I promised yesterday that I would write a post to discuss the usefulness of purchasing tangible assets in order to structure one’s finances and to keep one’s business out of the banks.  Here are some of the ideas I had:

1. Real estate
2. Precious metals
3. Food

If one is wealthy it is likely that the first two of these would be the most helpful.  Real estate is harder to steal. Real estate however is propped up by the banking system and is therefore in a likely bubble in Canada.

One must find a safe place for precious metals.  But precious metals, unlike real estate, is actually being oversold by the banking system through the paper markets in which large holders of gold like the US treasury and the Federal Reserve bank lease their gold to the bullion banks, who in turn sell it in the gold market to keep the prices artificially low.  This means that while the fundamentals for precious metals remains strong, the price continues to remain obstinately low.

Continue reading →

Here are what look to be a few specific red flags streaming in the wake of Canada’s new FATCA bomb (pdf):
6.4.b (p. 18)
Three-year window. By 1 Jan 2017 specified US persons in Canada can expect that they will be required to provide US TIN to Canadian financial institution. (How long does it currently take to get a TIN/SSN if you feel you need to do that?)
I.C (p. 19)
Canadian financial institutions can elect to follow U.S. Treasury regulations rather than FATCA agreement “to establish whether an account is a US Reportable Account.” This trapdoor means these regulations also need to be examined for what they would allow Canadian banks to do to US persons. [See also VI.F below]
II.B.3 (p. 21)
“The Reporting Canadian Financial Institution must treat the account unless it elects …” Canadian financial institutions are given carte blanche to treat suspected US persons as a mass and to make no further effort to verify validity of indicia. See also II.D.5.b (p. 25) and II.E.4 (p. 26)
II.B.4 (p. 21-22)
Getting out of US-person jail requires that Canadian financial institution maintain record of three distinct discriminatory pieces of data. These should also be maintained on Eritreans for the benefit of Eritrea? Etc.
II.B.4.a.3.b (p. 22)
Here’s the gotcha for accidental US persons who have not relinquished/renounced.
II.C.1 (p. 23)
Point of interest. Canadian financial institution has two years to review pre-existing lower value accounts ($50,000 to $1 M).
VI.C.1 (p. 36)
“Each holder of jointly held Financial Account shall be attributed the entire balance” The joint account gotcha. So what if all the funds actually originate from a non-US person? They all get reported as belonging to the US-person.
VI.D.1 and VI.D.2
Documentary evidence for individual. No requirement beyond what any Canadian resident would normally provide in present circumstances?
VI.F
Private personal data can be extracted by Canadian financial institutions from third parties under alternative elected under I.C? [see above]

schubert1975 says
February 2, 2012 at 12:59 pm
In Ontario try Alterna Savings, a credit union that was formerly called “Civil Service Co-op” but now accepts depositors who aren’t present or retired federal employees. They have no US investments, and in answer to my email query I got a reply informing me their legal advice is they don’t have to comply with FATCA (and won’t) because they have no US holdings (I’m not sure any credit unions do, under their charter I’m not even sure they’re allowed to invest or hold outside Canada but I may be wrong).

Please read and comment on this text:

Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Canada to Improve International Tax Compliance through Enhanced Exchange of Information under the Convention Between the United States of America and Canada with Respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital (pdf)

http://maplesandbox.ca/2014/urgent-finance-canada-making-fatca-briefing-today/

URGENT: Finance Canada Doing FATCA Briefing Today!
Posted on February 5, 2014 by Blaze

Get ready everyone. Today may be the day.

I was just contacted via e-mail by Barrie McKenna of the Globe and Mail:

It looks like Canada has reached an agreement with the US on FATCA. Details at 2 p.m. Are you around to react later today? Please let me know, or perhaps suggest someone else. Thanks

I responded:

OMG! Yes, I am available to speak with you. Can I share the information from you with others and on the web?

What is your source that a deal has been reached?

His reply:

Finance Dept. is doing a media briefing shortly on “issues associated with FATCA,” embargoed to 2 p.m. I am making an assumption they have an IGA with US.

So, this is not for certain an IGA has been reached. But, we should know if that is reason for the briefing when the media is able to release the details at 2:00 p.m.

I’ll keep you updated as soon as I learn more.

Have a look below:.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DJahjpjv6c

This is pretty outrageous even compared to past FATCA related coverage:

I personally though have always been a fan of James Bond movie drug kingpen Franz Sanchez.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8yfMsNnCv8

On February 4, 2014 I sent a submission to the New Zealand Finance and Expenditure Committee on the “Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill”.  This bill  is understood to be in part, the enabling legislation for a FATCA IGA between New Zealand and the United States.

…

After sending my submission I was notified of the following opportunity:

The Finance and Expenditure Committee will be hearing submissions on the above bill on Wednesday, 12 February 2014 from 10.00am and your submissions has been allocated a time as follows:

“Wednesday, 12 February 2014
11.45am – 12.00am [Submissions can be made via teleconference.]
Select Committee Room to be advised
Parliament House
Wellington

Please confirm if you are able to attend and if so the names and designations of your presenters. Submissions can be made via teleconference.

At present there is a trial of webcasting being conducted of select committee hearings; it is possible this hearing may webcast depending on the room allocated.”

I have accepted the invitation of the Committee. Here is the submission:

Paying Tribute to America

By keeping the focus on the relationship between citizenship-based taxation and FATCA, I have attempted to align  the submission to the Yates, Kish, Richardson submission to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on citizenship-based taxation.

Again, we ask the Canadian Government if ALL Canadians will have the same rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, no matter the country they are from or the country their parent(s) are from.

This was forwarded to me by my sister who lives in the US. She is among those who recognize that our rights as US Persons in other countries are being abused.

Human Rights: Every person on earth is supposed to have these — what are they?

This video can be watched, keeping in mind our discrimination by *USA* nationality with extra-territorial FATCA combined with citizenship-based taxation coming into our sovereign counries. The introduction to the video The Power of Rights:

There are a lot of terms we throw around, but maybe we’ve forgotten the true meanings.
…

I especially appreciate what they say starting at 2:40 — just who are the people we need protecting from? And at 3:06, I feel encouraged to keep speaking up on social media (I hope you do, too). At 4:12, a quick, eye-opening story about how it feels to be denied your human rights is all the reminder we should need to keep working on these issues.

A new article by Jessica Meek in Risk.net’s Operational Risk and Regulation examines how credit unions worldwide are being squeezed in the FATCA vise – whether they try to avoid it or not.

Credit unions wish Fatca ‘did not exist’

Fatca compliance burden stretching further

Credit unions will struggle to implement the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), warns Michael Edwards, vice-president and chief counsel at the World Council of Credit Unions (Woccu).

The regulatory burden associated with Fatca and the intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) intended to enforce it at a government-to-government level mean that credit unions are hoping that Fatca will be repealed, Edwards says.

“Credit unions around the world would prefer it if Fatca did not exist, mostly because of the regulatory burdens associated with complying,” he says. “Even on the US side, even though the Fatca statute never mentioned US banks or credit unions, in order to collect information to share with the foreign governments that are going to be signing or have signed IGAs to implement Fatca, US credit unions and banks are likely to be subject to the same reporting requirements as foreign ones.”

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