Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Your Experiences: Banking; Dealing with Consulates; Entering the US

 

Share your experiences and read about others’:

Banking

Banking Issues

What Are Banks Asking about your “US Personhood?”

The Ripple Effect is Here.  Americans Unable to Open Bank Accounts.  In CANADA!

Is TD Bank Overzealously Ferreting Out US Persons?

 

Dealing with Consulates for Expatriation

Consulate Report Directory:   Brockers Describe their Consulate Meetings

 

Entering the United States

Entering the United States:  Current thread 2019

Entering the United States:  Previous thread 2013-2019

 

85 thoughts on “Your Experiences: Banking; Dealing with Consulates; Entering the US”

  1. “It cannot be fixed as long as certain currencies carry such a risk of devaluation”

    That would make it impossible to exchange Canadian dollars in either of those countries. And sometimes US dollars.

  2. Actually, there is the risk of devaluation while the notes are in stock, but only if they are selling notes. They could sell Haitian currency that is on the books of a bank in Haiti, such as being an agent for bank in Haiti, collecting Dominican Republic currency, but they don’t even do that. Many grocers in the USA sell US dollar money orders drawn on Western Union or Moneygram.

  3. A Canadian friend of mine contacted me to tell me that her Canadian bank wanted her to certify she isn’t a USP the other day. This was for an existing account, and I don’t think she had indicia.

  4. I got a little more information from my Canadian friend today. She said she was adding herself to her company’s business account and the bank then asked her to sign a FATCA form. She was indignant and said she felt her privacy rights were violated to think that the IRS could possibly have access to her banking information.

  8. This is not about crossing into the US.

    This is about the erosion of civil liberties and constitutional rights – and the barriers that the US is erecting higher and higher against even US citizens living legally INSIDE the US who are merely exercising their freedom of movement in an innocuous ordinary way.

    The link http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/2017/07/sorting-citizens-from-non-citizens.html leads to a first hand video captured on a phone, which starkly demonstrates the erosion of civil liberties and constitutional right to movement, and the currently practiced incursions on the legal rights and freedoms of those present in the US. View the video at the link below, where a teacher – who in all likelihood IS a US citizen and legal resident – is travelling local to her home, INSIDE the US – nowhere near any international borders, who is detained by US officials for no specific reason, has demonstrated NO illegal behaviour, has her car searched by dog/s, photos taken of car occupants, etc. and is being coerced into identifying herself as a US citizen or not.

    Her offense?

    Is it currently illegal for a US citizen travelling inside her own country to refuse to prove that she is a US citizen?

    Where are all those vaunted and much celebrated pretenses about the US being a bastion of freedom?

    Where are all those ‘benefits’ of citizenship that US citizenship based taxation purports to be based on? You know, that Cook vs. Tait ( “…the principle was declared that the government, by its very nature, benefits the citizen and his property wherever found…” https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/265/47 ) fiction that the US government ‘benefits’ its citizens WHEREVER in the world they may be found – including by presumption, WITHIN the US.

  10. Canadians – even duals, seeking to enter the US may want to read this;
    https://bccla.org/2017/07/rights-border-still/

    The Privacy Commissioner warns;
    “….Although in principle, it appears that by operation of section 11 of Bill C-23, fundamental Canadian rights will be protected, section 39 of the Bill provides that civil proceedings against the US remain subject to the State Immunity Act, 1985. This significantly limits access to civil remedies against the US for the actions of CBP officers in the performance of their preclearance duties.

    To be clear, the principle of state immunity as enacted by the State Immunity Act, 1985 would appear to make the protections of section 11 of Bill C-23 hollow, as these protections could not be enforced in a court of law, except in circumstances largely irrelevant to the present discussion.

    There are no obvious solutions to this difficult question. Subsection 20(2) of Bill C-23 provides that a preclearance officer “is not permitted to collect biometric information unless notification that travelers may withdraw from preclearance is provided in the preclearance area, through signage or other means of communciation.” The content of electronic devices can be as privacy sensitive as biometric information, depending on context. Subsection 20(2) of Bill C-23 could perhaps be extended to searches without grounds of electronic devices.

    In many situations, however, it would appear that Canadians who wish to enter the US will, at preclearance locations in Canada as well as at border points in the US, have to face the difficult choice of either accepting a search without grounds or foregoing their wish to travel to the US……”
    https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-actions-and-decisions/advice-to-parliament/2017/parl_sub_170524/

    And we know that even IF there could be any accessible remedy or recourse against abuses by the US border officials, the last in time rule would elevate any additional later in time US laws over the agreement with Canada.

    Our Canadian rights and freedoms are being steadily eroded by the US – with the active collusion of our own successive federal governments in enacting agreements with the US that have effects INSIDE Canada, on Canada’s sovereign autonomous land, binding Canadians ever more tightly within the control of a foreign nation whose modus operandi is ‘might makes right’.

  11. @Badger

    RE: Our Canadian rights and freedoms are being steadily eroded by the US – with the active collusion of our own successive federal governments in enacting agreements with the US that have effects INSIDE Canada, on Canada’s sovereign autonomous land, binding Canadians ever more tightly within the control of a foreign nation whose modus operandi is ‘might makes right’.

    I totally agree. It becomes scarier and scarier to travel to the US. I have to, on occasion, due to elderly relatives there who can no longer travel. Although, thank God, I’m no longer dual and haven’t had any problems with this yet.

    Thanks for the new information. There is also a link from the article you cite to a BCCLA report on electronic devices and privacy, a guide to your rights.

    https://bccla.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/2012-BCCLA-Report-Electronic-Devices-Handbook.pdf

  12. @PatCanadian, I only rarely travel into the US, and only for the same reason you mention – to visit elderly and other relatives, as well as for family functions like weddings, funerals, etc. I don’t do cross border shopping though many of my neighbours did on a regular basis when our dollar was worth more.

    I found this map from the ACLU, https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-governments-100-mile-border-zone-map which shows just how much civil liberties and constitutional rights have been suspended in the US under the guise of national security.

    We cannot be sanguine about the ‘Beyond the Border’ ‘harmonization’ that is seeing the US push for more and more control on our own Canadian soil.

    If this is what US border agents will do to those WITH US status, then what won’t they do to those without? https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/archive/2017/07/17/lawsuit-american-family-abused-by-cbp-at-border-wilwal-v-kelly.aspx?Redirected=true https://www.aclu.org/cases/wilwal-v-kelly-lawsuit-challenging-abusive-border-detention-american-family

  13. @Badger
    I don’t do cross border shopping either. Apparently the USA is being viewed as more of a threat worldwide. I heard this on CTV news this morning and it’s also in the following news article:

    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/01/u-s-power-and-influence-increasingly-seen-as-threat-in-other-countries/

    CTV news states that US power is the 4th largest threat ranked by Canadian after ISIS, climate change and cyber threats. Pew Research says:

    “America’s neighbors, Mexico and Canada, both see the U.S. as more threatening than either China or Russia. In Mexico, a 61% majority perceives U.S. power as a major threat. And in Canada, 38% feel threatened by the U.S. This figure exceeds Canadians’ threat ratings of Russian and Chinese power (30% and 25%, respectively).”

    I may post this elsewhere on Brock as well.

  14. What you can potentially expect if you travel to the US. – even on Canadian soil at ‘pre-clearance’;
    “……..Last spring, Therrien expressed concern about U.S. plans to demand cellphone and social media passwords from foreign visitors.

    In a letter to the House of Commons public safety committee, he warned that recent pronouncements from the Trump administration could mean intrusive searches – even at preclearance facilities in Canada……”
    https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadians-should-worry-about-us-border-searches-of-cell-phones-electronics-privacy-czar/article36293765/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

    and,

    “….New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen asked if that means no Canadian should cross the border with a phone, laptop or tablet unless they are comfortable with a U.S. border official inspecting the contents.

    Therrien said yes…..”……
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/us-border-cellphone-password-search-1.4296331

    The US goes beyond even the CBSA’s practices http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/border-phone-laptop-search-cbsa-canada-cbp-us-1.4002609

    Canadian government’s tepid response is that “…… obviously it’s an area where we’ll have consultations and discussions with our American counterparts to ensure the treatment of Canadians at the border is fair, professional, consistent and respectful of [their] rights.”
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/us-border-cellphone-password-search-1.4296331

    US citizens are not exempt, lawsuit just filed in US;
    https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/privacy-borders-and-checkpoints/warrantless-border-searches-smartphones-are?redirect=blog/privacy-technology/privacy-borders-and-checkpoints/were-challenging-governments-warrantless
    https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/09/14/world/crime-legal-world/lawsuit-targets-searches-electronic-devices-u-s-border-points-entry/

    Therrien apparently is looking into the issue http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/privacy-commissioner-investigating-canada-border-services-agency-over-electronic-media-searches ,

    but,
    apparently is still okay with the ongoing unconstitutional and Charter violating FATCA automatic reporting intrusion into the private and financial data and banking of Canadian residents taking place inside Canada, ON Canadian soil, with no grounds, for the benefit of a foreign nation, and based on no economic or other US relationship other than a parent or birthplace and no evidence of any kind to warrant any such intrusion.
    I don’t see anything recent re FATCA on the OPC site;
    https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/search/?t=fatca&o=d&Page=1

  18. Did anyone else catch this comment on RO’s FB? WOW! I don’t know which country JM is living in but I wonder if it’s the overzealous CH. Banks can be so officious and heavy-handed.
    John Moorhouse wrote:

    Just today my bank called and informed me, that effective immediately they consider my non-us wife to be a us-tax citizen. So what does that mean? We have to close her pension fund account (partially in mutual funds) and move it to a regular interest account. Today the rate is zero or negative. Where does the IRS get the gall to instruct a foreign bank to change the account of a non- us person? Please tell Mr. and Mrs. Pence about that too!

  20. I’ve read good things about Frank Agostino. I thought it would be possible to endorse him. But look at this:

    ‘IRC § 7345 is an example of a collateral sanction (i.e., a non-monetary non criminal sanction) intended to incentivize voluntary tax compliance. The use of “collateral sanctions” (also known as “collateral consequences”) to address tax non-compliance is part of a new trend in tax collection that, some law professors have argued, can result in greater voluntary compliance with the tax law.[5]
    [5] Joshua D. Blank, Collateral Compliance, 162 U. PA. L. REV. 719 (2014), available at https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=534125082092087099103027024118084101033003058035043086102105078087078028022075103081098099038005016125097091127097064067009074020002055000087007103124023003006098066048052113093091073021115024117115090123110005007098087102068120065065074003020069120&EXT=pdf.’

    The IRS and judges can call compliance “voluntary”, but you know what happens when an ordinary person quotes the words of the IRS and judges? The same as what happens when an ordinary person really does comply and declares withholding that a stockbroker actually withheld but which was embezzled by IRS employees. The person gets penalized for being frivolous and a tax protestor.

    Well, we’ve learned that non-resident US citizens had better not comply because the harder they try to comply the worse they get penalized. But that doesn’t mean we can call compliance “voluntary”. The IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate reported to Congress in 2011 that thousands of honest taxpayers found themselves forced to renounce US citizenship because compliance was impossible. Of course honesty isn’t allowed in courts either, nor on US tax returns, so we’d better not quote the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate either.

    The IRS needs processable returns not honest returns. If you have to avoid becoming a covered expatriate, you have to file some number of processable returns. Do not call it “voluntary”.

  21. “Voluntary” is a word the US government never uses except when it knows it lacks the power to enforce. See conscription.

  22. The term “voluntary tax compliance” is actually oxymoronic: “compliance” implies compulsion while “voluntary” implies “without compulsion.”

  23. Compliance is possible without being compelled, though not usually in relation to taxes. In my industry, a software vendor can choose whether or not to comply with a standard. For example a vendor of a C compiler can choose to comply with an ISO C standard, whereupon they can predefine a preprocessor macro which claims to indicate compliance. But the ISO C standard has no power over vendors who don’t choose to comply, so a vendor of a non-compliant C compiler can also predefine a preprocessor macro which claims to indicate compliance.

    I guess we’re lucky the IRS doesn’t demand preprocessable returns.

  24. “Compliance is possible without being compelled, though not usually in relation to taxes. In my industry, a software vendor can choose whether or not to comply with a standard.”

    Good point. I was thinking too narrowly.

  25. Minor observation made today. I was trying to open an additional account with RBC, using their online banking. After confirming basic ID information, there are two yes/no checkboxes:

    – Are you a resident of Canada for tax purposes?

    – Are you a resident of any foreign country for tax purposes?

    That’s it. Pretty easy for someone born in the US but otherwise ignorant of American law to just skip past that, it’s so vague. Equally easy for someone wary to lie and avoid the whole mess.

    I checked “yes” to see what happened. It produces a long alphabetical list of countries, from which you can add up to ten. I added the US and continued, and it went straight to account type selection. I didn’t proceed any further obviously but I imagine you’d be flagged and someone would contact you for FATCA info (SSN/TIN, maybe W9).

    Canada, where the banks don’t try very hard. Long may it remain so.

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