…He was asked to sign a declaration that the account and all the money in it had been reported to the tax authorities in his home country and he had paid everything that was due on it.
The man refused and then came the next surprise: The bank refused to let him withdraw his money. He explained that he didn’t speak Hebrew and wanted the declaration to be read and translated by a lawyer. He reminded the bankers that he was a client of long standing and had been told when he opened his account that he would not be asked questions like that. It was all to no avail.
…
Related (from another Brocker):
I remember reading a lawyer wrote that all the g7 wanted fatca type reporting…the u.s took the lead…the rest will follow..the Israel has fatca type arrangements with Europe…probably the igas crush everything related to privacy so it’s easier now.
Here is the fax of Bank Hapolaim, an Israeli bank, requiring Canadians and EU member residents and/or immigrants (or CFCs) from those locations sign away their rights similar to US citizens: Israeli Bank(s) Declaration — shall apply with respect to any existing Account and any future Account, if relevant
The current Prime Minister is for all cultural purposes an American. His mother went back from OHIO so her son would be a Sobra (probably spelled wrong). Most Israeli’s were foreign born just as our early heroes were.
He is also a conservative with strong civil liberties beliefs. I am shocked that he didn’t tell Obummer to kiss his a_ _ and go away. They can’t stand the site of each other. I am sure I know what Netanyahu called him in private, but he must have yielded for the sake of the foreign aid his country gets from us. That is my only explanation and it saddens me that the conservative Jews who will save the country from the uncivilized hoards that surrounds them, has to swallow the crap their Supposed friend has dished out.
Here are some worldwide examples of what FATCA is doing to ordinary US citizens abroad :
https://www.democratsabroad.org/sites/default/files/2014%20FATCA%20Research%20%20Stories%20of%20FATCA%20-%20Affecting%20Everyday%20Americans%20Every%20Day.pdf
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-open-for-comments/comment-page-67/#comment-3756792
( Bloomberg, October 29, 2014: “Global Data-Sharing Accord Expands Push to Find Tax Cheat “ )
When is your money not really your money? – – when it’s in a bank.
The writing is on the wall re bank exchange of information, but what makes the US ‘exceptionally horrible’ is citizenship based taxation. As we at IBS all know well, if the US went to RBT the vast bulk of the parade of horrors caused by CBT and FATCA would disappear.
On a separate subject, I legally changed my first name and was pleased that neither of my banks in SE Asia (using my national ID card not my passport) raised any FATCA questions when I changed my name on my account. Crazy isn’t it? – to be stressed out just walking into a bank as to what they will ask/will do to you.
Too bad legally changing a birthplace can’t be accomplished just as easily.
That would also fix CBT and FATCA. In fact, being able to change one’s birthplace is far more likely to happen than the US changing to RBT.
The US gouvernment is just a bunch of imperialistic Nazis desriminating it’s own citizens with citizen based taxation, just like the Royale English did wich led to the US revolution and independance and the Nazis did to their own citizens.
Now, history has allready shown us where that leads.
I’m running free, applied for French nationality and am going to give up my US citizenship right away to be free with no regret at all. I’ll feel releived when this will be done.
I’ve been living in France since 1975 and didn’t even know about IRS and FATCA until a week ago from my bank!!!
IRS can go fly a kite on Mars as far as I’m concerned. I feel betrayed, deceived, very bad about being an american now and am furious at the US of A.
This is going to do a lot of harm to the United States economy. So be it, they’ll collapse faster that way. That country is doomed anyway with it’s gigantic debt.
But of course, for americans that have been sent abroad to work for a couple of years, it’s not the same story.
My advice. Americans abroad, get naturalized in the country you live as fast as you can if your living in a normal civilzed country of course. Today, it’s better to be a citizen almost anywhere else than be an american. You can always get a visa to go back to the states if you have to.
The Agence France Presse is rather more informative on the topic.
Now why would the Obama administration not sign up to the worldwide agreement they pretended to want all along. Two reasons:
1. They don’t intend to reciprocate.
2. They refuse to give up on CBT.
If this new initiative is successful, then the US may find itself isolated. The drop dead dates for reciprocity in the IGAs will roll around in 2016. The reason most countries signed up to FATCA without too much argument was that they also see international tax evasion as problem that they wanted to deal with. FATCA requires banks to install the systems necessary to administrate this. They realise that a system that tracks US persons can easily be changed to track German or Canadian persons. Now they have the chance to install the fair version of FATCA – the one works by residence not citizenship.
@Johnson
I completely agree with your analysis Also Russia has recently said that it will adopt CBT, which it is threatening to do in three to five years (so 2017 to 2019). I would expect a lot of countries (not to mention banks) to use that to push back against the concept. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how the U.S. reacts when Russia starts trying to tax Russian citizens in the U.S.
@Steven; “I’ve been living in France since 1975 and didn’t even know about IRS and FATCA until a week ago from my bank!!!”
We feel your pain…..so sorry you learned the facts of life so late in life……
It was far easier being at IBS watching the wave slowly come to shore then when it hit, it was not so bad.
Your advice to others is magnifique.
@Publius, I am encouraging and actively lobbying my representative in parliament and their Party to adopt retaliatory CBT.
I have also started to urge contacts in the Irish and Greek governments to adopt retaliatory CBT. Just think of the number of Irish and Greek Americans up and down the east coast!!! They should be sending tax back to their homelands and then take a credit against US Taxes!!!
@Johnson, after looking at the OECD website and model agreements that they posted I can see why the US will not sign on to the agreement.
This will rightly end the concept of shell corporations, shell trusts, nominee shareholders and nominee trustees.
It will put Deleware, Wyoming and Nevada out of business. Oh, I have also encouraged my parliament to retaliate and prevent these US states from soliciting any EU Persons doing business with them!!!! Goose meet Gander meet Pot.
@George
“Just think of the number of Irish and Greek Americans up and down the east coast!!! They should be sending tax back to their homelands and then take a credit against US Taxes!!!”
Afraid it won’t work because Ireland and Greece don’t use citizen based taxation, only the crummy US of A does.
What we should all really do is stop buying american (Apple, Dell, Ford, Boeing planes etc…), that would definetely hammer the nail on the head.
Let’s encourage the slogan “As long as FATCA lives, I’m not buying American”.
I’m going to tweet that :).
George: I repeat a comment I made to you some months back. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I hope to God that more nations do *not* adopt CBT. How does it help our situation for even more innocent people to be punished for the “crime” of living outside their native lands? CBT *must* end … on this entire planet.
Time to wake up
Rockefeller, Morgan and Rothshild are behind all this. They are the ones that own the federal reserve bank. They are the ones who lend money to the US that we have to paye back to. The IRS is part of them. It’s a financial mafia.
Whatch THRIVE from 35th minute and on and you’ll get the whole picture.
@MuzzledNoMore. I understand your point perfectly, but if a few other major nations adopted CBT it would expose the practice for the ridiculous, unworkable, anachronism that it is.
The only reason the US is able to get away with it is because it is the only country (except for insignificant Eritrea) doing it. World taxation chaos would soon be the result if more major countries adopted CBT.
Thanks for the link, JC: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-open-for-comments/comment-page-68/#comment-3771132
@Maz57, “World taxation chaos would soon be the result if more major countries adopted CBT.”
Thats how you bring it down!!!!
@George, @Muzzled. Funny you would post that! I was reflecting on my previous comment to Muzzled and logged back on to add that I believe that is the ONLY way the scourge of CBT can be eliminated.
There is no chance the US will move to RBT on it’s own. But if other countries go for their own version of CBT, the US will, of course, refuse to give up resident foreign citizen’s information to those other governments. Once the other countries realize the US will only allow a one way information flow, they will know they have been duped by the US promise of reciprocity and the whole thing collapses. Unfortunately, a very difficult transition period would occur before the dust settles.
CBT can only be enforced with the cooperation of other governments. That’s why we have FATCA in the first place. The US likes to take but will not give. The drop dead clauses in some of the IGAs may also expose the US’s unwillingness to cooperate once the agreements are declared null and void.
@George
As long as the CBT is only retaliatory. So if Russia and U.S. want CBT, then they also have to agree to other countries granting CBT against them, The problem is that only the EU acting as a single actor would have enough bargaining power to make this work and I think that such things are out of its jurisdiction.
That the EU did *not* act as a single actor with respect to FATCA indicates what we should expect from it in the future.
FATCA Debuked read on : http://www.aaro.org/banking/424-fatca-update-and-french-inheritance-law
May not be as bad as it seems for ordinary americans living abroad
Always reported – The U.S. is not signatory… http://cooconnect.com/news/oecd-introduces-further-investor-reporting
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/black-money-case-fallout-india-pulls-out-of-multilateral-information-sharing-agreement/509414-7.html
Despite the good works of those at this site and others, I remain gravely concerned. Yesterday I attempted to inform my colleagues at a school we teach at in Japan of the situation we are all in by telling them about the experiences of a friend of mine. I prefaced the “discussion” with an email compilation if this friend’s emails to me on the subject. Following these, I have added my email to him telling him of the reaction I received.
Before that, however, it may be best to let you know a little about who I am. I am an American citizen who has lived most of my adult life in Japan. My spouse and our toddler are Japanese. I became aware of this problem around two years ago when applying for a new passport. There were statements on the application that I knew to be illegal. Searching into that issue lead me to your website and, well, you’ve been there, you know the rest.
These are emails sent to me by a friend who also teaches English in Japan. He is a British national, his wife Japanese and their child dual.
I added the dates the email were sent. I changed our names in the below mails. I am “Y” and he is “X”.
2014 Jan 06
“Wow Y
This is getting ridiculous-I have to answer about dollar assets I have to my British stockbroker IN BRITAIN or they’ll freeze my account
Also, do I live or even visit America and how many days a year I go there
X”
2014 Jan 09
“Sample questions:
Do you have one US parent?
Were you born in the US?
Do you have any US assets?
Do you work for a US created corporation ?
If yes then you need to fill in a form for US tax information”
2014 Nov 02
“Hello Y
Looks like you were ahead of the game.Japan has joined a tax agreement with the US and as a result I am persona non grata worldwide.
My overseas share dealing account in the UK is being closed down and I have to get out of Dodge. I phoned a US trading company and they won’t deal with Japanese residents; even banks in Luxembourg won’t go near anything Japanese as they have to report to the Japanese Govt.
It’s quite ironic really as Japanese banks themselves are not so keen on me either.
Welcome to the brave new world of globalisation ( for the filthy rich with personal accountants).
Cheers
X”
Later same evening.
“An overseas bank which has an account of a Japanese resident must now send details of that account to Japan and those countries now include Australia which has also signed up to the agreement.
Any country signed up to the agreement can demand that foreign banks send them info on residents who have accounts with them ,which means for the banks it’s too much trouble to bother with so just refuse them accounts.
Japan signed the law in 2012 and it came into effect in July 2013.
Cheers
X”
Later yet, same evening
“In fact technically you are not even allowed to ACCESS the website of an overseas bank from Japan
One bank sent me a mail by error which stated:
“This is not allowed to be sent to Japan”.”
Email sent by me to X on Nov 5, 2014
“Boy that went over like a fart in church. “What, you’re bringing that up again! We’re not American, it does apply to us, I don’t care!” And the Canadian who shouted this gathered her belongings and angrily left the room.
“Well, there only going after the rich, so we don’t have to worry” and similar, a very common reply. “Oh, so it is OK to deny those you label rich their rights?” I ask. “That’s just the way we are heading, we just have to prepare to pay taxes to two countries .” To which I replied, “You’re not listening, you won’t be paying a thing, you’ll have your bank accounts closed because the banks are not allowing themselves to become unpaid tax collectors. My friend isn’t being forced to pay tax to Japan on interest earned in his British accounts, his accounts were closed.”
“Oh, don’t worry, it will all change back in ten years.” Was one reply, this from an Australian. “Yeah, well how do you live with out a bank account for ten years?”, I asked. No answer.
Another common reply is “Well in that case I’ll just pull my money out right after every payday.” I ask “From what will you pull your money out of!”. “My bank account”. “The one that has been closed?”. Blank stare.
My fate, and worse, the fate of my spouse and child rests on my ability to wake such people up to the danger before it is a reality to them. I am truly depressed.
How is your wife reacting to this. Mine’s reaction is very close to those of my coworkers related above.”
How do we, I, get such people to listen? They have no patience for anything that might upset their world view, just bat everything aside and reply in a manner that has nothing to do with what was just said. By the time it’s a reality to them, it will be too late. I have offered them this website’s address, none have bothered to check it out.
People only care when the are concerned about a problem, wich will soon be reality for all of them.
FATCA is allready doing a lot of damage to the american economy, so, USA is going to become VERY concerned about giving up FATCA soon.
The republicans want to repeal FATCA and, now that they have just won the elections, let’s hope they move fast.