Author Archives: Stephen Kish

[SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 UPDATE: “The Hill” today picked up on the upcoming House Oversight Committee hearings on FATCA. Obviously the fight will be challenging and there are lots of reasons to complain and be skeptical about an attempt by some U.S. Congresspeople to kill FATCA — note the tax compliance pundit in the Hill article who justifies FATCA because Treasury has spent a lot of money on it — but the FATCA hearing will happen despite the naysayers.]

Recently, Representative Mark Meadows introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress (complementary to a similar bill in the U.S. Senate) to repeal FATCA.

Witnesses are now being sought who have been significantly harmed by FATCA and are willing to testify at the Congressional hearing on FATCA in Washington D.C. Details on timings, length of testimony etc. are to be worked out. If you are interested in testifying please send Keith Redmond an email at: FATCA_Testimonials@outlook.com

Although a focus is FATCA, if you have been significantly harmed by U.S.-imposed citizenship-based taxation, which is enforced by FATCA, please also consider testifying at the hearing.

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Some of you know that the Israeli Supreme Court recently issued a temporary injunction preventing implementation of the U.S. FATCA law in Israel. See for example Forbes article.

On September 12, 2016 the Israeli Supreme Court, however, quashed the injunction.

Marc Zell, a counsel to the two petitioners (Republicans Overseas and Rina Schreiber) confirmed to me today (September 14) that they have no intention of giving up the FATCA litigation fight in Israel — which will continue. He also reminded me that the lawsuit is in fact still pending as the Israeli Supreme Court has not issued an opinion.

Two surprising statements made by the Justices deserve mention:

1) “Privacy in modern life is very limited,” said Justice Menahem Mazuz, one of three judges who ruled on the matter. “This is nothing new, the only change is that the regulations have now been codified into law.” [“The court ruled that the Israeli law, passed as part of an arrangement with the United States Treasury Department, did not violate Israel’s Basic Laws of Human Dignity and Liberty.”]

[Compare the above statement on privacy with a similar argument made by U.S. Treasury Department et al. against the plaintiffs of the U.S. FATCA lawsuit: “…there is no legitimate expectation of privacy concerning information kept in bank records, and the Sixth Circuit has repeatedly reaffirmed as much…”]

2) Justice Hanan Meltzer in part justified the law by noting its acceptance by the United States, saying this created a presumption of constitutionality.

“As long as the US law is in force, there is a presumption of constitutionality in regards to its purposes.” Above from: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/217717

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Our Plaintiffs believe that the sacrifice of Canada’s sovereignty to a foreign state is wrong. Canadians can support Plaintiffs Ginny, Gwen, and Kazia by being a Witness in our FATCA IGA lawsuit. — If interested contact me at Stephen.Kish.Chair@adcs-adsc.ca

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WITNESS SEARCH UPDATE FOR CANADIAN FATCA IGA LAWSUIT:

WE STILL SEEK MORE CANADIAN WITNESSES:

Have you experienced marital stress or breakup, or medical or psychiatric illness because Canada turned you and your family over to a foreign country — or because you were afraid and entered into IRS compliance and suffered harm, or because you are in “hiding” and can’t afford to be IRS compliant or to renounce? Be a witness.

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You (Canadian and International donor-supporters, witness volunteers and plaintiffs, Isaac Brock Society and Maple Sandbox who let me post on their websites) are all major investors in our Canadian FATCA IGA legislation lawsuit. The pace must seem very slow to you, but we do move forward. Here is a brief update:

This link provides the letter (a “status report“) our Vancouver litigator Joe Arvay sent to the Case Management Judge responsible for the “supervision” of our litigation in Canada’s Federal Court.

Below I also mention briefly what the upcoming Constitutional-Charter trial is about — our “Claims”, and what Government thinks of our Claims.

— The key points in our June 3 2016 status report:

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