RepealFATCA.com Files
Freedom of Information Act Request on "Intergovernmental Agreements' with Canada,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom
Washington, DC : As noted previously , FATCA (the "Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act") cannot succeed unless the U.S. Treasury Department is successful in coercing a sufficient number of countries into enforcing this foreign (i.e., U.S.) law on themselves. The key mechanism for doing that is to impose legally questionable "intergovernmental agreements" (IGAs) that effectively gut the sovereignty of the "partner" country and force indiscriminate turnover to the IRS of personal financial information in abrogation of national privacy and data protection laws, all under false assurances of reciprocity .
RepealFATCA.com: getting rid of .the worst law most Americans have never heard of..
(Image by James George Jatras) Details DMCA
RepealFATCA.com: getting rid of .the worst law most Americans have never heard of.. by James George Jatras
On Monday, October 7, RepealFATCA.com filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA ) with Treasury to provide copies of records in connection with negotiation of IGAs with the governments of Canada , Switzerland , and the United Kingdom . The request covers " all departmental records (paper or electronic) concerning communications (emails, paper correspondence, or records of in-person meetings) between Treasury officials and officials of the three foreign states indicated above relevant to negotiation of IGAs with such foreign states, as well as departmental records concerning worldwide implementation of FATCA that may be relevant to the IGAs with any of the three foreign states indicated. " (The full text of the FOIA request is provided at the end of this bulletin.)
The RepealFATCA.com request comes at a crucial time. Of special note:
Canada : As previously reported, Murray Rankin, the "Official Revenue Critic" of the progressive New Democratic Party (NDP) , the chief Opposition party to the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has written to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty urging rejection of any IGA with the United States that isn't an equitable deal or that violates the rights of Canadian citizens and residents. The NDP's Shadow Prime Minister, Tom Mulcair, has since upped the ante in a letter to voters , endorsing Rankin's stand and even mentioning the dreaded "S"-word: "sovereignty"! Effectively outflanked on populism, human rights, and Canadian sovereignty by the NDP opposition, Flaherty -- who doesn't hide his dislike for FATCA and for Treasury's intransigence -- and the Harper government find themselves in a difficult position. It is not clear how they can rescue a Canadian IGA (no matter how much pressure some powerful financial interests might apply), and at this point they may not want to. More importantly for FATCA's evident global infirmity, it is even less clear how Treasury credibly can move FATCA without Ottawa's capitulation. A public protest against FATCA will take place on Parliament Hill on October 16 .
Switzerland : On October 3, a group of citizens' organizations launched
a drive for a referendum to nullify the
non-reciprocal IGA with Switzerland, which has already been approved by the
Swiss parliament. While reported in French ,
German ,
and Italian
language Swiss media, little has appeared in English and details are still sketchy. The organizations need to collect 50,000
signatures, which is considered doable, for a national referendum in early 2014
to overturn the Swiss IGA. If the signatures are successfully
collected and the vote takes place, there's a good chance the IGA would be
voted down, annulling it under Switzerland's unique brand of direct
democracy. The result would be that one
of the few significant financial centers that Treasury had considered "in the
bag" would be -- poof! -- back out, for good.
Despite legal exceptions for protected materials, FOIA requests have been used to good effect (by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center ) even on as sensitive an international topic as NSA surveillance programs -- a related matter, since FATCA data provided to the IRS would be passed on to U.S. intelligence agencies . Treasury has little excuse to withhold information indicating what promises and threats have been made behind closed doors, hidden from the American and international public, to induce reluctant foreign governments to sign one-sided FATCA "deals" that will cost their consumers hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to pay compliance mongers ready to cash in. (For example, the view of one Miami tax attorney : " From the perspective of a U.S. international tax attorney, we love FATCA for four reasons: complexity; uncertainty, with all the changes since 2010; change, with all the amendments and reforms to the law; and fear-mongering .")
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