FATCA Reporting, The Banks And Their U.S. Citizen Customers: The Saga Continues

https://twitter.com/twitter/status/2026056963977560353

In October I published a post about the U.K. division of Fidelity cleansing itself of U.S. citizen customers. Since the beginning, it has been clear that FATCA has made U.S. citizen customers a problems for non-U.S. banks. Today I was informed that FATCA reporting to the IRS has begun to find its way to U.S. citizens directly. As the above post from X.com indicates, some individual U.S. citizens are receiving communications from the IRS. The communication notes the existence of the “foreign financial asset” and that the asset should have been reported.

Significantly the letter notes the bank where the unreported account was located. In this case the bank was “Bank Hapoalim B.M” which is apparently one of Israel’s largest banks.

Interestingly on April 30, 2020 Bank Hapoalim admitted to helping U.S. citizen customers hide assets and avoid U.S. taxation. This resulted in a deferred prosecution agreement and a penalty. (The Department Of Justice Press Release is available online.) A reading of the press release strongly suggests that customers of this bank may be presumed to be guilty by association.

This is interesting news.

Of course:

“To be FORMwarned Is To Be Forearmed!”

John Richardson