Don Cayo, a reporter for the Vancouver Sun (and has covered some of our issues in the past) has jumped on the bandwagon, criticizing us for mounting the charter challenge. His source, Warren Dueck is a CPA/CA located in British Columbia. (More of his viewpoint is available on his blog).

If you think a policy requiring our government to give such personal information to a foreign taxman won’t withstand a Charter challenge, Dueck concedes you may be right. But if you think this would be a good thing, he disagrees.

The problem is that if our institutions won’t — or can’t because of privacy laws — give the IRS what it wants, 30 per cent will be withheld from all U.S. transactions.

“This would be a devastating result for Canadian financial institutions and their customers who exchange hundreds of millions of dollars daily with U.S. individuals, businesses and other entities,” Dueck wrote to clients.

Ditto if you tell your bank to buzz off when it asks about your citizenship, except you’ll shoot only yourself in the foot by subjecting only your own earnings to withholding.

Dueck says there’s little chance any money withheld by the IRS could be applied against Canadian tax owing, and the only way for you to get it back would be to file a U.S. tax return, then wait for months for it to be processed.

Ottawa has been accused of selling out by agreeing to this, but once again Dueck disagrees. Without the agreement, he said, financial institutions would still face a no-win choice of either providing information about clients or having earnings withheld. And, while the agreement excludes earnings on such things as Registered Retirement Savings Plans, Registered Retirement Income Funds, Registered Educational Savings Plans and Tax-Free Savings Accounts, there’ll be no such exemptions if court challenges succeed in overturning the agreement.

Some of the Brocker SWAT Team (Special Writers and Authors) have already commented on the blog.

What do you think?

Hat tip to Tim for finding the article.

At George’s suggestion, this comment is now a post.

By Paul Cochrane, April 30, 2014 in “Executive”– Forthcoming US rules loom large over Middle Eastern banking sectors

BC Doc says: “An article from Lebanon. A good quote”:

More pressing in the immediate term is the issue of privacy and the safety of American citizens. “One thing the Treasury has not thought about is how do you protect US citizens? In a country like Lebanon, with Hezbollah and other US designated terrorist organizations, banks will identify US citizens, which could put them at risk,” said the BDL source.

And:

Further questions may arise if there is a dawning realization about negative economic impacts on the US itself. “What happens when we start shorting payments on our Treasury bonds (TBs) by 30 percent? A sovereign holder is not subject to withholding, but for a private institution, what if the interest payment is done through SWIFT to a commercial bank that has not signed an IGA? Treasury will take the interest,” said Jim Jatras, Manager of RepealFATCA.com, which is lobbying against the law in Washington. “This is the kind of thing that could promote dumping TBs, and affect interest rates and the dollar as a global currency, which are issues nobody has thought out.”

It just gets weirder:

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2014/05/15/407761/Ma-promises.htm

TAIPEI, Taiwan — If President Ma Ying-jeou is indeed subject to U.S. taxes, he will take political responsibility by resigning, the Presidential Office said yesterday.

Next Magazine yesterday released a report claiming that the president has to pay taxes to the U.S. under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), saying that Ma is poised to turn himself into an “international laughingstock” by becoming the first R.O.C. president subject to U.S. taxes.

That the president of Taiwan has to pay taxes to the U.S. is an unacceptable shame to this nation, and more importantly, Ma has been dishonest, making all sorts of excuses to evade the fact that he became head of state while holding a valid Green Card, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang said in response to the Next Magazine report. “If Ma has a sense of shame and responsibility, he ought to step down immediately.”

Former DPP Chairmen Frank Hsieh and Yu Shyi-kun made similar remarks while speaking to the press.

The Presidential Office would like Su, Hsieh and Yu to promise that they will apologize to the nation for their unfounded remarks, Presidential Office spokeswoman Garfie Li said.

Next Magazine, IRS Beijing
A Next Magazine reporter apparently sent an email to IRS Beijing, claiming to be a Green Card holder named “Mark Y. J. Ma” born on July 12, 1950, and asked whether or not he — “Mark Y. J. Ma” — is subject to tax payments under FATCA.

The magazine explained that the inquiry was explicitly written using the president’s Green Card details.

IRS Beijing reportedly responded by saying that even if a person’s Green Card expires, “it doesn’t necessarily mean that (the person is) no longer (a) U.S. resident for tax purposes” and that the person “is required to report and pay (U.S.) tax on (his or her) worldwide income regardless of where (he or she) lives,” unless that person has voluntarily renounced his or her Green Card status “in writing” to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or if that status has been “administratively terminated” or “judicially terminated” by the USCIS or a U.S. federal court.

Response to Report, ‘IRS Reply’
According to sources, the president applied for a Green Card under the name “Ying-jeou Ma” as opposed to “Mark Y. J. Ma.”

Furthermore, the president was born on July 13, 1950, not July 12, 1950.

Experts said that legal action can be taken against the reporter for attempting to impersonate the head of state.

Sources said that IRS Beijing wrote a “general response” as opposed to a specific response to “Mark Y. J. Ma,” judging from the content of the reply.

Additional reports here:

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1101&MainCatID=11&id=20140515000077

http://www.straitstimes.com/story/taiwan-president-dismisses-report-he-holds-united-states-green-card-20140514

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/05/15/2003590395

And, for good measure:

http://hodgen.com/expatriation-and-the-expiring-green-card/

http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2012/12/31/giving-up-your-us-green-card-make-sure-it-is-done-correctly-or-pay-the-price/

So, will he or won’t he? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Today, Lynne Swanson (Blaze) participated as part of a panel on the Finance Committee’s study of Part 5 of Bill C-31 – the Canada-United States Enhanced Tax Information Exchange Agreement Implementation Act (or, as I call it, the Canada-United States Abrogation of Canadian Rights Agreement’.

Essentially, Lynne was invited to speak about FATCA and the IGA. I, for one, admire her bravery and commitment to our shared cause and her willingness to appear before the committee and not only speak, but answer questions from the committee members.

She only had 5 minutes for her opening statement, and then was expected to answer questions from the members of the committee. At the time of this posting, I don’t have a full report on exactly what was said and asked. We will provide that as soon as we can.

What I do have is the speech Lynne prepared in advance. I most sincerely hope that her very eloquent statement fell on receptive ears.

UPDATED LINKS TO THE VIDEO:

ParlVU site:  The original ParlVU video

Isaac Brock Society YouTube channel:  The entire meeting with links to Lynne, Allison Christians and Arthur Cockfield

Isaac Brock Society YouTube channel:  An edited compilation of Lynne’s presentation and her interaction with the committee

Transcript of Lynne’s presentation:

I come before you as the voice of one million Canadians.

We are Canadians. Many have been Canadian citizens for life or for decades. We chose Canada. We expect Canada to choose us and our rights over foreign bully demands.

“Why do our most heinous criminals have more Charter rights than I do,” asks a Nova Scotia police officer of 33 years. He was born in Maine almost six decades ago because his New Brunswick mother was sent there to give birth.

A Quebec woman who has been a Canadian citizen since birth says her ancestor who came to Canada in 1682 must be turning over in his grave at FATCA.

A widowed Grandma in Vancouver was told by US Consulate when she became a Canadian citizen in 1972 she was permanently and irrevocably relinquishing American citizenship. She insists, “My financial records are definitely none of the business of the IRS.”

An Ontario First Nations husband and father is horrified his Canadian government will help United States seize his family’s financial records because his Native Canadian wife was born there.

An Alberta woman reports her mother who upheld Canadian laws for many years as Justice of the Peace is now medically and physically too frail to deal with FATCA stresses.

They and one million other Canadians were betrayed by FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement. We were offended and insulted to hear Minister of State for Finance call us “American citizens abiding here in Canada” in the House of Commons.

If Canada mandated financial institutions to seek Canadians born in China, India, Iran or Eritrea for CRA to transmit private financial information to those nations, there would be outrage.

Canadians born in United States should have the same rights as all other Canadians. Canada should strongly defend those rights and not sacrifice them to a foreign country.

Two prominent Canadians described FATCA well. In 2011 and many times after that, Finance Minister the late Jim Flaherty said “FATCA has far-reaching extraterritorial implications. It would turn Canadian banks into extensions of the IRS and would raise significant privacy concerns for Canadians.”

Terry Campbell, President of Canadian Bankers Association in 2012 called FATCA “the poster child for the problem of extra-territoriality…It threatens to erode Canadian sovereignty.”

Those statements hold true now. Under threat of economic sanctions and penalties, Canada surrendered its sovereignty to a foreign power with the IGA.

Canadians affected by FATCA were stunned last week when a member of this Committee said “Congress has spoken.”

Canadians expect Parliament to speak for Canada. Canadians expect Parliament to uphold Canada’s laws, rights and constitution. Anything less is an affront and betrayal to Canada and to Canadians.

FATCA is complex. I give you a simple solution. I urge you to adopt an amendment to the Implementation Act:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act or the Agreement, for all purposes related to the implementation of this Act and the Agreement, “US Person” and “Specified US Person” shall not include any person who is a Canadian citizen or legal permanent resident who is ordinarily resident in Canada.”

I implore you. Do the right thing. Stand up for Canada and for all Canadians.

Here is the full-day session:

“Life planning, career planning and the reality of U.S. citizenship for Americans abroad”
     “Everything I wish I had known, but couldn’t even have imagined to ask!”

During the winter, John Richardson presented a number of seminars for those concerned with the obvious problems of U.S. citizenship (including the “threshold question” of whether you really are a U.S. citizen).

Seminar topics have invariably included the problems of: FBAR, FATCA, investing, retirement planning, mutual funds, U.S. tax compliance, renunciation, etc. The official “FATCA Launch” of July 1, 2014 will surely make the existing problems worse.

U.S. citizens living outside the United States are subject to a regime of rules that diminish their “life opportunities”. These rules are such that U.S. citizens abroad live at a disadvantage relative to the citizens of any other nation. Those attending previous seminars have been primarily “middle aged” people, who have attempted to plan for their retirement, only to find that their retirement plans are threatened, because of their birth in the United States.

A shared sentiment has been:

“If only, I had known about these rules earlier … This is information that my children and other young adults need to hear! What does all this mean for my children?”

The seminar on June 7 will be a session specifically designed for your children and young adults. They will be exposed to (at least “some”) of that information that they need to hear!
Continue reading →

THE TRANSCRIPT IS UP!

UPDATED LINKS TO THE VIDEO:

ParlVU site:  The original ParlVU video

Isaac Brock Society YouTube channel:  The entire meeting, featuring John Richardson’s presentation and interaction with the committee.

[ UPDATE of interest, but possibly not related, for May 14, 2014: Joe Oliver will be before the House tonight according to the CBC — FATCA IGA not indicated as a topic. ]

HOUSE OF COMMONS
2nd Session, 41st Parliament
NOTICE OF MEETING
Standing Committee on Finance

Meeting No. 35
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Room C-110, 1 Wellington Street
(613-947-7776)

Orders of the Day

Televised

Bill C-31, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures
Witnesses

3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

As an individual

John Richardson

Canadian Bankers Association

Darren Hannah, Acting Vice-President
Policy and Operations
Canadian Council of Chief Executives

Brian Kingston, Senior Associate

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Chantal Bernier, Interim Privacy Commissioner
Continue reading →

Marry this NDP petition with Petros New Post: “NDP calling on Harper government: Remove FATCA from omnibus budget bill“.

If you, like many Canadians, are concerned about the implementation of the USA FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) IGA (intergovernmental agreement) being buried in yet another omnibus bill, C-31, rather than thoroughly studied on its own merits in a stand-alone bill, please voice your concern by signing the NDP petition — then pass it on to your Canadian family, friends, business associates and neighbours (many of whom could also be indirectly affected). By precedent being set, this should concern ALL Canadians.

Cross-posted from MapleSandbox.ca:

PROTECT CANADIANS FROM FATCA is a just launched petition from the NDP.

Tell Stephen Harper to protect our constitutional and privacy rights from this invasive U.S. law.

The Conservatives are rushing to implement an American law that threatens the rights of more than a million Canadians…

Let’s send Stephen Harper a message:
It’s time to put Canadians first.

Canadians, please sign the on line petition.

This was sent to Lynne Swanson by Murray Rankin’s Assistant. More on Murray Rankin’s FATCA page on his website.

I am calling on Stephen Harper to resign. He is no longer fit to lead Canada, for he is planning to enact a law which will result in the extraordinary rendition of the private account information of Canadian citizens to the IRS in Washington DC. Canada is not a tax haven. FATCA is not the answer.