http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jesse-eggert/40/b93/133
I don’t have any more details about Mr. Eggert but he appears to have left the employ of Treasury/IRS and is now living in Paris working the OECD.
For this not familiar with Mr. Eggert here is a video of him sparing with friend of the site James Jatras at George Mason University:
http://www.troymedia.com/2014/01/04/tax-predictions-for-2014/
2. Canada will execute an intergovernmental agreement with the U.S. to administer the U.S.’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”)
He said he believes pressure needs to come from the U.S. to get the Canadian government to respond.
“This has to be fixed at a very high level,” Fontaine said. “Right now, companies are effectively forced to deal with the bureaucrats to get treaty benefits to effectively apply. It slows everything to a crawl.”
Sinclair said her “best guess” as to why the CRA seems to have changed its waiver approval process is that it is considering a new test to determine whether employees are exempt under the treaty.
The CRA’s Brideau told Bloomberg BNA on Nov. 27 that the agency “is not currently working on developing such a test.”
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20131211/lead/lead71.html
The Canadian government surely is not going to sit by and see its neighbour collect billions from its citizens living abroad and do nothing. So while Canada doesn’t have its own FATCA yet, it does have a FATCA-like system that went into high gear earlier this year after the budget was read.
The country is trying to collect money from the many Canadians living abroad and Canadian residents.
In the 2013 budget, the Canadian government instituted a new requirement for certain financial intermediaries to report to the Canadian Revenue Agency – the Canadian equivalent of the American IRS – all electronic funds transfers of $10,000 or more, and instituted a new whistle-blowing programme to stop international tax evasion.
As part of the new initiative, Canada has foreign-income verification reporting for 2013. If a Canadian who is resident in Canada owns the cumulative property, in excess of $100,000, at any time during the year, they must declare it. Failure to do so will result in a fine of $25 per day.
The properties that the Canadian government is interested in are: bank accounts, shares in foreign corporations, shares of Canadian corporation on deposits with foreign brokers, debts owed by non-residents, interest in partnership that hold specified foreign property, interest in foreign mutual fund, foreign lands and building and tangible and intangible properties located outside Canada.
FATCA is one of the most far-reaching tax laws that was ever envisioned by any government. Its effects are deadly and will surely reduce tax evasions, by not just Americans, but citizens of other nations, as we can see many countries, such as the UK and Canada, are adopting some FATCA-like model to improve their budgets, from money that may be offshore.
While some people in the United States Congress believe FATCA should be repealed, that is unlikely to happen, given the amount of money that the IRS has collected since FATCA became law in 2010.
http://www.fin.gc.ca/n13/13-159-eng.asp
Items unavailable to “US Persons” who are disabled are bolded.
The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, and the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism, today marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
“From introducing the Registered Disability Savings Plan in 2007 to the initiatives in this year’s budget supporting job opportunities, our Government continues to support Canadians with disabilities and their families,” said Minister Flaherty. “We recognize that Canadians with disabilities play an important role in our society, and through Canada’s Economic Action Plan, we are committed to helping them achieve a better quality of life.”
“Our Government is hard at work to ensure our country benefits from the talents of Canadians with disabilities. Today, and throughout the year, we will continue to help Canadians with disabilities be active participants in the economy and their communities,” added Minister Kenney.
Since 2006, the Government of Canada has introduced a number of measures to address the needs of people with disabilities, including:
- Providing $1 billion for renovations and energy retrofits of social housing, including renovations that support people with disabilities.
- Investing $400 million over two years for the construction of new social housing for seniors, including seniors with disabilities.
- Investing an additional $75 million over two years for the construction of new social housing units for people with disabilities.
- Investing $20 million for each of two years to improve the accessibility of federally owned buildings.
- Introducing the Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB), which includes a supplement for persons with disabilities, and doubling the tax relief provided by the WITB.
- Increasing the Home Buyers’ Plan withdrawal limit and introducing the First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit, which contain special provisions for persons with disabilities.
- Increasing access to post-secondary education for students with permanent disabilities, including a new Repayment Assistance Plan for Borrowers with a Permanent Disability.
http://www.knax.co/2013/11/fatca.html?spref=tw
Taxation Bill introduced today includes rules allowing people to comply with foreign account information-sharing agreements.
The United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) legislation is due to take effect on 1 July 2014. Under FATCA, financial institutions, regardless of their location, will be required to report on certain United States account holders directly to the United States’ Internal Revenue Service, or face a withholding tax on United States sourced income of 30%.
It is proposed that New Zealand enter into an “intergovernmental agreement” (IGA) with the United States, to significantly reduce the compliance costs of FATCA for New Zealand financial institutions. Negotiations for such an agreement are currently underway.
The provisions in the Bill will enable financial institutions to comply with the IGA, and any future similar agreements.
Excerpt:
There was one side of Freeland, in particular, that McQuaig kept poking: Her supposed un-Canadianness. “Toronto is my home, I’ve lived and worked here all my life,” McQuaig noted in her opening remarks. It was a clear side swipe at Freeland, who’s been abroad for years in Russia, the U.K. and the U.S., and settled down in Toronto Centre only recently. Later on came McQuaig’s straight-out jab: “You’ve been there in Manhattan, hanging out with the rich,” McQuaig told Freeland, speaking, for those in the know, about her competitor’s former gig in New York and her recent book on the ultra-rich.
I suspect Freeland chose not to respond in kind. Because if she’d wanted to, there was an obvious line of attack. For all her fondness of being a true Canadian and disdain for hanging out in Manhattan, McQuaig has publicly praised a controversial U.S. law that might end up encroaching on the constitutional rights of a good many Canadians, including, possibly, Freeland and her family.
All I have to say is welcome home. Our previous disagreements with Ms. Beale go way back to the earliest days of Isaac Brock Society back when it was just myself, JustMe, Petros, and a few others(I think Joe Smith was one too).
http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/2013/11/fatca-agreement-with-france.html
In the second post you can see Ms. Beale is quite dismissive of the recent spike in expatriations not surprisingly of course to those who remember old times at IBS.
From Michael Kirsch who has written in defense of citizenship based taxation before.
ADDITION by Calgary411: I’m taking he liberty of adding to Tim’s post (for use in forwarding to government representatives, media, etc.) the COMBINED Q-121 and Q-127 in PDF format in more a more readable form (questions asked in the Canadian Parliament on October 25, 2013 by MP Ted Hsu and October 28, 2013 by MP Scott Brison, respectively). Canadian Parliament FATCA Questions 121 and 127 – Oct 25,28 2013
Q127
