There are a multitude of reasons why Canada must reject FATCA.
Here are just 12 of them.
1. FATCA violates Canadian privacy, banking and human rights laws and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
2. Canadian laws are made in Ottawa, not in Washington
3. FATCA treats Canadian citizens born in US and their Canadian-born children as second class citizens in Canada.
4. FATCA threatens Canadian sovereignty and autonomy.
5. FATCA threatens retirement, education and disability savings of Canadian citizens and residents.
6. FATCA places huge costs on Canadian financial institutions.
7. FATCA takes money out of Canadian economy and tax base.
8. Canada has a 70 year effective tax treaty with US to combat tax evasion.
9. Canada does not negotiate with financial terrorists.
10. Canada is not a tax haven.
11. Canada should show leadership to the world in standing up to IRS bullies.
12. FATCA is just plain wrong.
Canada, Just Say No!
Damn! That is one hell of a list. And all of the things on it go for every other country on the planet affected by FATCA. Replace Canada with France, for example…. 🙂
Way to build off the 11 Things wrong with FATCA 🙂 Well done.
http://bit.ly/RBcJZl
I tweeted 12 Reasons to Jim Flaherty, Thomas Mulcair, Bob Rae, Elizabeth May, Ministry of Finance, Council of Canadians and Allison Christians.
AARO and FATCA Daily picked it up from those tweets, but the only reply was from Allison Christians (a tax law professor at McGill) Here are her tweets.
Allison Christians@taxpolblog
@LynneBlaze @CanadaFan124 @USCitizenAbroad Thorough. But three is usually the most workable number in policy. Compress to 3 big ideas?
Allison Christians@taxpolblog
@LynneBlaze @CanadaFan124 @USCitizenAbroad maybe in 3 themes. (1) US won’t take it’s own medicine
Allison Christians@taxpolblog
@LynneBlaze @CanadaFan124 @USCitizenAbroad (2) FATCA treats every person on the planet as guilty until proven innocent
Allison Christians@taxpolblog
@LynneBlaze @CanadaFan124 @USCitizenAbroad 3. FATCA is an unprecedented intrusion on states auth to regulate.
Allison Christians@taxpolblog
@LynneBlaze @CanadaFan124 @USCitizenAbroad I’m pretty sure all 12 points fit within these three themes.
Great suggestions.
Hopefully Canada will get a set of cojones. The rest seem to be dropping like flies.
“Barbados Formulating FATCA Response”
http://www.tax-news.com/news/Barbados_Formulating_FATCA_Response____59016.html
From the article:
“The Central Bank of Barbados has confirmed that the territory has established a Working Group to negotiate an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) with the United States within the next six months to facilitate compliance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).”
“The Central Bank said that in order to meet the January 1, 2014 deadline, the territory needed to adopt a proactive approach in recognition ‘that the growth and continuation of its vibrant international business sector depends on its compliance with this US initiative.'”
There seems to be an inherent conflict of interest between the banks which depend on having access to the US financial system vs. dual citizens and permanent residents who will be thrown under the bus called “citizenship-based taxation” via FATCA IGA agreements.
Yes, dropping like flies is right. I had hoped Barbados would be the ones to start the resistance, but obviously not. In reading the quote above, I had a problem with the mild word ‘initiative’, and I looked it up on dictionary.com, where one of the definitions is,
“to admit or accept with formal rites into an organization or group, secret knowledge, adult society, etc.”
Yep, that’s it, all right. Barbados has joined the society of Foreign Apathy Toward Coerced Assimilation -FATCA.
@John Brown: I hope Canada will hold out. If you have watched Jim Jatras at FATCA Forum, he thinks Canada is key to other countries holding off. I may be an eternal optimist, but I still don’t see how Canada can sign an IGA like US demands under current law and I don’t see how they can change current law without a change to Constitution or without a notwithstanding provision.
@Outraged: Good one! Here is what Just Me tweeted:
Marvin Van Horn ?@FATCA_Fallout
FATCA = Foreign Apathy Toward Coerced Assimilation via @LynneBlaze As good a description of FATCA IGA capitulation as I have seen
Here’s my reply to him: Blaze Blaze ?@LynneBlaze
@FATCA_Fallout Credit 4 IGA #FATCA = Foreign Apathy Toward Coerced Assimilation goes 2 Outraged Canadian–not to me
We make a good team though. My description of FATCA from US perspective is Foreign Attack to Control All while you have come up with a great one to describe the countries which are capitulating.