According to TD Canada Trust’s Customer Service web page on FATCA:

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

Let the full-page ads begin:

This is a print version of part of a November 19 CBC radio interview in which a representative of the Canadian Bankers Association as well as Allison Christians (Chair of Tax Law at McGill University) and a U.S. person in Canada were interviewed.

The title of this November 25 CBC update “Canadian banks to be compelled to share clients’ info with U.S” is incorrect as the banks are aware that they have the option to resist FATCA and lobby seriously for its repeal.

It might be significant that the CBC/CBC reporter selected the pointed phrase that our financial institutions are being “deputized by the IRS.”

@Em notes below that there are 650 comments already (7:45 pm) on this CBC site– with most anti-FATCA (and not from the usual Brocker/Sandboxer crowd)

Some commenters do not understand FATCA and ask: “What are people so afraid of if they have nothing to hide?”

See the CBC link:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-banks-to-be-compelled-to-share-clients-info-with-u-s-1.2437975

In the eyes of the Swiss, the reputation of the United States of America has for various reasons been in sharp decline, and America has been presenting itself to Switzerland less and less as an old friend, and more and more as an enemy. I want to remind our friends in Switzerland, as well as every American in Switzerland, that the US is a friend of Switzerland, and I want to tell you what the Swiss as friends must do.

The US and Switzerland are two of the worlds oldest democracies, and both share the founding principles of freedom and independence. At the time of the American revolution, Switzerland was surrounded by tyrannical monarchies, and its fierce independence and stubborn refusal to submit to these despots earned it the title of ‘Sister Republic’ to the United States of America.

How things can change. In 2010, the US Congress with FATCA decreed that every bank in the world must report to the IRS, or face severe consequences. This is nothing less than an act of war on the sovereignty of every nation. Switzerland must under no circumstances submit to these threats, and we must as friends tell America that they are out of line. Brute force has replaced enlightened thinking, and the language of threats and intimidation have become the norm of US foreign policy.

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From the Finance Canada website:

“The Government of Canada today ratified the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, done at Strasbourg on 25 January 1988, as amended by the Protocol amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters,done at Paris on 27 May 2010 (collectively, the “Convention”). Canada signed the original convention on April 28, 2004 and the Protocol thereto on November 3, 2011. The Convention will enter into force, in respect of Canada, on March 1, 2014, and will have effect in accordance with Article 28 of the Convention.

“The Convention, developed jointly by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Council of Europe, is a multilateral instrument, open to all countries, whose purpose is to improve international tax co-operation between the taxation authorities of countries that are a Party to the Convention, with a view to combating international tax avoidance and evasion. In Canada, the Convention will apply to Canadian taxes that fall under the Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act, and the Excise Act, 2001.

“Under the Convention, Canada will exchange tax information pursuant to the OECD standard with other Parties to the Convention. Pursuant to reservations, Canada will not under the Convention be obligated to collect taxes on behalf of another country, or provide assistance in the service of related documents. Canada will instead continue to negotiate a provision on assistance in the collection of taxes on a bilateral basis, and has agreed to include such a provision in certain of its bilateral tax treaties.”

See: http://www.fin.gc.ca/treaties-conventions/notices/maatm-aammf-eng.asp

Is there anyone out there with the expertise to determine the relevance of this to FATCA implementation in Canada?

http://www.knax.co/2013/11/fatca.html?spref=tw

Taxation Bill introduced today includes rules allowing people to comply with foreign account information-sharing agreements.

The United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) legislation is due to take effect on 1  July 2014. Under FATCA, financial institutions, regardless of their location, will be required to report on certain United States account holders directly to the United States’ Internal Revenue Service, or face a withholding tax on United States sourced income of 30%.

It is proposed that New Zealand enter into an “intergovernmental agreement” (IGA) with the United States, to significantly reduce the compliance costs of FATCA for New Zealand financial institutions. Negotiations for such an agreement are currently underway.

The provisions in the Bill will enable financial institutions to comply with the IGA, and any future similar agreements.

A representative of the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) explains succinctly in a November 19 CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) interview how Canada’s banks will respond to US “extraterritorial” demands for FATCA implementation.

On November 25 the CBC/CBC reporter who interviewed the CBA correctly selected the term “deputized by the IRS” to describe the nature of the relationship between these financial institutions and the IRS in a new print version of part of the radio broadcast:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-banks-to-be-compelled-to-share-clients-info-with-u-s-1.2437975

PLEASE LISTEN TO THE RADIO INTERVIEW ON THIS LINK AND FORWARD THIS CBC LINK (but with some text correcting the banker’s statement) TO THOSE WHO MIGHT BENEFIT:

CBC World at 6 broadcast

The interview also includes a Brocker/Sandboxer and Allison Christians, Chair of Tax Law at Montreal’s McGill University.  

Below is just one brief response to the interview also posted on MapleSandbox:

[SENT BY MAIL; POSTED ONLINE AT ISAACBROCKSOCIETY.CA
AND MAPLESANDBOX.CA]

November 21, 2013

Mr. Marion Wrobel
Vice-President, Policy and Operations
Canadian Bankers Association
199 Bay Street, 30th Floor
Toronto, Ontario
M5L 1G2

Dear Mr. Wrobel,

[Re: Your November 19 2013 CBC broadcast statements on
Canadian banks and FATCA]

I am asking you, as a representative of the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA), to provide more balance in future statements you will make to the public on involvement of Canadian banks in implementing the U.S. imposed FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) law.

In your November 19 statements broadcasted on CBC the audience was left with the impression that Canada’s banks have no choice but to capitulate to U.S. demands to implement FATCA– because the U.S. has a “large economy” and “financial markets are integrated.”

I appreciate that only limited broadcast time was available, and know that you would not mislead; however, Canadians need to know, directly from the CBA, that Canadian banks do in fact have the option of resisting FATCA in order to protect rights of all of us and the sovereignty of our country.

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