Are you a Canada-U.S. dual citizen? @cbcallinaday is following a new law that affects you: http://t.co/Gt1lfV3LuC

— Susan Burgess (@susanmburgess) August 15, 2014

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Friday August 15, 2014

The facts on FATCA
As of Canada Day, Canadian banks are required to start getting into compliance with a U.S. law called FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It requires them to hand over the account information of clients with ties to the U.S., such as people with Canada-U.S. dual citizenship. That information goes to the Canada Revenue Agency, for release to U.S. tax authorities.

It’s a lot to absorb for dual citizens, so we’ve done several interviews this summer on the legislation and the arguments for and against it. And in case you missed any of them, you can get caught up by listening to a FATCA primer by a tax law expert, an interview with an Ottawa dual citizen who’s affected, a defence of the U.S. model of citizenship-based taxation, and our latest: the legal case against Canada’s acceptance of FATCA.

Are you affected by FATCA? Get in touch with us and tell us your story. We’ll continue to follow the issue in the months to come.
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The above paragraph links to Alan Neal’s radio interviews with Allison Christians, our own White Kat as well as Prof. Michael Kirsch and one of our lawyers, David Gruber.

The site is inviting comments on this story here. . No comments have been posted yet – time for Brocker SWAT! (See below — send to email allinaday@cbc.ca — not in Comments to the CBC article.)

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Important NOTE (inserted here by Calgary411) re contacting CBC — not by comment at the story but by email:

I put my comments in comments at the CBC page and they are still in moderation (all day long). I finally figured out that really where they tell us to communicate our stories is to them by email to allinaday@cbc.ca, per:

Are you affected by FATCA? Get in touch with us* and tell us your story. We’ll continue to follow the issue in the months to come.

i.e., links to email address, allinaday@cbc.ca

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY.

Here is a list of international Certifying Acceptance Agents for the IRS.  In particular the IRS site mentions some of the big FATCA compliance firms:

National / International CPA Firms *

Deloitte and Touche, LLP
Ernst & Young LLP
KPMG LLP
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
BDO

For a list of Canadian IRS agents, see this list.

Comment: The IRS agents in our midst are operating an illegitimate business

No free country in the world actually allows the agents of the revenue service of a foreign country operate within its borders. To do so would be to admit the loss of sovereignty. But certifying agents of the IRS are doing work for the IRS.

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Here is a correspondance between “the knower” and me in the comment section of the Financial Post article, Canadian government faces constitutional challenge over FATCA deal. Perhaps “the knower” just needs to hear more about what’s really going on. I think that’s true of most Canadians. Once they understand what’s going on and that we are not making this stuff up, they’ll be on our side.

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One of the commonest responses by those who have never studied the issue of US personhood is,”If you don’t want to pay your taxes, then renounce your citizenship.” Well, just off the top of my head here are some reasons that people may be reluctant to renounce United States citizenship: Continue reading →

I reproduce the late honourable Jim Flaherty’s letter to the editors of major US papers from September 2011. My comments will be indented and in italic type:

Canada and the United States are neighbours and have long been the closest of friends. We share a common border and we share many common values.

In other words, the United States has jeopardized the friendship by threatening FATCA’s economic sanctions against Canada, an ally and a friend. We have seen that some leaders in the USA think that the USA should use FATCA sanctions against Russia in the recent dispute over Ukraine. Flaherty recognized already that FATCA was economic warfare against an ally.

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Statement of Claim against the Canadian Attorney General of Canada

This is a great text. Everyone in Canada should read it.

Update: August 11, 2014

In response to Hazy,

“I believe all IGAs have a most favoured nation clause (MFN) which means that if one country gets a better deal, than other countries can obtain the same.”

You are correct BUT, the most favored provision solely applies to provisions under Article 4 and Annex
1.

The “Reciprocity Clause” is an Article 3 provision therefor the “better deal clause” does not apply.

Here is that section on most favorable language;

“Canada shall be granted the benefit of any more favorable terms under Article 4 or Annex I of this Agreement relating to the application of FATCA to Canadian Financial Institutions afforded to another Partner Jurisdiction.”

Sooooooo Canada was outsmarted by the likes of Czech Republic, Jamaica, South Africa, Mauritius which got a far better deal.

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George requests Domino’s comment (just below) be its own post, asking

The following recent comment needs to be on the front page as this is hot news. Basically, very recent IGA agreements have a sunset clause if the USA does not provide reciprocity.

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