Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

From the CRA website (FAQs– FATCA):

6. Will my financial institution be asking me if I was born in the U.S.?

A financial institution complying with the Agreement will not be required to ask its account holders about their place of birth.

If a financial institution, applying the due diligence rules of the Agreement to its accounts, discovers any records connected to the account that have an unambiguous indication of a U.S. place of birth, the financial institution may treat the account as a reportable account or follow up with the account holder to obtain documentation that shows the account holder is not a U.S. resident or U.S. citizen.

A recent posting to IBS from BC Doc (from around the same time the servers went down):

RBC Direct Investing: The US Persons Round-Up:

I was helping a family member open an on-line investment account with RBC Direct Investments today. I couldn’t help but notice the many different ways RBC DI is trying to identify so-called “US Persons.”

Here are the questions asked by the on-line application:

Are you a U.S. Citizen or a U.S. resident for tax purposes?

If you answer yes, the next prompt is:

To comply with regulations, you will be presented with a W9 form with your application package.

Enter your US Social Security Number (SSN).

If you answer no, the next question is:

How many countries are you a resident of for tax purposes?

You are then asked:

Country of residence for tax purposes.

Next up is:

Enter your City of birth.

Followed by:

Enter your Country of birth.

Next up is:

Are you, the co-applicant, a U.S. Citizen or a U.S. resident for tax purposes?

If you answer yes, you are prompted to enter your US Social Security Number (SSN).

You also get the statement, “To comply with regulations, you will be presented with a W9 form with your application package.”

If you answer no, the next prompt is:

How many countries is the co-applicant a resident of for tax purposes?

This is followed by:

Co-applicant’s country of residence for tax purposes.

Co-applicant’s city of birth.

Co-applicant’s country of birth

Are you married or do you have a common-law spouse?

Is your spouse the joint applicant?

I think we can consider this a sign of things to come from Canadian banks and investment firms in the coming months. Forewarned is forearmed.

One more thing. A W-8BEN for is a part of the package. RBC-DI requires completion of the W-8BEN form so that Canadian citizens are given the more favourable 15% tax withholding by the US on their dividends (versus the standard 30% I believe if a W-8BEN is not completed). New on the W-8BEN are two questions:

City of Birth

Country of Birth

I have banked with RBC-DI since 2007. Prior W-8BEN forms did not ask city and country of birth.

The net has been cast!

My questions for today:

Why is RBC DI asking for country of birth if this information is not required by CRA?

If this information is not required, is it illegal for RBC DI to ask for it?

The questions about city of birth and country of birth on the W-8BEN appear to have been added by RBC DI. I don’t see these questions on the official IRS version of the W-8BEN.

Again, if this information is not required, is it legal for RBC-DI to ask?

We used to call the USA the land of opportunity. But with FATCA, the USA has become the land of importunity.

The US is forcing all the banks in the world to give them banking information. To say this is an importunate demand is a bit of an understatement.

77,000 foreign banks to share tax information with IRS

George brings this to our attention:

The UK Government worked to include language about discrimination in the FATCA IGA.

j) The Financial Institution must not have policies or practices that
discriminate against opening or maintaining accounts for individuals
who are Specified US Persons and who are residents of the UK.

But was that nothing more than window dressing?

Continue reading →

Bloomberg reports that the US plans to fine a French bank US $10 billion:

U.S. authorities are seeking to impose the fine to settle allegations that BNP transferred funds for clients in violation of sanctions against Sudan, Iran, and Cuba, according to people familiar with the investigation. The fine could be the largest criminal penalty in the U.S., eclipsing BP Plc’s $4 billion accord with the Justice Department last year.

I have little sympathy for banksters and politicians who are essentially arguing over how they going to divide the spoils of the middle class. But this $10 billion fine of France is a particular arrogant treatment of an “ally” and has the potential of helping the anti-FATCA movement. It is an especially egregious example of how the US determines that its laws have international jurisdiction and has set about confiscating the world’s wealth through its banking hegemony. If the US keeps this up, expect the rest of the world to join Russia and China economic coalition against the US.

Hat tip, Zerohedge: France Furious At US $10 Billion BNP “Masterful Slap”, “Racketeering” Fine

We’ll be getting together for lunch Saturday, 7 June, at 1:30 pm at the Flying Banzini, 1242 Wellington Street West, Ottawa.   The Flying Banzini specialises in sandwiches and desserts and there’s plenty of on-street parking.

Hope you can make it!  Please rsvp by posting a comment here or e-mail me at pacifica.isaacbrocksociety@gmail.com

Well, I hope that our technical problems have finally come to an end. Problems Wednesday were about changing our domain registration to a new ISP (internet service provider), which required time for “prorogation”.  I myself didn’t have access until Thursday morning. Then the normal Brock traffic simply overwhelmed our shared server service which was promoted by the ISP but turned out to be thoroughly inadequate for our needs. That’s when we started getting the account suspended message–and no, that wasn’t because you put some bad language in a comment. So we had to change to a new platform which is more robust and will hopefully carry us into the next year.

For those naysayers of Isaac Brock–and boy do we ever have them, I have a message. Take for example Kim Moody, who wrote:

Continue reading →

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4499209/paul-fatca

Update

These seminars will include discussion and analysis of the IRS “relaxed opportunities” for people to come into compliance.
 

“Life planning, career planning and the reality of U.S. citizenship for Americans abroad”
“Everything I wish I had known, but couldn’t even have imagined to ask!”

During the winter, John Richardson presented a number of seminars for those concerned with the obvious problems of U.S. citizenship (including the “threshold question” of whether you really are a U.S. citizen).

Seminar topics have invariably included the problems of: FBAR, FATCA, investing, retirement planning, mutual funds, U.S. tax compliance, renunciation, etc. The official “FATCA Launch” of July 1, 2014 will surely make the existing problems worse.

U.S. citizens living outside the United States are subject to a regime of rules that diminish their “life opportunities”. These rules are such that U.S. citizens abroad live at a disadvantage relative to the citizens of any other nation. Those attending previous seminars have been primarily “middle aged” people, who have attempted to plan for their retirement, only to find that their retirement plans are threatened, because of their birth in the United States.

A shared sentiment has been:

“If only, I had known about these rules earlier … This is information that my children and other young adults need to hear! What does all this mean for my children?”

The seminar on June 22 will be a session specifically designed for your children and young adults. They will be exposed to (at least “some”) of that information that they need to hear!
Continue reading →