This weekend I spoke at length with a concerned Canadian citizen (ChearsBigEars) who believes that the time to launch the mother of all class actions lawsuits against the banks has already arrived.  Why should we wait until the banks actually deprive Canadian citizens of their Charter rights?  What if the banks are already in the process of planning to violate those rights?  Would that not constitute a conspiracy to violate their rights?

Suppose TD Bank decided to ban some minority–let’s say anyone who is not white.  Now they put out an advertisement that they wish to hire a bouncer who will stand at the door and prevent non-white people from entering the bank.  Would those people who are about to have their rights violated have to wait until they were bounced or could they go ahead and launch a lawsuit based upon a conspiracy to violate Charter rights?  My contact suggests that we can go ahead and sue the banks in a class action lawsuit and that we should do it right away, and it should be for one billion CDN dollars, to reflect the seriousness of this rights violation and the actual damages that are being inflicted by the United States as a result of the banks’ plan to implement FATCA.  We can do this because TD Bank (et al.) has put out placement ads asking for FATCA compliance officers–not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars that they have already spent putting a system in place to discriminate against comfortable and concerned clients.  Here is plea that he sent me to share with the readers of the Isaac Brock Society: Continue reading →

Bubblebustin has had to postpone the protest but would like to have one in the near future.

Bubblebustin would like to know if there are any West coasters interested in being part of a FATCA protest in downtown Vancouver, Ministry of Finance, 300 Georgia Street West, Monday Dec 2 at 1 pm. The press are invited:http://www.fin.gc.ca/notices-avis13/2013-11-29-eng.asp

Dec 25 UPDATE:

My Christmas letter response to TD Bank CEO Ed Clark:

December 25, 2014

Ed Clark
Group President and
Chief Executive Officer
TD Bank
Toronto Dominion Centre
P.O Box 193
Toronto ON
M5K 1H6

Dear Mr. Clark,

Re: Customer(s) declines TD Bank’s comfortable FATCA experience and cancels bank account

You might remember me as the customer who requested that your bank remove an offensive statement from your website. In the offending sentence TD Bank states a commitment to “ensure” that its US customers in Canada, terrified by having their bank records forcibly turned over by your bank to US IRS, will somehow receive a “comfortable” experience while they are being FATCA’d.

The response to my request, issued jointly from three departments, was surprising: TD Bank is adamant, illogically, that it can actually provide meaningful comfort for its US customers who are being FATCA’d (e.g., customers will listen to Mozart sonata while seated in proprietary TD-green recliner?). Paradoxically the letter also notes that your bank might revise the offensive sentence in future—but why consider revising, as you insist that the statement is accurate, fair, and not offensive?

TD Bank also shifts the blame, unfairly I feel, to the hapless Canadian Bankers Association which never promised on behalf of any Canadian bank–not even TD Bank– a positive FATCA experience to customers. Your bank is the only financial institution in Canada, probably even worldwide, to make the extraordinary claim of comfort provided while a foreign government confiscates a customer’s life’s savings. In this respect, TD Bank’s service may well be, as you say, “legendary.”

I just wanted to let you know that I cancelled my account with TD Bank the day after I received your bank’s unacceptable response. I now have an account with another major Canadian bank that does plan to FATCA me, but will treat me with better respect by not aiming to give a comfortable FATCA experience.

For the future I am considering banking with one of the smaller credit unions that will not provide any FATCA experience whatsoever to its customers.

Mr. Clark, please appreciate that there are one million (plus) US person households in Canada. We all have banking options (so far) and we have long memories. We will never forget those who chose not to treat us fairly and with respect.

I have cc’d this letter to Finance Minister Flaherty and to others and will be hand delivering a copy to my local MP Mr. Bernard Trottier.

Sincerely,

[Name disclosed on letter]

Cc: Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance
Honourable Bernard Trottier, MP Etobicoke-Lakeshore
Honourable Scott Brison, Finance Critic
[ ] Senior Manager, Customer Experience Strategy
Selected US persons abroad

Dec 20 UPDATE:

I closed my TD Bank account in response to TD Bank’s unacceptable response.

Dec 19 UPDATE:

—THE FINAL RESPONSE FROM TD BANK:

Dear IRSCF,

I am writing to you on behalf of the following TD departments: Legal, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, and the Ombudsman’s Office in regards to your request to remove content from our website regarding FATCA.

We, TD Bank, acknowledge that you have made several requests to various TD departments seeking further information in regards to FATCA [??]. While the FATCA guidelines issued by the IRS will apply to all non-U.S. financial institutions around the world, the Canadian government is negotiating a bilateral agreement with the U.S. Once defined, all Canadian banks will be subject to the requirements resulting from this agreement.

The statements on our website accurately reflect the nature in which TD is responding to its legal obligation in order to comply with the Canadian legislation that will implement Canada’s bilateral agreement with the U.S. on FATCA. With regards to your objection about using “comfortable” in our website, we strive to provide a comfortable experience to our customers by ensuring that they always receive accurate and timely information with regards to FATCA [but see Badger’s comments below]. Nonetheless, we will take your feedback into account when we next refresh the FATCA content on our website.

We feel we have addressed your concerns to the best of our ability and we now consider the matter closed. For further correspondence regarding changes impacting the Canadian banking industry, we suggest you contact the Canadian Bankers Association (http://www.cba.ca/en).

Regards,

[ ….Customer Experience Strategy]

BE LEGENDARY! [text in green]

Every Customer. Every Time. Everyone [text in green].

Dec 18 UPDATE:

—TD Bank Ombudsman sends email stating that it will ensure that I receive a response from the bank.

Dec 12 UPDATE:

—As ten days have passed without any decision by TD Bank to my request for deletion of the offensive sentence on its website, I have forwarded the Dec 2 letter and all email correspondence to the TD Ombudsman for resolution (Step 3).

Dec 7 UPDATE:

—the letter of concern has now been escalated to some unknown component of TD Bank.

Dec 3 UPDATE:

—The complaint has been received by TD Bank.

THE ORIGINAL POSTING:

TD Bank has issued a statement on its website committing the bank to provide customers impacted by FATCA with “support and information” to ensure that they somehow will receive a “comfortable” experience while the bank is helping the US impose this law.

This statement is offensive and the letter below asks TD Bank to delete the statement from its public website and to apologize to its customers:

[SENT BY HARD COPY AND POSTED ONLINE AT ISAACBROCKSOCIETY.CA AND MAPLESANDBOX.CA]

December 2, 2013

Attn: Customer Service
Toronto-Dominion Centre
P.O Box 193
Toronto, ON
M5K 1H6

E-mail: customerservice@td.com

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: Request for deletion of offensive statement on TD Bank website

This is a request that TD Bank delete the second sentence in section #5 of your website: http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/customer-service/overview/fatca.jsp

The sentence reads: “TD is committed to providing impacted customers with support and information to ensure they receive a comfortable experience once the law comes into effect.”

The law referred to in this sentence is the U.S. imposed Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in which TD Bank will assist a branch of a foreign government, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in obtaining financial information on its customers in Canada.

Continue reading →

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is currently having a nice little chat about how it can best use the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion to double-tax non-US economies.

The Tax Break-Down: Foreign Earned Income Exclusion

The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, it says, “is designed to prevent a US taxpayer who moves to a high-cost country from paying more taxes than a similarly situated taxpayer in the US, since the standard deductions are not adjusted for a higher cost country.”  Oddly, it makes no mention of compensating individuals who pay more taxes in other countries so that everyone pays the same.

Since they allow comments and might publish mine, I contributed my 2 cents, for what it is worth:

In 2001, during the dot-com crisis, I couldn’t find work in the US and thus moved to Switzerland to work instead of collecting unemployment checks or food stamps.  I did not move because of taxes or to pay less or more in taxes, but rather to earn money to pay debt interest, to buy food, to buy clothing and to buy shelter.  I migrated to acquire the basic essentials required for survival.
Continue reading →

The CayCompass in the Cayman Islands has already shown remarkable interest in FATCA with their recent article referencing Canada’s grassroots challenge to FATCA. Their interest and understanding continues with a new article detailing the results of their recent online poll regarding FATCA compliance.

I applaud the CayCompass for conducting this very revealing poll and would urge other media outlets to do the same thing in their own countries, repeatedly, so we may better gauge and track the public’s understanding of this vital issue.

Here’s the article.

Am I dreaming?   Could we open our internet browsers some morning soon and see this headline?   Northernstar talks about  the ripples of anti-FATCA sentiment spreading throughout the world.  We are seeing it in increased media reports like this one that JustMe pointed out: http://www.freeenterprise.com/economy-taxes/fatca-trap-opposition-builds-can-intrusive-foreign-tax-compliance-law-be-stopped, and this one that describes Ruth Freeborn’s FATCA nightmare: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/27/209810/new-tax-law-driving-expats-to.html.

Maybe,  just maybe….

Does anyone else see the connection between this article and FATCA?    If you are against internet surveillance, you are for child pornography.  If you are against FATCA, you are for tax evasion.

Jess Kline at National Post writes:

In trying to defend the government’s lawful access legislation last year, then public safety minister Vic Toews said that Canadians can either “stand with us, or with the child pornographers.” Given that the proposed Internet-spying legislation was incredibly unpopular, this statement didn’t sit well with many people. Surely law-abiding citizens could object to living in an online surveillance state without siding with child pornographers.

Indeed, the backlash against the Tories’ lawful access legislation was so harsh the last time around, they eventually promised the shelve the idea for good.

“We will not be proceeding with Bill C-30 and any attempts that we will continue to have to modernize the Criminal Code will not contain the measures contained in C-30,” said former justice minister Rob Nicholson in February. “We’ve listened to the concerns of Canadians who have been very clear on this.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. The Conservative strategy appears to have been to lay low for awhile, pick another cause de jure and reintroduce the legislation under a different name.

Read the full article here:  http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/11/26/jesse-kline-tories-bully-canadians-into-accepting-internet-surveillance-bill/