October 29th post at Janglo: Foreigners in Israel find themselves ensnared in U.S. tax crackdown,Full Story (Haaretz)

…He was asked to sign a declaration that the account and all the money in it had been reported to the tax authorities in his home country and he had paid everything that was due on it.

The man refused and then came the next surprise: The bank refused to let him withdraw his money. He explained that he didn’t speak Hebrew and wanted the declaration to be read and translated by a lawyer. He reminded the bankers that he was a client of long standing and had been told when he opened his account that he would not be asked questions like that. It was all to no avail.
…

Related (from another Brocker):

I remember reading a lawyer wrote that all the g7 wanted fatca type reporting…the u.s took the lead…the rest will follow..the Israel has fatca type arrangements with Europe…probably the igas crush everything related to privacy so it’s easier now.

Here is the fax of Bank Hapolaim, an Israeli bank, requiring Canadians and EU member residents and/or immigrants (or CFCs) from those locations sign away their rights similar to US citizens: Israeli Bank(s) Declaration — shall apply with respect to any existing Account and any future Account, if relevant

Telling your Congressman or your media contact that you are “Collateral Damage” has no effect. Your Congressman doesn’t give a sh_t—because you are not collateral damage—you are the target.

This article is a cross post from: http://samuelclemmons.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/the-real-intent-of-fatca-you-are-not-collateral-damage-you-are-the-target/

The term “collateral damage” shows up in all the articles, all the pleas to Congress, and in the Talking Points of Lemmings Abroad. It’s not really a damaging label—unless you believe it to be true and don’t plan otherwise.

Let’s stop talking about FATCA’s “collateral damage” and start discussing real intent.  FATCA is the enforcement tool to collect IRS taxes and penalties from non US residents receiving no standard government services (schools, roads, education, or social welfare).  FATCA talking points contradict the administration’s own statements upon FATCA intentions.

FATCA funded the 2010 Jobs for Mainstreet Act–a domestic jobs bill. It purports to collect $8.5-$8.9 billion of tax and penalties over ten years, by identifying previously-undertaxed US citizens overseas. It demands the world’s banks to aggressively identify their residents who are US citizens, forwarding their identities to the IRS for taxation and penalties.

FATCA aggressively enforces the US’ globally-unique taxation system, which uniquely taxes-up its non-resident US citizens to the highest of the tax rates of their residence country or US.  This includes any previously under-taxed non-US retirement products, unemployment benefits, home sale gains, and anything above $95,000 earned in countries like UAE (UAE’s high corporate tax eliminates personal tax).

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The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.

“How can this happen?” Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?”

The federal government does.

Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required

Does anyone except Jack Townsend still doubt that the IRS is a criminal organization?

Hat Tip: Zero Hedge

Has anyone heard anything new on Alterna being exempt from FATCA reporting?

SwedishPublic Radio (SR) has sense of humor!

They created tag #FATCAINFO to list the reciprocal data you think USA should xchange for Swedish FATCA data.

What US data would Sweden really be interested in?

Use your imagination—what could that tax haven Sweden use for FATCA reciprocity that they could possibly use?

You can’t understand it, but the Swedish national radio satire program requested it here:

http://sverigesradio.se/topsy/ljudfil/5116840.mp3

(No blocks, you can send serious sh_t, too)

Tweet away—humor is more powerful than seriousness!

Whereas US FATCA program assumes all of USA’s expats are tax cheats, Sweden does one better and considers all of its expats as being corrupt.  In both systems, the accused must prove himself innocent because otherwise he is assumed guilty.

Crosspost from this article: http://bit.ly/ZL5GSb

The US FATCA system requires the world’s banks to police expatriate US citizens, by demanding their bank account balances, Social Security numbers, and addresses and personal information. The Swedish system requires Swedish banks to inquire and store data upon the political status of its expatriates. It doesn’t stop there-it requires the same status upon the relatives of the account holder.  And, same as FATCA, if the account holder doesn’t comply the account is to be frozen by the bank.

Although this documentation is demanded by the Swedish government, the bank association “assures” the bank customers that the bank holds the information confidential. Right–why does a bank perform police investigations—is the bank then going to prosecute those that can’t prove they aren’t corrupt?—Well, maybe not, but it will freeze the account and stop the usage of most of the functions in the bank account.  Freezing bank account functions as a threat to force private-information disclosure is as close as one could get to deputizing a financial institution with unconstitutional police powers.  I wonder if that old grundlag is really worth anything at all?

Sweden has followed the US’ lead, in deputizing the world’s banks to police over the citizenry.

The worst possible combination for a Swedish citizen could be that the Swedish citizen is an expatriate located in USA.  In this case, the person is assumed both a tax evader and corrupt.  This became evident in a recent story upon Swedish TV, where a man received a series of questions asking the origin of the money in his account, if he was a US person, and the whole series of questions about the political activities of himself and his relatives.

Apparently, the bank (Nordea) had combined a form which assumes that anyone suspected of a US person must prove himself as not being a tax evader, together with the assumption that any Swede living outside Sweden is corrupt.

With a population of only 9 million—Sweden could be on its way to have a more intrusive government than its big brother USA.

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ALL RESPECT DESERVED

http://www.penningtvatt.se/fragor/bo-utomlands

Rought translation: If you live abroad

If you live abroad, special rules apply. Your bank needs to know if you have a high political post or high post in the state, a so-called politically exposed persons, or if you are a close relative or a known associate of such a person. These stringent regulations are aimed primarily at combating corruption.

With a high political post or high post in the State referred
• Heads of State or government, ministers and deputy or assistant ministers;
• Members of Parliament,
• Judges of the Supreme Court, judges of constitutional courts or other similar judicial bodies at the high level,
• senior audit of the boards of central banks;
• ambassadors, diplomatic envoys and high-ranking officers in the armed husband, and
• persons who are included in the state-owned company’s management bodies

With close relative meaning
• wife / husband,
• partners who by law is equated with wife / husband,
• children and their spouses or partners, and parents

The information the Bank receives about you is treated as confidential and subject to banking secrecy and the Personal Data Act

SVT story upon FATCA arriving in Sweden

FATCA has no Maximum, only Minimums–FATCA comes to Sweden

This post is a cross post from: http://bancdelasteroideb612.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/sweden-one-ups-usas-fatca-fbar-assumes-all-of-its-expatriates-to-be-corrupt/

In a four year, $200 billion global development program unknowingly initiated by Congress, the US police force FINCEN has implemented a global tracking system of US citizens, their assets, their bank account numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and their social security numbers. The system allows the US information to be leaked to Al Quada, ISIS, kidnappers, and other affiliates—alternatively to be taken over as rebel groups overtake the areas where these organizations operate.

Greenwald has hopped over it. Snowden missed it–because it isn’t covert.

Crossposting from Story found at this location (please inform all you know of this overt action via all means):

http://bancdelasteroideb612.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/usa-treasury-launches-global-citizen-tracking-system-code-names-fatca-iga/

http://bit.ly/1tjlOGt

The system was quietly passed in a US domestic Jobs Bill, called the Jobs for Mainstreet Act, 2010 HR 2847. The enactment was nearly invisible to the media, and few of the Congresspersons even realized what it was that they had passed.

With passage of the act, a massive administration misinformation campaign was initiated, saying that the administration and treasury were out looking for 1%’ers and FATCAts.  This was to enable a muzzle against resistance and to be able to portray any opposing political parties as supporters of Tax Evasion, initiators of money laundering,  harborers of terrorists, and possibly “cat killers”.   The misinformation campaign has been largely successful (domestically and internationally), as only a few small media outlets have mentioned it.  Only a tiny handful of legislators have dared to speak against it. Members of Congress are terrified to speak against it or of it for well-justified fear of reprisal from captive media.

The administration and Treasury have been traveling extensively to these regions–to train Islamic banks in the techniques of finding “indicia” of US citizens. Upper-level Treasury appointed administers such as Jesse Eggert have traveled extensively through the region for training sessions with Islamic banks. Those IRS officials have been praised by the Sheik of Finance in Qatar for aiding those banks.

This action has been heralded in Russia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Nigeria, where the demand for identification of US citizens has skyrocketed. With this tool, low level employees, administrators, and corrupt bank officials now have access to the most sensitive personal information of US citizens and have no restrictions placed upon them for passing the information onwards to interested individuals and organizations.

The organizations in Afghanistan which are holding this data are: Afghanistan International Bank, United Bank Afghanistan, BAKHTAR BANK, New Kabul Bank Afghanistan, Afghan United Bank Afghanistan, Afghanistan Commercial Bank, Branch, AZIZI BANK, MAIWAND BANK, GHAZANFAR BANK, The First MicroFinanceBank. These organizations, their highlevel employees, and low level adminstrators are known to have ties with tribal heads in their regions. Many of these organizations are tasked also with storing the assets of tribal lords.

In Yemen: Cairnwood Global Technology Fund Ltd, Branch Yemen, Shamil Bank of Yemen and Bahrain, Tadhamon International Islamic Bank, NATIONAL BANK OF YEMEN, SABA ISLAMIC BANK, YEMEN KUWAIT BANK FOR TRADE AND INVESTMENT, Cooperative & Agricultural Credit Bank, Yemen Bank for Rec and Dev,  International Bank of Yemen, Islamic Bank of Yemen, lkuraimi Islamic Microfinance Bank, Yemen Commercial Bank, ISLAMIC BANK OF YEMEN FOR FIN AND INV.

In Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Communist China, Algeria, Colombia, Kosovo, and others, a unique agreement between Treasury and foreign governments, code-named “IGA” has been implemented. Here, the Kosovo government has been deputized to store US citizen data. FINCEN has placed a great trust in these governments, because FINCEN does not trust US citizens.

What is an IGA?

An IGA is an Intergovernmental Agreement. In this case it is an agreement with the Executive Branch of the United States Treasury with the mentioned foreign governments. These agreements are not authorized by Congress in the way a treaty would be. Don’t forget, that the Constitution requires any foreign agreement to be ratified or initiated by Congress. And this isn’t.  This is solely an agreement between the Obama administration and these selected countries.

This system has begun implementation in more “friendly” countries prior to the mid-term elections. US citizens have already been identified in less sensitive neutral countries such as Sweden, Austria, and Thailand.  After elections, the information gathering will be ramped up significantly.

These governments and institutions will be collecting and storing this “FATCA” data outside of US territory for the coming period of 6-9 months. At the end of the period, the information will be shared with the United States police agency “FINCEN”.

A citizen warning has been placed out at the website location below.  It is also explained that it is of no help to discuss this with the ambassador in the named countries, because the ambassadors have been tasked to arrange for signatures upon the agreements and to aid in identification of US citizens.

US citizen alert:

https://bancdelasteroideb612.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=498&action=edit

List of foreign organizations implementing “FATCA” program

http://apps.irs.gov/app/fatcaFfiList/flu.jsf

List of countries implementing “IGA” program

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/treaties/Pages/FATCA-Archive.aspx

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ALL RESPECT DESERVED