Wow, they got a really BIG and I mean BIG country to sign on.
http://www.fsitaxposts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/US-Denmark-IGA-model-1.pdf
Agreement is very similar to that of the UK except:
1. Small Financial Institutions with Local Client Base
A Danish Financial Institution that meets all of the following requirements:
a. The Financial Institution must be licensed and regulated under the laws of Denmark;
b. The Financial Institution must have no fixed place of business out-side Denmark;
c. The Financial Institution must not solicit account holders outside Denmark. For this purpose, a Financial Institution shall not be consid-ered to have solicited account holders outside of Denmark merely be-cause it operates a website, provided that the website does not specifi-cally indicate that the Financial Institution provides accounts or ser-vices to nonresidents or otherwise target or solicit U.S. customers;
d. The Financial Institution must be required under the tax laws of Denmark to perform either information reporting or withholding of tax with respect to accounts held by residents of Denmark;
e. At least 98 percent of the accounts by value provided by the Finan-cial Institution must be held by residents (including residents that are entities) of Denmark or another Member State of the European Union;
f. Subject to subparagraph 1(g), below, beginning on January 1, 2014, the Financial Institution does not maintain accounts for (i) any Speci-fied U.S. Person who is not a resident of Denmark (including a U.S. Person that was a resident of Denmark when the account was opened but subsequently ceases to be a resident of Denmark), (ii) a Nonpartic-ipating Financial Institution, or (iii) any Passive NFFE with Control-ling Persons who are U.S. citizens or residents;
g. On or before January 1, 2014, the Financial Institution must im-plement policies and procedures to monitor whether it provides any account held by a person described in subparagraph 1(f), and if such an account is discovered, the Financial Institution must report such ac-count as though the Financial Institution were a Reporting Danish Fi-nancial Institution or close such account;
h. With respect to each account that is held by an individual who is not a resident of Denmark or by an entity, and that is opened prior to the date that the Financial Institution implements the policies and pro-cedures described in subparagraph 1(g), above, the Financial Institu-tion must review those accounts in accordance with the procedures de-scribed in Annex I applicable to Preexisting Accounts to identify any U.S. Reportable Account or account held by a Nonparticipating Finan-cial Institution, and must close any such accounts that were identified, or report on such accounts as though the Financial Institution were a Reporting Danish Financial Institution;
i. Each Related Entity of the Financial Institution must be incorpo-rated or organized in Denmark and must meet the requirements set forth in this paragraph; and 33
j. The Financial Institution must not have policies or practices that discriminate against opening or maintaining accounts for individuals who are Specified U.S. Persons and who are residents of Denmark.
In one regard this announcement is relatively good news as I have had suspiscions they were intending to make announcement at the end that they signed with 50+ countries. Instead it looks like they are going out with announcements in dribs and drabs. It is still in my opinion weird for Denmark to be signing prior to lets say Germany.
This is being done to protect US persons living abroad? I have never in my life felt so much like I have a target on my back.
It looks like the US is trying to control the choices Danish financial institutions make instead of actually trapping/nailing US Citizens residing in Denmark. Now after this agreement, let’s say a Brazilian wants to open a non-resident account at a Danish financial institution, it looks like they won’t be able to, especially if it’s a large account. Denmark is a country, not a US possession. Haha, I can’t wait to see the reaction of the Danish people when they discover that the US is telling them what they can/cannot do.
Rodgrod, has this showed up in the Danish media yet?
It’s a nice idea to force financial service providers to provide services to resident “American persons”, but like someone else said elsewhere, this really boils down to something like this:
Under the present law obliging financial service providers to discriminate against American persons, discrimination against American persons is hereby prohibited.
In other words, it makes no sense.
For those of us “American persons” who transact business in other countries, this is also totally useless. I’m feeling especially sore at the moment because my account in Switzerland (one of the main sources of income for my small business) was just closed.
Here’s what PostFinance had to say:
Pressure on Swiss financial institutions has increased over the past few months regarding cross-border business with customers domiciled abroad. This particularly applies to relations with customers of U.S. nationality or whose domicile is in the USA. The PostFinance Board has therefore decided to cease business relations with customers domiciled in the USA or who are of U.S. nationality and are domiciled outside of Switzerland.
Translation: Americans (i.e. myself), go get fucked! The US Congress can enact unilateral laws regulating non-US banks, but they can’t make us assist you as you attempt to do business in Switzerland.
Color me sour.
Denmark was part of the Coalition of the Willing. I believe they sent 2 of their 3 Navy ships to Afghanistan. It is perfectly flat and infinite access from the Sea. I think it took a couple hours to fall to the Nazi’s.
This is the perfect front for the Scandinavian assault. Norway has strong ties, but being quite independent it would have been more difficult to take it without gaining previous territory. Now Sweden, who is not part of Nato, shall fall easier. Iceland with its previous banking issues should fall easily. Finland, although not prioritized, should not be a problem.
All of them have their own interest, in that their citizens have a vested interest in keeping their money in Delaware away from the 30% investment taxes, and many have wealth taxes to boot. Money laundering in the US has been in the media, as Ander’s Breivik’s mother was in the press for stashing loot in USA.
Australia is happily on its way to FATCA enjoyment
http://www.ato.gov.au/businesses/content.aspx?menuid=0&doc=/content/00332506.htm&page=6&H6&goback=%2Egde_3731046_member_187203789
All of these locations are of the utmost importance for USA, as we know that Homelanders come to low-tax-haven-Scandinavia to reduce their tax burdens.
Garbo, this is actually how I discovered this whole mess. I wanted an account in a stable country like Switzerland because where I live, the currency has a history of being unstable. When I applied at a couple of banks, they said “Sorry, no can do.” I asked why. They said “because you are American.” I still have screen prints from one of them saying that “Dealing with Americans is complicated.” I said “What about my wife?” They said “No problem.” Grrr.. that’s irritating because we didn’t choose where we were born.
Fast forward to today’s time and it seems like US Citizens choices for financial services are where we live and the US. I don’t really have such a hard time keeping some things in the US, but I like simplicity, and more “moving parts” can lead to headaches later. For example, I receive an incoming wire in the US. I declare it on my taxes here, but the US says I have to pay taxes on the income there. But I already paid here. It’s very confusing and complicated.
Denmark has absolutely no backbone when it comes to the USA. Nothing about this in the press and I sadly doubt that anybody would care.
Rasmussen is the head of NATO and is supporting Nato’s Afghanistan operations. I am sure he was heavily involved in the Libyan bombing campaign and now in weapons and money smuggling to the Syrian “rebels”. Ever wonder why only those rebels resisting NATO are “terrorists”?
The real joke is that Denmark, like Oh Canada!, not only has higher taxes than the US, but like Canada it has sold out its industrious white population in order to finance a socialist multiculti takeover by promoting the immigration of waves of uneducated, unskilled and less cultured third worlders.
In short, the socialists on both the left and the right who run Denmark only have tax revenue to gain by ganging up with Obama to serially rape white tax “cheats” like those who read IBS.
@Geeez
I am willing to predict that in the not so distant future it will become very difficult for US citizens resident abroad to maintain a bank account in the US. I have had a Fidelity account in the US for nearly twenty years. If I call them, they get extremely nervous about providing any information on my account or help of any kind because I am outside the US. They have already cancelled the credit cards linked to the accounts of any one with an address outside the US. Most of the account features available to US residents are not available to me. I’m expecting to get a letter in the future that tells me that my account is being closed and that I need to find someone else.
The easiest route to become compliant with FATCA is to limit the accounts that you offer in each country where you operate to resident citizens of that country. If you are not resident in the country of your citizenship, you will probably end up with your choice of a few global banks or FATCA exempt financial institutions like credit unions and building societies. In between, you will have a ton of mid-sized banks who will decide that it easier to deny services to everyone except resident citizens than to build the infrastructure to report every non-resident, non-citizen and US person. In order for a global bank to take you on, you will need to meet a very high account balance threshold. The first category of bank account to go will be those for non-residents.
*This remains as insane as it always has been. This does NOTHING to relieve the clear discriminatory practice being perpetrated by the US. US citizens living abroad are being treated this way due to birth alone. All of this will need to be ratified by the respective countries governments. I find it amazing that the following text is allowed to pass by the various lawyers eyes:
“For this purpose a U.S. citizen is to be considered resident of the U.S., even if they are resident somewhere else”
even if they are NOT. This contradiction would not pass the simplest inspection by a junior high-school English class. Yet it permeates these IGAs.
Fidelity plays the game back and forth. You can have a legal address and mailing address separately. You can avoid discussing where you are calling from. There was even a time if they detected that you were on a foreign server or IP address they blocked your internet access. Today they provide telephone numbers for all countries for those Americans that are “vacationing” abroad. The person answering the phone cannot see which number you called in from. If you mention during your call that you are overseas they are restricted from saying things so simple as how to negotiate through the website.
uhh, Denmark is a bastion of whitebread. It has one of the most anti-immigration structure of anywhere in Europe. An Eu resident (a status you can gain just short of “citizen” of an EU country) can allow you to work throughout Eu, anyplace other than Denmark, UK, or Ireland. I don’t think that one could even marry into citizenship in Denmark.
I would sure like to know why item j. in the agreement is included. It would be at the behest of the US government, presumably.
Edelweiss, Mark Twain,
That’s a little scary. From my understanding, US banks and financial institutions have discretion over allowing non-residents banking and financial services. At the very least, I think Citigroup has an offshore division (wooo.. “offshore” = dirty word.. hehe) or they used to. They seem to cater towards non-US expats living abroad.
http://www.citibank.com/ipb/europe/whoweare/whyoffshore/whyjersey.htm
Schwab also has a money market account with an ATM card and they don’t cover ANY foreign exchange fees from what I’ve heard. I don’t know if they give any issues about sending the ATM card overseas. Most of the offshore outfits, like Citigroup in Jersey, have too many fees, like 3% on ATM withdrawals so I would never use them.
RodGrod, that’s a pity to hear about Denmark. Maybe someone needs to pressure China into telling the US that they can’t do business with foreigners outside of the US. I don’t think they’d like that.
” The Financial Institution must not solicit account holders outside Denmark. ” So Denmark has signed a document with USA that counters with Eu law. hmmmmm.
“For this purpose a U.S. citizen is to be considered resident of the U.S., even if they are resident somewhere else”
Task, please tell me where I can sign up for Welfare, Section 8, and food stamps while living abroad. This is completely ridiculous! How can anyone live in 2 places at the same time!
The other day, I was thinking “What IF things really went south, and I had to leave here and go back to the US??” I went on some job boards to see what I could make working there. For my level experience (manager; 10+ employees), the pay isn’t very good. I think I would beg the Canadian government to let me in.
*Geeez,
Its worse. The meaning of the original plan to create “reciprocal” documents was that they would be just that. These IGAs are NOT. Denmark requires reporting for its own RESIDENTS. The US requires reporting for non-residents. This is blatant, discriminatory, and non-reciprocal.
*Also please note everyone. There are no signatures in place. This remains an attempt by the US to coerce more governments into thinking they need to act fast. All of these agreements need to be ratified by their respective Parliaments.
I skimmed through the PDF file. Something seems a little odd to me: They don’t touch on the Dual Citizenship Issue, at all I think. Basically the US is referring to us as “US Citizens that are resident” in the other country, Denmark in this case, even if they have Danish Citizenship. They should have said “US Chattle” which is more accurate.
What’s the situation on the Danish Constitution? At least here, the Constitution says very clearly that you are a citizen of this country when you live within its borders. This stuff smells like nothing more than a US bluff to me. The proponents of the FATCA seem desperate to get it approved. Whenever a country smacks it down, I’m going out to celebrate.
If I ever go to my bank and they ask me for my SSN <before I’m approved for citizenship here and relinquish US>, I WILL enter in with a lawsuit. What the response will be here, I don’t know. But I really don’t think anyone would like the idea of Uncle Sam stealing resources from here. The people are a little touchy already because of US involvement in the past.
Certainly Switzerland and other countries have wording in the Constitution along similar lines. I don’t know why you haven’t sued already if you had your account closed. If anything, it adds visibility to the case.
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How is the non-discrimination clause enforced? Will a Danish bank be forced into 30% withholding, etc., if it refuses to open accounts for Americans living in Denmark?
Citibank Japan and Fidelity Japan have long discriminated against US citizens living in Japan, refusing to open investment accounts for them because they didn’t want to deal with the IRS paperwork for them. If such a clause were put in the US-Japan IGA, would they be forced to change that policy?
@Foo
The non-discrimination clause only applies for a very small sub-section of financial institutions classed as “Small Financial Institutions with Local Client Base”. Citibank Japan certainly wouldn’t fall into this category and therefore the non-discrimination clause would not apply to them. Fidelity Japan possibly could qualify if it is a freestanding entity. I have been repeatedly told by Fidelity UK that they are entirely separate from the US operations and the only thing in common with Fidelity US is the shareholders.
The sanction for being guilty of discrimination is no longer being a Small Financial Institution with Local Client Base. In practice this doesn’t mean much. Instead of being in a category of financial institution that is “deemed compliant” you will have to demonstrate compliance by implementing all of the FATCA customer on-boarding and reporting procedures. The punishment for discriminating against US citizens is that you have to be fully FATCA compliant. The bonus for reaching FATCA nirvana is the ability to discriminate as you please.
Thanks for the clarification, Edelweiss.
Which reminds me, the Treasury’s own Treasury Direct website for buying US savings bonds discriminates against Americans abroad — they explicitly refuse to open accounts for US citizens without US addresses. Seems a bit hypocritical of them.
Interesting tidbit @foo, thank you for that piece of evidence.
@foo, @badger,
We’ve seen this same phenomenon over and over and over.
I’m trying to order a birth certificate from my home state for general record keeping purposes (because you never know when you might need something like that). I can’t do it online as it won’t accept a foreign address. They also won’t accept checks. I hope the person who opens my envelope applies the $20 bill I enclosed for its intended purpose and doesn’t just pocket it.