Kamla: I never said to repeal it

“I made an inquiry as to whether there was an intention. We have not received a response anyway,” Persad-Bissessar told the House of Representatives yesterday during the debate on the Joint Select Committee report dealing with the Bill. “Perhaps, the Prime Minister (Dr Keith Rowley) will be good enough to tell if he raised this pressing issue” with Trump when they spoke on Sunday.

Persad-Bissessar, who moved a motion to amend one of the clauses to include a notification notice for the account holder to be notified before information on a bank account is referred to the US Internal Revenue Service and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (Fin- CEN). FinCEN cross checks the information and this may involve, she said, the account holder ending up in a tangled web.

Contrary to Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s assertion that only US citizen will be affected by the law, she said, the IGA (reporting model) says that US citizens, US residents, those in partnerships or in trust arrangements will be affected. Persons holding dual citizenship will also be caught in the arrangement.

Other than that, she said, the bank has to determine how a person was connected to the US.

“This comes back to breach of confidentiality and leakage of information, especially if the person is in public life where your business ends up - like it happened with a minister - by breach of confidentiality, onto the front pages of a newspaper,” she said. In addition, she noted that the IGA refers to the identification of the holder through “unambiguous indication of place of birth, current US mailing address of residence including a US post office box.” Persons with standing instructions to transfer accounts maintained in the US will also be affected, she said, particularly people who transfer monies to their children studying in the US.

“That is why we insisted on the notice requirement,” she said. It not only allows for due process but it allows a person to go to the bank and query why the information was being identified to send to the IRS.

“If you are not notified, you could be caught in a tangled web, and you know Uncle Sam,” she said, noting that the US authorities could not charge American gangster Al Capone on gun crimes, but they got him on tax evasion.