USA affirms position that #accidentalAmericans have two choices: 1. Pay to enter the US tax system or 2. Pay to renounce. Bottom line: If "Born In The USA" then you must "Pay The USA": "Treasury Offers Little Wiggle Room on Foreign Bank Reporting (1)" https://t.co/Z7el7P5RII
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) March 31, 2020
Part A: Background
On March 3, 2020 I wrote a post on Brock, which was based on the problem of FATCA IGAs requiring banks to include US Social Security numbers, in their FATCA reporting.
Basically there is a tension between:
On the one hand the banks are required to include the Social Security Numbers of their US clients. On the other hand, many people who are “technically” US citizens don’t have Social Security numbers.
This is a problem that has long been in the making. My March 3, 2020 post described the problem and referenced the work of CBC reporter Elizabeth Thompson’s reporting on this problem. The post also included a background/summary of the events leading to the problem (which has been included in this post as an Appendix*).
US Treasury has said very little about this issue.
Described by Helen Burggraf as …
The U.S. Treasury is continuing to maintain its silence with respect to the issues European banks have been struggling with for months over their perceived need to report to the U.S. – under the tax evasion law known as FATCA – government tax information details on certain of their American account-holders that they don’t have, European banking sources, expat groups and others report…
This is in spite of the fact that so-called “accidental Americans” in Europe are continuing to have their non-U.S. bank accounts frozen in cases where their banks say they have failed to provide “Tax Information Numbers” (TINs, typically Social Security numbers) as the banks say FATCA requires them to have as of the end of last year, according to sources in the accidental American community.