Finance committee  Liberal amendment LIB-3 ensures simply that Canadian law will take precedence over this agreement with the United States regarding FATCA and not the other way around.

Finance committee  Mr. Hannah, you've just described FATCA as enormously complex. This IGA is effectively a treaty between two governments. Should something so enormously complex be part of an omnibus bill with a couple of hours of study allocated to it?

Finance committee  Berg, the government argues that the IGA is the best way to prevent Canadian financial institutions from being subject to FATCA's non-compliance penalties. What is preventing private trusts and private holding companies from being in the definition of financial institutions?

Finance committee  Would you agree that the exemption of certain accounts—RRSPs, RDSPs, and TFSAs—from FATCA reporting only applies to Canadian banks but not to the dual citizens?

Finance committee  Minister, yesterday you told the House that when it comes to U.S. taxes owed by Canadians under FATCA, the CRA will not assist the IRS in collecting U.S. taxes. If this is the case, why does your budget bill include penalties against dual Canada-U.S. citizens who fail to provide their U.S. tax identification number to the Canadian government?

Finance committee  If they are considered a U.S. person under FATCA, and they don't want to be, what is the appeal process?

Finance committee  If a Canadian were to volunteer the information to the Americans or someone who is considered a U.S. person, a Canadian who's considered a U.S. person under FATCA, are they subject to federal U.S. taxes?

Points of Order  But, as a matter of practice, the House has established and operated on this custom of tabling for five years as formally enshrined and much longer than that if one looks at historical practice whereby governments have routinely informed Parliament of international agreements signed and ratified. While I and the Liberal Party of Canada have strong and profound disagreements with FATCA and its implementation, particularly as it infringes on privacy rights and the charter, forces the Canada Revenue Agency to do the IRS' dirty work, and infringes upon our sovereignty, I will save that for a debate for another day.

Foreign Affairs committee  Switching over to something that is international in scope, the Canada-United States enhanced tax information exchange agreement implementation act, which we tend to call FATCA, is in the budget implementation bill, Bill C-31, at this point. I would like to ask a question. Of course, it deals with the fact that we are going to be helping the United States, specifically the Internal Revenue Service,with information so that they can collect taxes from close to one million dual nationals in this country, I believe, who happen to be Canadian and American.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  That is part of the sacred compact that the current government is fighting to undermine through its lawyer in the Equitas lawsuit. I would like to talk about other elements, FATCA. Vancouver Quadra residents are very concerned about the impact of this—

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  This was embarrassing not just for the Conservatives but our citizens as well. There is some expertise at the finance committee studying FATCA, but there is also a need to work with other committees. Parliament could be mobilized and engaged more thoroughly if we did not have these kinds of disparate measures lumped together in one budget omnibus bill.

Finance committee  What I'm getting to is whether that would involve people whose accounts have to be given to the Americans because of FATCA. Would such payments be included in this shared information?

Finance committee  Given that confluence of factors, could Canada be playing a leadership role in building global governance, with the operative vehicle being the G-20, to create a more effective vehicle than FATCA?

Finance committee  So is FATCA the best game in town in terms of.... Not to make perfection the enemy of the good, but is that what we ought to be focused on? Is that the best way?

Finance committee  You've spent quite a bit of time with us over the years. You have expressed concern over FATCA, particularly over document retention requirements and the complexity of the act. But you've also spoken in favour of intergovernmental agreement processes the U.S. is developing with a number of European countries, including the U.K.