account information on thousands upon thousands of Canadian citizens’ financial information to the tax agency of a foreign country, but they also are laying off highly-educated and highly-trained Canadian IT workers to boot in order to achieve this, even requiring those workers to train their under- or un-trained replacements in Canada before those workers go back to where they came from (and where Canadian privacy, banking and Charter rights don’t apply as those workers will be on foreign soil)?

And what will the outsourcing of IT functions overseas do to what remains of privacy, secrecy and security of Canadians’ financial information – of ALL Canadians, not only those of US origin?

I am writing today to my MP to ask these questions.  I urge you all to do likewise.  I would like some clear and believable answers.  (No, I am not writing to CBA. I want an answer I can believe, and I think that Question Period in the House of Commons, followed as appropriate by a federal government investigation to get answers, is the only way that’s going to happen.  CBA is not going to have any credibility with me on this one.  I believe what fellow Canadian workers are telling CBC, not the insipid denial by that RBC official.)

Over past months, some of us have wondered how to get our fellow (non-US-origin) Canadians interested and upset about FATCA.  If my suspicions about the answers to the above questions are correct, I think this could be a real doozy of a way to raise public awareness and concern about FATCA, US violation of our sovereignty, and possible complicity in same by our financial institutions.

Further to the suggestion Blaze posted on another thread, I sent an early-Canada-Day email to the PM, my MP, Thomas Mulcair, and Ministers Flaherty, Baird, and Kenney. I won’t reproduce my own text here, because I don’t want the wording to become a template and lose effectiveness. I sent it a bit early, partly to match the Bicentennial of the declaration of war in 1812 (on June 18) and also because I won’t be able to send it on July 1. I thought maybe I’d start a new thread on this, for people to post any replies or experiences on this subject. It would get lost on the other thread.

I’ve had two replies so far. Email from the PMO thanking me for expressing my concern and telling me they’re forwarding it to Flaherty’s office (I sent the emails separately so no one knows the same email went separately to each of them).

My MP’s office sent the following short reply, for what it’s worth:

Thank you for your e-mail of June 17 sharing your thoughts on Canada Day, the War of 1812 and FATCA. Please be assured that Mr. Dewar and his colleagues continuing to work on this issue.

Not sure how much attention or traction these emails will get during the summer recess, but worth a shot anyway. The interesting one will be the reply from Flaherty, which will likely be drafted by or in consultation with Ministry of Finance officials who aren’t in recess. The reply may just be another variation on the theme of the standard letter (that CARP got recently) or maybe there will be something more. At minimum, we’ll either get confirmation that nothing is settled yet, or that something is and what it is. Will let you know what I get from Flaherty. No confidence that I’ll hear squat from Baird or Kenney, but I remain open to pleasant surprises.