Last October, Canadian MPs Ted Hsu and Scott Brison issued a set of questions to the Canadian government on FATCA (on which I consulted). Today I received two pdfs with the Government's answers to the questions, and I have put them in dropbox in order to share them:
Here are the government's answers to Ted Hsu's questions.
Here are the government's answers to Scott Brison's questions.
Most of the questions remain unanswered for one of two reasons: (1) FATCA is US law, not Canadian law, so no one in Canada is in charge of enforcing it, and therefore most agencies have little or no information and (2) Canada is negotiating with the US on an IGA and so nothing can be estimated about the scope, cost, implications, or consequences of FATCA in Canada unless and until such agreement is in place. (costs to the government in negotiating and internal briefing on the law "have been absorbed within existing resource levels.")
More review to come.
I have thumbed through the question responses this evening. I might have more to say tomorrow. A couple of initial thoughts though:
ReplyDelete1. These responses were definitely prepared by the civil service and lack some of the political edge towards the NDP and Liberals I might have expected from Jim Flaherty.
2. The lack of involvement so far in FATCA matters by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Something that is significant as it the end of the day DFA is responsible for obtaining Cabinet approval for all international agreements including tax treaties.
3. I would really like to see the briefing notes that have been issued to Jim Flaherty over the past three years. These question responses all almost inviting someone to make an ATI request to do so. I really would like to know what the civil service is telling Flaherty about FATCA.