Error For those considering their US vote, @NoGo suggests this tweet on candidates as a post for Brock…
https://twitter.com/bracing/status/693567510856220672
Dear @BernieSanders Please–inform yourself of #FATCA‘s harmful effects on ALL US expats. It’s major for us.
cross-posted from ADCSovereignty
Regional reality: There are worse alternatives than the House of Saud https://t.co/AGYXguQL1B – tension between human rights and economics
— John Richardson – Counsellor for US persons abroad (@ExpatriationLaw) January 16, 2016
Many years ago I became familiar with the story of William Sampson who was a Canadian born engineer who, worked in Saudi Arabia, was tortured in a Saudi Arabian prison, eventually was released and died at very young age. I had the privilege of briefly meeting him. He was actually considering attending law school (and I know that he was accepted by at least one Canadian law school). I highly recommend his book – “Confessions Of An Innocent Man“. To learn more see this documentary.
At the very least …
you will appreciate the importance of rule of law (somehow I don’t think the ADCS Charter challenge would be an option in Saudi Arabia and many other countries.) By the way, I do know that FATCA and U.S. citizenship taxation are causing problems for many Saudi citizens (who by the way are allowed only one citizenship). Many Saudi citizens fear that the imposition of U.S. citizenship will cause problems with both the U.S. Government and the Saudi Government.
This morning I received an email linking me to this article which detailed some of the recent “Saudi human rights abuses”.
Okay, so …
The above references an interesting article that appeared in today’s Globe and Mail. The article was written by Michael Bell who is a Carleton Professor and apparently an adviser to the Trudeau Liberals.
For the record, I am in NO WAY equating the treatment of Canadian citizens under FATCA with the human rights violations that are alleged to have been committed by the Saudi Government. What I found interesting was the willingness of the writer to tolerate those individual human rights abuses because it was in the common good to do so. What I find particularly interesting (and I hope that I am not being unfair to him) is that he seems to assume that “collective rights” (society) take precedence over “individual rights” (Charter rights). Interesting question. I had always understood that the whole point of a Charter of Rights was to give individually protected Charter rights a priority over group rights (within reason and that’s why S. 1 of the Charter exists). As I think about the article I wonder whether Mr. Bell would apply the same reasoning to a a gross violation (and NO CANADIAN is subject to the kinds of violations that occur in some other parts of the world) to the rights of Canadian citizens in Canada.
As a reminder, Charter S. 1 provides the template for when the violation of individual rights should be justified. S. 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms reads as follows:
1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
Those of you who are interested in what this is interpreted to mean should read the Oakes decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Wikipedia comes to the rescue (maybe) here.
I recommend Mr. Bell’s article (it is quite short) and urge you to read the comments.
I am referring specifically to the following excerpt from his article:
If the Saudi royal family were to fall, it would result in a massive destabilization of the Arabian Peninsula. Does this mean we should write them off in a world when hardball is the only game, where no regional standards meet ours? Are we to write off the interest displayed by the smaller Gulf States – Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates – in acquiring LAVs because of their alleged human rights violations (which are less spectacularly evident in the international media)?
To do so would mean single-issue politics, in this case human rights, should invariably trump all other considerations, including international and regional stability, security and our own economic well-being. If so, we should immediately consider the future of our relationship with other noteworthy human rights violators, perhaps beginning with China.
Unfortunately, we live in a highly imperfect world where it is beyond our capacity to change the primordial behaviour of other states within their own borders, no matter the legitimacy of our concerns. As members of the international community we live in a web of immensely complicated contending interests where to be effective we must be realists.
We have to ask ourselves whether a rough balance of power in the Middle East, as shambolic as it is, better suits Canadian interests than the fall of the Saudi dynasty, which would further destabilize an entire region. These LAVs may just maintain a semblance of equilibrium. Nor can we ignore that this latest deal (we have been selling LAVs to the Saudis for decades) affects 3,000 jobs over 15 years, and is worth $15-billion to the Canadian economy. Hefty penalties would apply were we to renege.
What do you think? Should the Trudeau government sell arms to Saudi Arabia?
Thank you for your continued support. As Stephen continues to report – we do need generous funding to continue.
To give us all a badly-needed lift, Brockers have often quoted the lyrics to familiar songs or have even written their own to go with well-known tunes. I recall a couple of years ago turning up the volume on Trooper’s “Raise a Little Hell” when a Youtube video was posted here! Nobody knows how it works, but music really does do something incredibly wonderful to our hearts.
In tandem with the fellowship I’ve experienced and the support I’ve received from the people on this blog, music has been what has gotten me through the FATCA/CBT minefield without stepping on a bomb. A side-effect of my own “OMG moment” was the discovery of a previously untapped well of creativity that I had not ever explored before. Since 2012 I’ve managed to write a short album’s worth of songs inspired almost entirely by the situation in which we have all found ourselves. There are 11 songs so far with a twelfth in the works.
Most of them are unrecorded as yet. For several personal reasons I have not shared them before, but I would like to offer three of them to you today. They are not “Hi-Fi”. They are raw, un-produced, and unedited, recorded in my living room. They are what they are, including everything I wish could have been better.
“Pay the Piper” (2012) might be called a “blues autobiography”; Out of the Shadows (2013), from my pre-blogging days, is about what it’s like to be in hiding without a voice; Rosa (2014) tells the story of Rosa Parks, our heroine from the civil rights movement. They can be found on the IBS Youtube link thanks to the hard work and generosity of Deckard. My sincere thanks to him and everyone else who made the upload possible! I hope you enjoy listening!
Recently Canada’s National Post said: “Dissent serves a valuable social function: it moderates, brings internal accountability and leads to better decisions because of the value of diversity and the contest of ideas.”
“The dissenter is the one who speaks to the future with a voice pitched to a key that will carry through the years.” and Freedom of Speech is “…the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom” says Benjamin Cardozo.
Melvin Urofsky: ”…the dissent may strengthen the limits of the majority, preventing it from sweeping too broadly — a form of damage control.”
— It cannot be easy to “rule on” on those comments that are “fit to print” and those that cross the highly uncertain fuzzy line into irrelevance or what appears to some to be “unpleasant behaviour” — but all should agree that the “Federal Tax Crimes” blog’s January 22, 2016 policy defining what is appropriate goes too far in a very unhealthy direction.
Jack Townsend at the “Federal Tax Crimes” blog has recently proclaimed a new policy restricting the types of comments permitted to be posted on his site:
“Notice to Readers: Irrelevant and Political or Anti-IRS Comments Will Not Be Approved (1/22/16)
I have in the past routinely approved most irrelevant and political and anti-IRS comments to blog entries.
Today, I received another and my tolerance for such comments has worn thin. I post below the comment that has provoked my reaction.
I remind readers that this is a federal tax crimes blog. It is not a political blog or tax policy blog or any other kind of blog except federal tax crimes. Hence, I will no longer approve comments that are not relevant to the blog entry and that present more political argument or anti-IRS argument than analysis of the law relevant to federal tax crimes issues.
For those of you who want to make political comments or anti-IRS, I recommend that you find another blog which welcomes those comments. For example, you might try the Tax Prof Blog, where Professor Paul Caron posts each day one entry labeled The IRS Scandal, Day xxx (the entry today is The IRS Scandal, Day 988). Each day you will find a posting and, so long as you want to make political or anti IRS comments, he seems more than willing to post such comments on his blog.
Thus, for readers who may be inclined to want to make these comments, please note that henceforth they will not be approved for publication on the Federal Tax Crimes Blog…”
With thanks to badger, who found this and passed it on.
The NDP now pressures the Liberals on FATCA IGA information turnover.
Here is some info on MP Pierre-Luc Dusseault, Critic for National Revenue (this guy is doing his job!). Perhaps we should thank him, communicate with him on an ongoing basis, etc. Contact info at bottom of post.
@PLDusseault Bravo 4 all your questions about the CRA turnover of CDNs' private financial info 2 IRS-Every CDN caught up in this thanks you!
— Patricia Moon (@nobledreamer16) January 23, 2016
Q-352 – January 21, 2016 – Mr. Dusseault (Sherbrooke) –
With respect to the September 2015 announcement of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) that it would effectuate a transfer of information to the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS):
(e) and (f) calculated and what is the breakdown of those costs;
UPDATE JANUARY 21, 2016
WHAT:Solving U.S. Citizenship Problems: Accidental Americans
WHEN: Saturday January 23, 2016, 2:00-4:00 pm EST
This meeting is being moved online/conference call via UberConference and will make it possible to participate from outside the Toronto area. Please pass the word!
REGISTRATION & ADMISSION: please register by submitting admission cost of $20.00 CAD via Paypal to: information@cbtlawsuit.ca
Please note you do not have to be a member of Paypal in order to pay/register.
Once registration is complete we will email you the details of how to log in, etc.
Generally, an Accidental American is:
Continue reading
Barbara has spotted it from Huffington Post and John Richardson has already written about it at citizenshipsolutions.ca.
The following is a cross-post to Brock from citizenshipsolutions.ca
Mrs W
Cruz Bill Eases Revocations of U.S. Citizenship Without Due Process https://t.co/L1tcQUXUsZ via @HuffPostPol
— Citizenship Lawyer (@ExpatriationLaw) January 20, 2016
By the time I had received this fascinating “hot off the press” information from a U.S. law firm, I had read the article referenced in the above tweet. The article is written by David Bier who is an immigration policy analyst at the Niskanen Center. It has generated interesting discussion at Keith Redmond’s “American Expatriates Facebook Group“.Yes, it’s true, Canadian born, U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz, has introduced a bill threatening people with the loss of U.S. citizenship (notwithstanding that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that U.S. citizenship belongs to the citizen and NOT to the government). It is clear that Senator Cruz, hearkening back to the days of the Viet Nam era and before, is of the view that U.S. citizens remain citizens only as long as Congress allows them to. The purpose of the revocation of citizenship is to provide a mechanism to keep them out of the United States. This is is a form of “border control” – a “Cruz concern” as evidenced by the following @SenTedCruz tweet:
Border security is national security. We must take basic steps to protect American citizens https://t.co/vvZx2y4vg7 https://t.co/3qhMSIfAHN
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 20, 2016
The article in the Huffington Post is remarkably well researched and provides a reasonable overview of the issue.
See for example:
Continue reading
UPDATE WEDNESDAY JANUARY 20,2016
A listener responds to CBC’s call for people to tell their stories; Veronique Shinder:
http://www.cbc.ca/player/AudioMobile/All%2Bin%2Ba%2BDay/ID/2682331846/”
Original broadcast:John Richardson on Tuesday, January 19, 2016
http://mp3.cbc.ca/radio/CBC_Radio_VMS/80/883/ottallinaday_20160119_20484_uploaded.mp3
http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2682218188
Please tune into to hear Alan Neal, host of “All in a Day” interview (CBC radio) with John Richardson this afternoon at:
5:45 PM Atlantic
4:45 PM Eastern
3:45 PM Central
2:45 PM Mountain
1:45 PM Pacific
9:45 PM GMT London
10:45 PM CET – Europe
5:45 AM AWST Perth West Australia
8:15 AM ACDT Adelaide South Australia
8:45 AM AEDT Melbourne & Sydney New South Wales
7:45 AM AEST Brisbane Queensland
NB: Hope the Australia times are converted properly….
I am listening right now – HERE.
or go here:
http://www.cbc.ca/allinaday
under the first menu bar – upper Right Hand Corner- Box: LIVE Click on “Listen Live”
PLEASE: Anyone who is knows how/is able to record this, please do so since there will be limited time to listen to the replay version. Thanks!
JC has spotted this. Allison Christians welcomes comments on her work in progress.
Bubblebustin says:
Allison supports incremental changes, as she’s convinced that the US is incapable of going right to RBT. I believe that if US legislators are capable of seeing how it should make it easy for people like Tina to exit the system, it will realize that there’s something really wrong in preferring taxpayers over citizens.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Uncle Sam Wants…Who? At UBC Law This Week
This week I will be in Vancouver to present a paper at the UBC Allard School of Law. The paper, “Uncle Sam Wants…Who? A Global Perspective on Citizenship Taxation,” is now available in draft form on SSRN. Here is the abstract:Across the globe, banks are flagging accounts with indicia indicating their owners may be “US Persons,” making it possible for the United States to enforce its taxation of nonresident citizens extraterritorially for the first time in history. The indicia method constitutes a mining expedition for US citizens carried out by foreign banks and governments. Establishing a tax jurisdiction in this manner is unprecedented and has significant practical and normative consequences. In the case of so-called “accidental Americans,” it violates one of the most fundamental and universally- acknowledged tenets of taxpayer rights, namely, the right to be informed about what the law requires. Third party indicia-searching should be universally rejected as a means of identifying a taxpayer population. Instead, the United States itself is responsible for cataloguing, informing, and educating its global population of taxpayers. Those who don’t belong in the system should be allowed to opt out without cost.
I welcome comments on this work in progress.
A recent method of combatting propaganda has been to create fact checking sites. Every time a politician or media hack opens his fat mouth, countless people run to the internet to find someone who has fact-checked things on that topic.
Would it not be smart to fact check the common propaganda out there? Shouldn’t it be searchable as factchecking?
Perhaps it would be a good idea for any writers to pick a single narrow topic and present a fact-checking answer. The title of the post should indicate that it is a fact-checker. Then, when any hack spouts off, people can use their search engines and land on Isaac Brock and receive a properly-researched fact check.
Many of the Brock researchers are capable of this. There are also a number of writers available who are capable of taking up previous research and summarizing it and making it public-reading-friendly.
Pick a narrow topic and summarize the REAL facts. For example: “All expats are rich” or “People are leaving America to avoid taxation”. Take only one topic, manage your time, and publish.
Just make the title search-friendly, focusing upon the media myth or media propaganda, and include such things in the title and body as Fact Check, FactCheck, #FactCheck, and such.
You may choose a generic topic, or pick a particular current propaganda piece and address it. One day, there might be a base of generic writings which can be used as references for any specific media or political hack that spouts nonsense.
Take a look at the approaches of
http://www.snopes.com/
http://www.politifact.com/
http://www.factcheck.org/
and the others.
IS ANYBODY GAME?
