Tag Archives: ADCS

@ADCSovereignty #FATCA Appeal – March 30, 2022 – Reporting On The Hearing In Twitter Time

As reported by American Expat Finance and the Isaac Brock Society, the ADCS-ADSC.ca FATCA appeal was heard on March 30, 2022.

As I watched the hearing I tweeted my thoughts. Win, lose or draw the goal is to get the case before the Supreme Court of Canada. Therefore, today’s appeal should be seen as an important step down that road.

I suggest that you:

1. Read this summary of the ADCS FATCA lawsuit to understand the context

2. Read this article from a Canadian law firm which references the FATCA lawsuit

3. Read the article at American Expat Finance

4. Click on the link below to see my thoughts and observations as the hearing unfolded.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1509210940167892997?refresh=1648676869

In addition, a bit more history on this lawsuit …

John Richardson – Follow me on Twitter @Expatriatonlaw

John Richardson Interview With Danielle Smith About FATCA and @Citizenshiptax

On November 12, 2019 CBC Reporter Elizabeth Thompson published an interesting article. The article, reported that “Nearly a million bank records sent to IRS“. Ms. Thompson’s article is quite brilliant for one simple reason. The article focuses on the fact that it is the bank records of CANADIAN RESIDENTS that are being sent to the IRS. Specifically the article leads with:

Number of government transfers of records of bank accounts held by Canadian residents to U.S. has been rising.

The number of banking records the Canadian government is sharing with U.S. tax authorities under a controversial information-sharing deal has increased sharply, CBC News has learned.
The Canada Revenue Agency sent 900,000 financial records belonging to Canadian residents to the Internal Revenue Service in September — nearly a third more than it sent the previous year. The records were for the 2018 tax year.

It also has updated the number of records shared for the 2017 tax year to 700,000 from the 600,000 originally reported.

“That’s a lot,” said John Richardson, a Toronto lawyer and co-chair of the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty, which is fighting the information-sharing deal. “That’s a lot of files.”

The number of financial records of Canadian residents being shared with the IRS has risen steadily since the information sharing agreement began — from 150,000 in 2014 to 300,000 in 2015 and 600,000 for the 2016 tax year.

Now, that (as reflected in the comments) is what got people’s attention! The article does not focus on FATCA (which is often portrayed in the media as tax evasion law). Rather the article focuses on the effect of FATCA and describes FATCA as:

The information transfer is the result of a controversial information-sharing agreement between Canada and the U.S. that was negotiated after the U.S. government adopted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

The law, adopted in a bid to curb offshore tax evasion, obliges foreign financial institutions to report information about accounts held by people who could be subject to U.S. taxes.

Unlike most countries, the United States levies income taxes based on citizenship rather than residency; some Canadians end up facing U.S. taxes because of an American parent, or because they were born in a hospital on the other side of the border.

The article makes the connection between the transfer of information to the IRS and the imposition of U.S. tax on the holders of those accounts! In other words, this information sharing agreement (called FATCA) is described as being for the purpose of helping the United States of America (that “Great Citadel of Freedom and Justice”) impose direction taxation on Canadian residents. Yes, it’s true.

First, the United States imposes worldwide taxation, according to the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, on certain residents of other countries.

Second, the U.S. Internal Revenue Code imposes a separate and more punitive tax system on residents of other countries (here are 12 different examples) than it does on U.S. residents (“Separate but equal” anybody).

Third, the information sharing agreement (referenced in the article) called FATCA is a tool to enable imposing U.S. taxation on the residents of Canada and other countries.

Fourth, the primary impact of FATCA is on individuals who were born in the United States but do not live in the United States. Individuals experience the impact of FATCA in the following two ways:

1. Impact Via The Tax Compliance Industry: It pressures them to comply with the tax and reporting provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. Some people enter the U.S. tax system and effectively agree to U.S. taxation.

2. Impact Via The Banks: In some countries people have experienced limited access to bank (and other financial) accounts unless they are willing to supply U.S. tax identification numbers.

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John Richardson – Follow me on Twitter @Expatriationlaw

MLex Reporter @PMerrion writes on @ADCSovereignty: "#FATCA regime goes on trial in Canada"

With just two weeks to go before the start of the ADCS-ADSC FATCA lawsuit, U.S. based MLex reporter Paul Merrion has written a nice piece about our upcoming FATCA Canada lawsuit.

The court documents can be accessed on the ADCS-ADSC site. For those who are not up to speed on what has happened so far, you might reference the “FATCA Trial: Law Students Edition” which is found on the Alliance blog.

How we got there – Canada’s Standing Committee on Finance May 2014

2019 – The Trial Begins In the Federal Court of Canada – January 28, 2019

Mr. Merrion’s article contains a nice summary of the legal issues, the impact of the outcome of the decision, a description of the plaintiffs, a summary of the legal issues AND (by discussing Representative Holdings’s 2018 bill) an acknowledgement of the role of “citizenship based taxation”.

You can read his article here which is posted with the permission of MLex® US Tax Watch and attribution to MLex® US Tax Watch.

MerrionFATCATrial (1)

MerrionFATCATrial

John Richardson

You can follow me at: @ExpatriationLaw

Supporters of @ADCSovereignty #FATCA lawsuit might be interested in @RunnymedeSoc Law and Freedom Conference – Jan. 12/19


Canada is a Westminster Parliamentary democracy. Historically it has had a constitution (British North America Act) which defined how Canada was to be governed. In simple terms: the Federal Government has the jurisdiction to legislate in some areas (example criminal law). The Provincial Governments have the right to legislate in other areas (property and civil rights). These laws are made by democratically elected legislatures. Prior to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (April 17, 1982), the only limits on the legislative bodies were jurisdictional. Any law could be enacted. It was just a question of whether it was the Federal Government or the Provincial Government that could enact the law.
In 1982 the Charter of Rights became part of Canada’s constitution. The Charter imposed limitations on the powers of elected legislatures. In other words, there were certain areas of activity that were presumptively beyond the reach of legislatures.
The Alliance For The Defence Of Canadian Sovereignty FATCA lawsuit is a Charter of Rights lawsuit against the Government of Canada. Our claim is the Government of Canada does not have the right to enact the legislation which requires banks to (1) Search for customers who are U.S. citizens and (2) then turn their account information over to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. In general terms the arguments are based on the theory that by so doing the Government of Canada has violated Charter Rights which include the:
– S. 15 Equality rights; and
– S. 8 rights against unreasonable search and seizure
of Canadians.
Essentially the court will be asked to rule that the laws enacted by a democratically elected legislative body (the Parliament of Canada) violate the Constitutional rights of Canadians.
In other words: Does a democratically elected legislature prevail or do the rights of individuals prevail?
Supports of the our FATCA lawsuit might frame the question this way:
Should we have rule by law (the legislature prevails) or rule by justice (the law should be declared unconstitutional)?
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On January 11 and 12, 2019 the Runneymede Society is running its annual law and freedom conference. In general terms, the Conference is designed to debate the question of whether there should be limits on the powers of democratically elected legislatures. If so, what should those limits be? How does S. 1 of the Charter interact with the rights enshrined in the Charter? This should be of interest to all of those who are interested in the ADCS-ADSC FATCA lawsuit.
You can attend the Conference by Facebook and follow the conference on Twitter
Twitter – Hashtag = #RSCON19
Facebook live –


John Richardson