Washington lawyer, lobbyist and former U.S. diplomat has filed a reqest for information on negotiations with Canada, Swizerland and the UK.
You go James!
I must also credit James with helping Victoria and me with our two most recent FATCA articles. He pointed us to OpEd News for the We Are Not Myths articles.
He also provided us with the information from the European Chamber of Commerce and HM Revenue and Customs about the costs of FATCA for FFIs. That information is one of the biggest myth busters of all.
Thanks James!
Great “next move,” James Jatras. We’re so fortunate to have you in this fight!
Didn’t Sophie Int’ Veld try that before?
Without being negative, I am afraid that the request will take forever and he will get the same result as Sophie: a bunch of blacked out documents that don’t give us more info than we already have.
But we will see. This is a good move and worth trying. I wished he included France in his request as well.
The only part that would be interesting is the conversations that were related to citizenship based taxation, and the impact on joint accounts for non US citizens. We know the rest is just conversations about what products should or should not be included. I wished foreign governments would have stayed firm on the condition that this should only apply to non residents.
Even if the attempt doesn’t get results, it’s still another card being pulled from their flimsy FATCA house of cards. so to speak.
Will it do any good? It might and so I think it’s worth trying.
I’d like to add my thanks as well. James has been both encouraging and very helpful. It is deeply appreciated.
Chris—Moodys, the tax people, recently used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information (“all correspondence, notifications, and talking points”) that showed that the US was violating the tax treaty with the UK (and probably with all other countries) when it implemented the Obamacare surtax without informing its treaty partner. In this case it was the absence of a notification that constituted proof. This provides some proof of concept that the FOIA approach might work.
I think that James Jatras’ request for info on the negotiations is a great angle.
If nothing else, a FOIA application shows that people are watching.
And a blacked out document demonstrates just how much material relates to information that is being kept from voters, taxpayers and citizens – of the US and the potential IGA countries. A blacked out document is very dramatic and visual proof of the cloak and dagger means being used to bind the citizens of all the countries concerned.
Useful also as a potential record of which Canadian officials are involved and what has been said on record. Canadian voters, citizens and taxpayers deserve to know what Canada binds them to.