Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 37 Comments

From the CRA website (FAQs– FATCA):

6. Will my financial institution be asking me if I was born in the U.S.?

A financial institution complying with the Agreement will not be required to ask its account holders about their place of birth.

If a financial institution, applying the due diligence rules of the Agreement to its accounts, discovers any records connected to the account that have an unambiguous indication of a U.S. place of birth, the financial institution may treat the account as a reportable account or follow up with the account holder to obtain documentation that shows the account holder is not a U.S. resident or U.S. citizen.

A recent posting to IBS from BC Doc (from around the same time the servers went down):

RBC Direct Investing: The US Persons Round-Up:

I was helping a family member open an on-line investment account with RBC Direct Investments today. I couldn’t help but notice the many different ways RBC DI is trying to identify so-called “US Persons.”

Here are the questions asked by the on-line application:

Are you a U.S. Citizen or a U.S. resident for tax purposes?

If you answer yes, the next prompt is:

To comply with regulations, you will be presented with a W9 form with your application package.

Enter your US Social Security Number (SSN).

If you answer no, the next question is:

How many countries are you a resident of for tax purposes?

You are then asked:

Country of residence for tax purposes.

Next up is:

Enter your City of birth.

Followed by:

Enter your Country of birth.

Next up is:

Are you, the co-applicant, a U.S. Citizen or a U.S. resident for tax purposes?

If you answer yes, you are prompted to enter your US Social Security Number (SSN).

You also get the statement, “To comply with regulations, you will be presented with a W9 form with your application package.”

If you answer no, the next prompt is:

How many countries is the co-applicant a resident of for tax purposes?

This is followed by:

Co-applicant’s country of residence for tax purposes.

Co-applicant’s city of birth.

Co-applicant’s country of birth

Are you married or do you have a common-law spouse?

Is your spouse the joint applicant?

I think we can consider this a sign of things to come from Canadian banks and investment firms in the coming months. Forewarned is forearmed.

One more thing. A W-8BEN for is a part of the package. RBC-DI requires completion of the W-8BEN form so that Canadian citizens are given the more favourable 15% tax withholding by the US on their dividends (versus the standard 30% I believe if a W-8BEN is not completed). New on the W-8BEN are two questions:

City of Birth

Country of Birth

I have banked with RBC-DI since 2007. Prior W-8BEN forms did not ask city and country of birth.

The net has been cast!

My questions for today:

Why is RBC DI asking for country of birth if this information is not required by CRA?

If this information is not required, is it illegal for RBC DI to ask for it?

The questions about city of birth and country of birth on the W-8BEN appear to have been added by RBC DI. I don’t see these questions on the official IRS version of the W-8BEN.

Again, if this information is not required, is it legal for RBC-DI to ask?

37 thoughts on ““6. Will my financial institution be asking me if I was born in the U.S.?” (from the CRA website — FAQs – FATCA)”

  1. @noone

    **This said, immigrants are still screwed. They’re U.S. residents willfully evading their investment overseas.**

    We always considered ourselves as guests since we got the gc… legal right to live & work in the US… We pay taxes on everything we make in the US. As a guest with no vote or representation… why should we disclose everything we have… it wasn’t made in the US and taxes are taken care of in the other country… If it was made in the US… funds have been taxed already so we are being taxed twice on the funds… Its like we invite a house guest into our home… they may contribute to the household… then we decide… why should they have more funds then we do… if u want to stay in our home… Tell & give us everything u have to stay… If a large chunk of our retirement will be gone… More & more immigrants will seek social service help… we will have no choice but to become a drain on their gov’t budget…

  3. Lloyds bank in the UK was sued for discrimination.

    They went on record stating they do not ask question on “ethnicity.”

    Guess what? They were the first to start asking place of birth.

    A spokesman made the following comment;

    “Lloyds said in a statement: “While we cannot comment in detail on specific cases, it is important to stress that Lloyds Banking Group does not close accounts based on ethnicity; indeed, we do not ask our customers to disclose this information to us.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/28/iranians-uk-banks-closed-accounts-claim-racial-discrimination

  4. Several weeks ago a discussion arose at Sandbox regarding Scotia MacLeod.

    http://maplesandbox.ca/2014/anyone-else-getting-the-fatca-call/

    Here is what I posted:

    I did some checking around with investment advisers at full service brokerages.

    Contrary to what Johnnb was told, I was informed that Scotia MacLeod was not systematically calling their clients and asking the questions Johnnb was asked. However, IAs have been requested to ask about U,S, citizenship on their next routine contact with clients. Scotia MacLeod is supposedly not sending out W8-Ben forms to all clients.

    From RBC, I heard from several sources that there has been no request to ask clients about citizenship, although there is a question on the account opening form. The belief is that this question has been there under the existing QI rules for some time. One IA told me that known snowbirds were being asked about the time spent in the U.S. to make sure they didn’t exceed the substantial presence test.

    RBC did send out W8-Ben forms to all clients last year, whether or not they had U.S. investments.

    As an aside, last Fall I opened a Scotia ITRADE discount brokerage account. There was an odd question on the application just after the request for mailing address. The question was ” Resident of Country since (year)”.

    I had not seen that question on any other FI application.

    In the past, I have seen a question about how long have you been at the present address, especially on credit card applications.

  6. I just realized that the US might have painted itself into a corner. When it signed the IGA’s it let the partners exempt certain accounts we know are problematic. The UK ISA for example. If the US finds out about these then all well and good. It’s loads of money going to the IRS. Who gives a damn about the people.
    We all know the chances of the agreements being reciprocal is small but if they ever do become two way the US has shot itself in the foot. Nothing in the US-UK FATCA agreement exempts reporting of US accounts. Lets say HMRC gets a list of all UK residents with 529 plans from the US? That’s likely all gravy but it isn’t going to the IRS. It’s gravy for the HMRC. I though I heard that the UK has some terrible taxes on foreign mutual funds like the US but I don’t know the details.
    By being the bully the US has left itself open.

  8. @Neill:
    The US has stated without equivocation they will NOT reciprocate. Period. When IRS hornswaggled IGA signings , they said they would
    ‘work on’ reciprocation. They knew it was going nowhere.
    US Banks have been lobbying heavily in Congress to ensure there will NEVER be any sort of reciprocation.
    According to the Canada IGA it was supposedly signed in anticipation of that very reciprocity the US has made clear they have no intention of honouring.
    Sen Rand Paul and others have also made clear that FATCA, if implemented, could take down the US economy IF reciprocity were to ever be honoured.

  9. @All

    There is a possible story coming up in wsj next week and they are looking for anyone who has been queried by a financial institution; a short quote or two about what FATCA means to them and willingness to use name. No details about dollar amounts, etc. If anyone is willing to do this, pls email me t

    us.expatcanada at gmail dot com

  12. @BC_Doc, good work picking up on the RBC’s PR campaign ‘celebrating diversity’;
    so ironic and hypocritical – while having behind the scenes lobbied the Harper government for months or years to sign on to FATCA thus turning over all their Canadian accountholders for birthplace and national origin scrutiny and discrimination in order to notify a foreign power – the US;

    “#DYK that 1 in 5 Canadians were born outside of Canada? Where were you born? #diversity pic.twitter.com/y19dyhQu25 ”

    Keep us posted!

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