A new Barrie McKenna piece is up at the G&M website.
Key Quotes:
Conspicuously absent from the statement was Canada.
Author Archives: Tim
New FATCA comments from Flaherty
A Treasury official said in a conference call with reporters that more countries may join the “FATCA partners” list.
“We’ve had numerous conversations with other governments beyond the five that are cited,” the official said.
Asked about Canada’s exclusion from the list of five countries, a senior government official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that the United States “was open to exploring a similar arrangement with Canada.”
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the ministry had raised “serious concerns” about FATCA with the United States.
“Today’s announcement appears to demonstrate an interest in greater joint government collaboration to address such concerns. We will continue to work with our American counterparts towards an approach acceptable to both our countries,” he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-usa-tax-treasury-fatca-idUSTRE8171G620120208
BREAKING NEWS: UK Government Statement on FATCA
Everyone can read into this how they want but I wanted to put it up. They seem to be indicating further negotiations will need to be undertaken. No mention of dual nationals but they do mention all of the countries involved have a “residency” based tax system.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/joint_intl_statement_fatca.htm
For those of you in Brazil interesting letter related to FATCA
Interesting letter from the Brazilian Bankers Association. If you read through it many legal conflicts not just with Brazilian law but Brazil’s Constitution. In many ways a tougher position being taken than by anyone in the Canadian financial industry.
Cover Story in Canadian Lawyer Magazine
http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/4031/the-offshore-banking-nightmare.html
While I don’t believe the situation described by this article is at all relevant to the situation facing people here I just wanted to show at least from a Canadian standpoint where there are some people who might not necessarily be as sympathetic to our plight over here at IBS as we would hope. Given there is an ability on their website to make comments I suggest people to do so generously about the situation Expats/Accidental Americans/Dual Citizens are facing and that Canadian Lawyer magazine should be covering their plight AS MUCH as those whom they describe in the article of being victomized by these offshore investment scams.
ET, the new alien scaring global markets (ExtraTerritoriality)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/financial-regulation-et-idUSL2E8D68E220120206
I thought the headline in the Reuters article I linked to below was good for a blog post heading. A couple of quotes:
The United States is coming to be seen as a global threat, acting unilaterally with aggressive new market rules that critics say will hurt U.S. firms, foreign banks, and international markets in one swoop.
The new buzzword in the financial world is “extraterritoriality”, or ET. The idea that a government can exercise its authority beyond its borders.
DFAIT Info Section on Dual Nationality
I thought it would interesting to post a link to DFAIT (Canada’s ministry of Foreign Affairs) info section on dual nationality.
http://www.voyage.gc.ca/publications/dual-citizenship_double-citoyennete-eng
Some interesting points they make:
You are a dual citizen if you are recognized by more than one country as a citizen. In some cases, you may not be aware that you are a citizen of another country. Dual, or multiple, citizenship may occur by choice or default and result from:
Access to Basic Banking Services (Canada)
Getting over my initial trepidation of making my first post here I want to bring up the subject of the Access to Basic Banking Services regulations and what specifically are Canadians rights in this regard. First the rules are implemented by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada which is part of the Department of Finance but has its own independent commissioner a woman named Ursula Menke. The Financial Consumer Agency was created in back in 2001 and mainly handles consumer protection issues related to the federally Chartered Banks and to a limited degree those of federally incorporated insurance companies and federally incorporate trust companies (Note in the US Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is effictively based on the FCA as on its models). Its jurisdiction DOES NOT apply to the provincially regulated stock brokerages owned by the all major chartered banks(Canada unlike every other country in the world does not have federal securiites regulator like the US SEC, UK FSA, Australia ASIC etc.)
Back to the subject of Basic Banking regulations here in my mind are some important quotes from the FCA website:
