Finance committee  Canada is not a tax haven, and has a good reputation for sharing information that assists other governments in collecting their taxes. Unfortunately, an exemption from FATCA was not considered. Without this exemption, obligations to comply with FATCA would have been unilaterally and automatically imposed on Canadian financial institutions and their clients.

Finance committee  My concern is what that does for the million U.S. citizens in Canada, because they're by-products of that. FATCA's not designed to get at them. They're sort of collateral damage, if you will. So I'm trying to figure out a way that we can make their compliance burden easier, because FATCA is probably not going away.

Finance committee  We need to make clear we won't take part in any enforcement in any form of assistance, whether it be in information or collection when ·it comes to Canadian citizens. I believe that is the spirit in which the government has accepted the terms of FATCA in the bill before the committee today, but this spirit must be reflected in the law. We cannot use a phrase like "information gathering” to blind ourselves to what is really occurring.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Does he not think that it is important to ensure that we are able to cover that off? The second question is with respect to the FATCA provisions. Given his tremendous length of experience, he would know that FATCA is a U.S. law. The U.S. is going to implement it as it has against other countries already. Is it not better to see an information exchange through CRA and the IRS that takes into account the existing privacy provisions for that information as opposed to going to FATCA anyway and the U.S. negotiating individual deals with each individual bank that could have serious problems with privacy concerns?

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  There are two places in this bill where Canadians’ privacy is attacked. To begin, my colleague has just talked about FATCA, and that is indeed the first element. The second element is the sharing of information between the Canada Revenue Agency and the police. We will start with FATCA. We know that FATCA is an acronym that refers to an American law.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  He spoke of an exemption. He is half right. There is an exemption for Canadian banks under FATCA, but there is no exemption for Canadian citizens under FATCA. Regarding these registered plans, for which there ought to have been an overall exemption for Canadian citizens because of the matching grants, the government did not negotiate a good deal in Washington.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  We should challenge it in international court. These experts say that we should stop the introduction of FATCA, ensure that it does not violate our charter rights, protect the privacy rights of Canadians, and not rush into this. I urge the House to pull FATCA out of Bill C-31.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Second, has the government calculated how much money would be going to the IRS from the Canadian treasury as a result of FATCA and the provisions of this bill?

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  All those were not included because of Canada's strong intergovernmental agreement with the U.S. on FATCA.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  He sits with the opposition members on the finance committee. I thought we had a very conclusive and thorough debate on the implications of FATCA to American citizens living in Canada and their tax obligation, which they have always had. However, now it will be legislated through the United States. We believe FATCA is charter proof and the Privacy Act will not be impinged by FATCA.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Professor Hogg's letter, dated December 12, 2012, was advice to Finance Canada that what he saw in FATCA definitely violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically section 15 of the charter, which says: Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination...

Finance committee  I'm getting a fair amount of correspondence on this, as you can imagine. When I'm phoning people back I'm asking if they are talking about FATCA or the IGA. Many people actually believe FATCA is Canadian legislation that is somehow included in Bill C-31. So when I explain the difference in that FATCA is U.S. legislation that takes effect whether the Canadian government acts or not and the IGA is in fact a response to that....

Finance committee  I think people do confuse FATCA with IGA, where in fact the IGA displaces FATCA. It says instead of FATCA we'll do this, so that is an important point. I would also say that as a result of FATCA and the discussion around it and FBAR a couple of years ago I think there are a number of Canadians, accidental Americans, or otherwise, who are kind of becoming aware of the issues of U.S. citizenship taxation.

Finance committee  It also saves us from knocking on the doors of taxpayers who are otherwise compliant that we shouldn't be knocking on. Just a clarification though, FATCA isn't going to be in...it's not necessarily analogous in the sense that....

Finance committee  I know as we were looking at implementing and putting together the IGA, the intent was to find a way for Canadian financial institutions to be able to respond to and respect the obligations that the FATCA is imposing on financial institutions globally and to do it in a way that would provide them with, if you will, the protections of the existing tax treaties for information exchange that we have with the United States.