FATCA and the Netherlands

31 thoughts on “FATCA and the Netherlands”

1. A loss for the Dutch government and the banks in courts, Dutch court rules the De Volksbank may not close accounts of accidental Americans for suspected tax evasion simply because they have not provided SS numbers or CLN.

   Not sure of the details yet, but as far as I can tell and as it stands, the Dutch government are going to have no choice but to go back to the US and ask for changes to the agreement, or does the US close down the Dutch banking sector?

   This is certainly a fun development.

2. https://www.taylordailypress.net/de-voxbank-is-not-allowed-to-accidentally-close-american-accounts/

   Liked the use of ”unintentional” american.

3. Well that is good news. Fun times ahead. A Dutch court just declared a significant piece of the IGA to be invalid.

   I can’t remember if the cranky protagonist – bless his heart – either had an SSN and refused to provide it, or didn’t have an SSN and refused to obtain one. To the extent that I can decipher that horrible machine translation, it sounds like the court determined that “not filing US tax returns” does not equal “tax evasion”.

4. https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report-international/dutch-banks-barred-from-shutting-bank-accounts-of-u-s-citizens

   Court tells Dutch banks to stop closing accounts on US citizens. I can’t see rest of the article, but it may be these US citizens are dual EU as well. Under EU law, all EU citizens have the right to a basic bank account.

   This may have something to do with it.

5. https://nltimes.nl/2021/12/30/court-volksbank-wrong-close-accounts-accidental-american

   Better article with more text.

6. The Bloomberg Tax article is paywalled, unfortunately. A few interesting points in the second, free article.

   There was no direct reference to the customer’s refusal to obtain an SSN. I would infer from the comment about banks not being required to report accounts under $50k, however, that the court may have ruled that banks cannot demand an SSN (or threaten to close accounts if one is not provided) when the customer’s balance remains below the FATCA reporting threshold.

   As for the use of tax evasion nonsense, the article explains that very succinctly:

   The Volksbank, which is the State-owned parent company of SNS and RegioBank, also closed his account because the man was suspected of evading tax, which could put the bank in a position to be considered guilty of money laundering. “Figures from the American authorities show that only a small percentage of ‘Accidental Americans’ actually have to pay taxes,” the court said in a statement. “It is up to the Volksbank to demonstrate that this man falls into that small group. The bank has not done that.”

   We made this rather obvious point a year ago when the story first surfaced.