I truly thought Russia would be a FATCA hold out. Not if this article is correct: Russian Banks May Soon Be Subject to US Monitoring Regulations (picked up from Noble Dreamer and Just Me on Twitter)
Especially scary is this statement: Banks “have no choice, though, since they will otherwise become outcasts: compliance with FATCA has been virtually accepted by the global community.”
If Russia caves, who will be next?
@Blaze
It does look like Russia will absolutely reach an agreement with the U.S. on FATCA. It sounds like they just haven’t chosen which ‘poison’ they will use. I notice in the article they actually speak to ‘new national laws’ in order to comply.
All, I think all will follow the Fatca Train, I hate it but believe it is going to happened..A funny thing happened to me with my online banking. I tried to login and it would not accept my password, email etc. Then all of a sudden it took me to the security question. Well you usually pick what security question you want asked. I have alway’s picked the question, what is your favorite dog’s name.. Well to my surprise the question came up Where were you born?? I thought what in the world I have never picked that question before, so I typed in the city but not the State or Country..At the time it did not dawn on me at all that it could have something to do with Fatca or could it.. I have never ever seen that question before and I would never pick that as a security question, I have always picked the same question.. Well so I had to call the bank because even when I typed it in, of course it did not work..It was so strange too me.. I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, this is how they are finding out place of birth HA!! It was odd for sure…
@Saddened
It was probably a ‘glitch’ in the online banking system. The question “Where were you born” is actually a common question used for security on a variety of online sites.
I really don’t think you need to worry about it.
@Tiger, Just being Paranoid I guess.. Ha!!
I just don’t see anyway still how FATCA is sellable in the Canadian political arena. Even when faced with annihilation of the entire Canadian economy history has shown the citizenry of this country would rather fight and die so to speak. What is interesting is the article from Russia is the banking industry is admitting that legislative changes will be necessary and required other than option 4 and 5 which are basically refusing to comply. So in the context of Canadian politics I don’t see how you get the legislative changes through Parliament.
Blaze
One thought on mine over the past few days has been the following. I would consider accepting FATCA if 50%+1 of the Canadian electorate voted so in a national referendum ala Charlottetown and 1942 Conscription. This is not a firm and final position of mine but it is what I am increasingly leaning towards as to what might be an acceptable decision making process for FATCA in Canada.
@Tim: Yep, I think as soon as Canadians from Pakistan, India, China or Russia is asked to vote on whether they should have to prove to Americans they were not born in US, FATCA would be a dead deal.
But, we all know what can happen in elections. Take Toronto as an example. It seems to be impossible to find more than one person in ten who admits to voting for the current Mayor.
After reading this article some more I am heartened by the fact it makes clear that Governments like Canada will still have to make some type of decision even in the case of option #3. It also argues that in reality for the banks option 3(which is the easiest in terms of Ottawa politics)is almost as bad for the banks as 4 and 5. One of the interesting things is if you watch the video posted on Brock of that J. Richard Harvey guy speaking in Switzerland he admits that option 3 is pretty difficult for the US government too.
Essentially Option 3 is the easiest for Ottawa because the can say complying with FATCA is a “private” business decision for “private” banks to make notwithstanding Canadian privacy law of course.