Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

Corruption American Style:

Bill Clinton scored paid speeches while Hillary made official State Dept. visits

Kent Cooper, a former federal election regulator and respected political ethics analyst, said the blurred lines between State and the foundation in the Clinton world validated the axiom that “there are many pockets in a politician’s coat to line.”

“There are the official pockets, the political pockets, in this case the foundation’s pockets and then their own private pocketbooks, and you can see how special interests subtly work all of them with invitations, pressure and money to try to get what they want,” he said.

“There seem to have been no ethical boundaries or double checks on conflicts of interest between the activities of the secretary of state as a government official, the fundraising of a private foundation, the fees of a private consultant, and the personal income of a former government official, that being the former president.”

It is axiomatic that if government is run by criminals then law enforcement hunts down innocent people to make it look like they are doing something. Government officials cannot go after real criminals or they would have to put themselves in jail first.

I’ve noticed that some of the people on Facebook really like Bernie Sanders. But let’s make one thing clear: this senator is a demagogue:

“a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary., Eleventh ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).

I have myself given up US citizenship. I know lots of people personally who have given up US citizenship. I do not know a single billionaire. I am not a billionaire. I did not leave the United States to avoid paying taxes. For crying out loud, I live in Canada where taxes are much higher than they are in the United States. This man has vilified me and others like me who have become targets of the Obama administration of exorbitant fines, destroying our rights of due process and presumption of innocence.

LM has posed the following query to readers. It is another true life scenario in which the Canadian government and Canadian banks have put certain Canadian citizens at risk by promising to expose them to the US Federal government.

OK Brocker folks, I have a situation and need support /answers / information.

I invest with a Canadian FFI (for example, RBC-Dominion) and just got a W-8BEN from them that “has to be” filled out and signed; otherwise, they will no longer allow me to trade/invest with them. I spoke with my investment counselors associate (who knows my situation totally and has discussed much about FATCA with me) and told her I found it outrageous that I should be required to sign a US IRS form to say to my Cdn investment firm that I am not a US citizen. They (the FFI) got this exact same information from me back in 2013 via a “Substitute W-8BEN” when I transferred all my accounts there and I would be happy to sign an additional “Substitute W-8BEN” from them now. I’d even be willing to provide a copy of my CLN.
My recollection is that the IGA includes wording that allows Canadian FFIs to use their own equivalent of a W-8BEN (in this case, the “Substitute W-8BEN” with a page heading of XYZ Wealth Mgmt, ABCD Securities”) rather than the actual US form (which has, at the top “Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service”, so that any signature is “under penalty of perjury” to the US).

I don’t intend to perjure myself or in any way lie, but is it required, under Cdn law now, that I must sign a US legal document to prove that I am not a US citizen to my Canadian financial institution? I would hate to lose my investment advisor of many years but this has really angered me and I’m sure I am not the only one who will be getting this document to sign now that the FFIs are beginning to look more thoroughly at “established” accounts.

Any advice / information / links to the part of the IGA stating that FFIs are not required to use the US form / etc would be very greatly appreciated.

NOTE: From Mark Twain’s earlier comment at Brock, re who to contact:

If you are interested in letting Nightline chronicle the days leading up to your renunciation, please contact Geoff Martz at geoff.martz@abc.com or private message Keith to discuss further.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmericanExpatriates/523975671101843/?notif_t=group_activity

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Also passed on to me by email, another notice from Keith Redmond:

FYI from Republicans Overseas: “Ben Carson will host a conference call with Republicans Overseas country chapter leaders worldwide to announce his support for our FATCA lawsuit and FATCA repeal on Oct 30.”

If you are a Canadian citizen, you have the opportunity, and IMO the responsibility, to vote in the October 19 Canadian federal election. Certainly if you reside in Canada, and (with some restrictions I won’t go into here) even if you don’t.

This is Canadians’ opportunity to pass judgment on whether the government of Stephen Harper has stood up for Canada, for Canadian values, for Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and for Canadian citizens. And to decide whether maybe some other party should be given the chance to govern our country, for the better (we all hope).

My personal advice is to vote for anyone other than the Conservative in your riding, either the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate, or if you can’t figure out who that might be, perhaps the party leading in the national polls as of today (the Liberals) and hence with the most credible chance of getting more seats than the Conservatives and hence forming our next government. Or, if you have an incumbent MP who isn’t a Conservative and whom you respect and like, vote for that incumbent.

If you can’t bring yourself to vote for anyone other than a Conservative, but are appalled at Stephen Harper’s idea of governance of Canada, take former Progressive Conservative Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador Danny Williams’ advice, and just stay at home and don’t vote this time around. Ignore that absurd recommendation by the Globe and Mail, which said the Conservatives deserve another mandate but Harper doesn’t. In our parliamentary system you can’t make that distinction, it makes no sense. Harper is the Conservative leader, if the Conservatives really wanted to they could have deposed him but didn’t, and trying to say the Conservatives aren’t to blame for Harper’s style of governance is utterly ridiculous. They’re all joined at the hip.

But VOTE. If you’re eligible to vote in this election and don’t, IMO you’ve lost any right to complain about the outcome.

cross-posted from: Repeal Fatca.com

Source RepealFatca.com | filed in News | Author James George Jatras

Ten days shy of two years after I was told via letter that Treasury would give “expedited treatment” to my FOIA request for records related to FATCA “Intergovernmental Agreements” (IGAs), they finally have begun to be delivered. This follows persistent and determined intervention with the Department by Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL8), a respected member of the House Financial Services Committee who has been the leading voice on the Hill questioning the IGAs’ legal authority.

As indicated in the cover letter from Ryan Law, Treasury’s Director of FOIA and Transparency, additional documents may be provided following State Department review.

The initial tranche of documents can be downloaded in PDF format here. Note that I have not reviewed or modified these documents. This is a “raw dump,” and I rely on readers to review them and notify me at repealfatca@gmail.com and the interested public of anything of significance.

Mr. Law’s letter to me dated October 9, 2015, which I received via email on October 14, can be downloaded in PDF format here.

Jim Jatras
Editor, RepealFATCA.com

Does this sound familiar?

From the 15 October Globe and Mail.

Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour is former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, former international war-crimes prosecutor, former UN human rights commissioner.

“When he retires from his post, the Governor-General of Canada will have his bank accounts subjected to heightened scrutiny. So will his parents, his spouse and his children, for the next 20 years. So, too, will the Chief Justice of Canada, all Supreme Court and appellate court judges, ambassadors, counsellors, deputy ministers, generals, past and present, and all their family members. They should expect calls from their bankers asking questions about the sources of deposits and other transactions. And if one of their children happens to have a joint account with a third party, all that would have to be explained to the bankers who are required by law to exercise such vigilance.

“Why is this happening? Because all of these people have been designated as “politically exposed domestic persons” (PEDP) under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. Why should they be subjected to this intrusive procedure for 20 years after they leave office? No idea. And why should their children also be under this regime for 20 years? Equally puzzling.

“In fact, I can think of an answer. It’s because all this was put in place with no one having any idea it was happening. This is hardly surprising given that it was buried in the massive omnibus budget bill of 2014 known as Bill C-31. Equally troubling, most people wouldn’t care anyway…”

Full article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/caught-in-a-useless-bureaucratic-nightmare/article26813887/

“We are here; we are not going away; as Canadians we expect the protection of the Canadian government.” This is what the new government in Ottawa needs to hear from us in less than a week’s time. If (God help us) we still have the old prime minister, he needs to hear from us … again.

Let’s muster together our letter-writing forces and fill the incoming prime minister’s inbox on his first day in office. Our issue needs to be front and centre in his mind, not on the back-burner. We have languished there long enough.

The new prime minister needs to be reminded that under the terms of the FATCA IGA (p. 18) signed by the Canadian and US governments the Agreement is to undergo further consultation between the parties before the end of 2016. He needs to know that we expect him to request certain changes to the Agreement to bring it into line with what the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms demands. Reference to birthplace as an acceptable indicium of US citizenship needs to be removed as well as reference to the reporting of account balances. Only an account’s earnings are relevant to income taxation and therefore it is only earnings that should be reported. These are but a couple of examples from the long list of grievances that we hold against the FATCA IGA.

It would have been easier if these things had been hammered out during the negotiations with the United States before the IGA was signed in the first place but this would have required the exercise of statesmanship of an order sorely lacking in the Conservative government. Instead of achieving a workable compromise we got complete and total acquiescence. We need to respectfully call on the new prime minister to now be that expert statesman who is needed to reverse the damage done by such a wholesale capitulation to unreasonable foreign demands.

Let’s make each and every one of our voices heard once again before our new PM is barely seated at his desk.

Someone sent me this letter and asked me to post it. It is a timely reminder that the current government is not doing all that it can do to avoid the extraordinary rendition of the financial information of Canadian citizens to the IRS.

2015-09-21 Letter – Cullen to CRA-Fin re FATCA