Letter to Minister of Revenue Regarding IRS Delay in Account Reporting

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Patricia Moon — Leave a comment

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In our September 18 ADCS blog post we advised you that, for whatever reason, the United States Department of Treasury will now permit a one year extension, to September 30, 2016, to turn over private bank account information to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, to comply with the U.S. FATCA law. However, the affected country HAS TO ASK FOR THE EXTENSION.

On September 18 we said on the blog:

“Well, it’s been quite a week. At approximately 4:45 p.m. today the IRS issued a notice confirming that the FATCA implementation date will be extended to September 30, 2016. As you know Canada has a Model 1 IGA. Assuming the correctness of the post in the above tweet:

Model 1 IGA Jurisdictions for Which the Obligation to Exchange Is In Effect — For those Model 1 IGA jurisdictions where the obligation to exchange is in effect now, Notice 2015-66 provides that FFIs in that country will be treated as FATCA compliant, and not subject to withholding, so long as the partner jurisdiction notifies the U.S. before September 30 that it requires more time, and “provides assurance that the jurisdiction is making good faith efforts to exchange the information as soon as possible.” Notice 2015-66 does not, however, change the deadline for FFIs to report information to their local tax authority, which remains governed by law of that country.”

We therefore instructed our legal counsel to notify the Government of Canada (and they have) of this development and request that the Government of Canada NOT disclose your banking information to the IRS.

— Today, September 21, we posted a new ADCS blog in which we specifically asked Canada’s Minister of National Revenue, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a defendant in our lawsuit, to apply for the extension before September 23, the date the private account information is due to be sent to the U.S. IRS.

We said:

September 21, 2015

The Honorable Kerry-Lynne Findlay,
Minister of National Revenue
House of Commons

Dear Minister Findlay,

We have an urgent time-sensitive request regarding our litigation in which you are a defendant, which we believe will be helpful to both plaintiffs and Government defendants, but which needs to be acted on no later than by end of business day September 22, 2015.

We are the chair and co-chair (and legal counsel) of the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty. We are the non-profit organization which is prosecuting the FATCA lawsuit against the Government of Canada. The lawsuit is “live”, “well” and expected to move to full trial in 2016. We are at: http://www.adcs.adsc.ca.

By way of background:

1. On February 5, 2014 the Government of Canada entered into a “Model 1” IGA agreement concerning the imposition of the U.S. FATCA (“Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act”) law in Canada.

2. On June 19, 2014 the Government of Canada enacted the FATCA enabling legislation through Bill C-31.

3. On July 1, 2014 FATCA became the law of Canada. The IGA required that Canada (via the CRA) report the banking information of those defined by the U.S. to be U.S. Persons to the IRS

4. The FATCA IGA required that the information be reported no later than September 30, 2015.

5. The Government of Canada has indicated to our legal counsel that it intends to report the banking information of those identified as “U.S. persons” to the IRS on September 23, 2015.

On the afternoon of Friday, September 18, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service issued Notice 2015-66, pursuant to which the deadline for the turnover of FATCA data (for countries with a Model 1 IGA agreement) has been extended for one year. Countries with a Model 1 IGA (including Canada) are no longer required to report to the IRS by September 30, 2015. It is required that Model 1 countries request this extension from the IRS.

See:

IRS extends FATCA Compliance Date for one year to September 30, 2016

Click to access n-15-66.pdf

REQUEST:
In light of the large number of Canadian citizens potentially affected AND in view of the fact that the Government of Canada and the Minister of National Revenue are defendants in the Deegan and Hillis lawsuit AND in view of the fact that the Government is NO longer required to transfer the FATCA data to the IRS we request:

That the Government of Canada apply for the extension, no later than by end of business day September 22, to NOT transfer the data with a view to meeting a September 30, 2015 deadline that is NO longer required.

Clearly, the Government of Canada, irrespective of its FATCA obligations to the United States, has the opportunity to not transfer the private banking information of innocent Canadian citizens to the United States Internal Revenue Service.

Your action in requesting the permitted delay in the transfer would be significant for both plaintiffs and defendants as we move down the litigation road.

Should you need more information I ask that you contact Mr. John Richardson our legal counsel and co-chair.

Sincerely,

Dr. Stephen Kish, Chair, Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty
John Richardson, Co-Chair and Legal Counsel

cc:
Andrew Treusch, CRA
John Ossowski, CRA
Kevin Shoom
The Honourable Joseph Oliver