Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 84 Comments

 

Americans unable to open financial accounts. In CANADA!

 
 


 
 
While I don’t believe this is the first instance, I think we should start keeping a record of these and will look into a sidebar link so the discrimination is all in one place.
 
 

84 thoughts on “The Ripple Effect is Here”

  1. I’m pretty sure I know how I would answer that question. Is it time to start debating about the morality of lying again?

  2. Oh I hope not White Cat!

    I really just want to compile a list and know other people have mentionedf other institutions who are doing this. I don’t know where to look.

  5. I went to the site and to pre-qualify for an account you have to answer that US citizen question, I pretended I was one, and the reply was

    “Unfortunately Canadian Direct Financial is unable to open accounts for U.S. Citizens or U.S. Residents”.

    It has gotten real in Canada! I cannot believe this!! I will donate again to ADCS.

  8. Good idea, Tricia, to have a list of Canadian financial institutions that will not serve US Citizens or US Residents (for tax purposes) and to pass that information onto Joseph Arvay and team.

    [As far as opinions on the morality of lying about our individual *US-defined US citizenships*, that decision is up to each individual after their full research and given their own level of risk. It is not the purpose of Isaac Brock Society to determine our individual decisions. If anyone wants to go back to that prior thread of different commenter views, I can find it and direct readers there.]

    I hope we can keep discussion on this thread about Canadian (and we might include other country) institutions who are now openly implementing this discrimination by national origin upon us.

  10. Tricia, Calgary,

    I wasn’t trying to suggest that we go back to that debate again, on either thread. I’m sorry if it read that way. That topic has been debated thoroughly enough already at IBS.

  11. Our useless MP in St Thomas, Joe Preston, told me shortly after his Conservative government signed the deal with the devil (IGA with Obama) that Canadians would not lose their banking due to Fatca. Wow, I wonder if he cars about this? This is now all out war with OUR government and we need to do whatever we have to to protect our selves and our families from our government sponsored extortion. fake id’s and paperwork to protect ourselves from the USA is all we can do other than fully support the court challenge. Simply amazing and disgraceful to see what our government has done!

  12. I saw this information in IBS comments yesterday and took the opportunity to comment on Maple Sandbox about the shocking news. Lynne Swanson is forwarding this information to Joe Arvay.

    This is the first instance that I have seen of Americans being unable to open accounts in Canada, even if they live here and are Canadians as well. Although it may be happening at other FI’s. This sure sounds like discrimination to me.

    It is a wise move to say goodbye to the big banks and open accounts at credit unions. Just be sure to check the credit union’s FATCA reporting status first as some are FATCA reporting and others are exempt.

  13. @Joe Smith. I opened an account at CDF because at the time they offered the highest interest savings account in Canada. They are still very competitive and so far they have not tried to FATCA me. I don’t expect they ever will because there is absolutely no hint of US indicia in my customer profile.

    This is not the bank’s fault. They have simply made a business decision (probably a wise one). Let’s lay the blame where it really belongs….the Harper government that enabled this FATCA abomination in our country.

    As far as I can tell, if one answers no to that question the online application will proceed normally.

  14. @NativeCanadian, Where do we get these fake id’s? (kidding! I would never do it, and not recommend doing it)

  15. While opening an account at a fairly small bank recently, I was asked “Are you a US taxpayer” and I quite truthfully answered “no”. Maybe they should have rephrased their question to “In the opinion of the US government, are you supposed to be a taxpayer?”

  16. I’m not an american for tax reporting purposes. How could I? I don’t pay U.S. taxes!

    Lying? It’s up to you. But I did because it was the moral thing to do, just like certain persons did during WWII in Nazi Germany. The U.S. government and bureauocracy, and big big big businsess have Nationalist Socialist tendencies. Just like Canadian goverment and big big big businesses have.

    It’s all too sad but worth fighting the fight. How do I contribute to the cause?

  17. The day I became a Canadian citizen 20 years ago, I called the US Consulate and asked if I was still a US citizen. She asked “Did you intend to give it up when you became a Canadian?” I said yes. She then said: “Then you are not a US citizen.” End of story.

  18. As I speculated elsewhere yesterday, this may well turn into a little game banks and customers play once everyone figures it out. The bank asks the question, the customer lies and says no, the bank opens the new account, and everyone’s happy. If it ever becomes an issue the bank can say “we did our part, better talk to the customer”. The customer can say, “they asked a question that the IGA says they are not required to ask. I wanted the account so I gave them the answer I wasn’t required to give”.

    That’s the inherent fatal flaw of FATCA; it depends on everyone doing exactly the right thing at every step along the way. If there is a fault with any link of the chain, the whole thing collapses. Most of the links are well beyond the reach of the US government.

  23. In Australia, the new Amended Terms and Conditions from the Australian Commonwealth banking system, reflecting their new “international obligations”[read: FATCA], states on page 3: “withhold an amount from a payment to you if required to do so [read: required by the IRS], and if we do, we will not reimburse you for the amount withheld; and/or take such other action as is reasonably required, including, for example, closing your account.” https://www2.commsec.com.au/media/58541/sharetradingtermsandconditions.pdf

    In addition, the Australian Members Equity Bank (ME Bank) now requires people applying for home loans to certify that they are not US citizens. I would imagine most financial institutions here now have a similar policy as it is far cheaper to simply exclude rather than do the required reporting . The big question is will they start closing existing accounts? According to a discussion with one tax expert, failure to comply with IRS demands will result in bank closure of accounts. For a US citizen with an Australian spouse this means having to hire a FATCA tax professional to do the complex paperwork can easily be in the tens of $$$ thousands. If one has a retirement fund this can go to $20+ thousand. Will an inability to pay this extortionate accounting fee, even before IRS penalties, therefore bring on closures and effected people becoming financially destitute, unable to even collect aged pensions, etc.? Will the IRS stoop this low? Perhaps this is why they have closed their overseas IRS offices to avoid having to have a face to face with their intended victims…..

  24. It may be prudent for someone to take screen shots of all their webpages before ‘modifications’ are can be made. It’s a fair bet in their terms and conditions the ‘US Person’ problem will show up.

    Please remember UK banks have had everyone sign away their data protection rights so they can pass account information directly to any tax authority in the world. If you search telegraph.co.uk, I conversed with a reporter there to get the article printed. However after initial FATCA articles, and the Boris effect, it seems to have gone quite in the UK press. An infrastructure needs to be built up in the EU somewhere to act as a EU focal point to interact with the media, raise funds, tie together the whole ‘US Person’ population in the EU, push through a legal challenge to FATCA, and spread the word that anyone can fall foul of FATCA through a bank making an account ‘Reportable’ by mistake regardless of their nationality or never step foot in the US ever.

    The day of my returning abroad is growing closer and I’ll definitely be interested in setting up in the EU and team together all the relevant expertise to get FATCA/IGA in front of the European Court of Justice. The main difference with the EoJ is that usually only EU citizens can bring forward a case unlike the Supreme Court of Canada where you don’t necessarily need to be a Canadian citizen. Generally the EoJ is there to right the wrongs of Governments that infringe on EU citizen’s rights.

    My dream would be to have all the IGAs ruled discriminatory across the EU at once by the EoJ.

    However then the practice of banks forcing customer’s to sign away their data protection rights would need to be addressed. In some backroom somewhere, ‘data discrimination’ has to take place to weed out ‘US Persons.’. The only question is the legality of the bank/FFI doing it, or the local tax authority not to mention an established lobbying campaign to stop Governments from voting in yet more FATCA discriminatory legislation in another name.

    There’s a lot of ‘US Persons’ in the EU. Even if they renounce they’ll still be subject to the ‘US Person Biopsy’ every time they interact with an EU FFI. That needs to be addressed.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.

%d bloggers like this: