FATCA Issues?

[NEDude]

Are any guys working overseas starting to have issues with the FATCA law?

If you are unfamiliar, this is the U.S. law aimed at catching tax cheats and require all foreign banks report the accounts of any U.S. citizens and requires the bank to comply with U.S. banking laws. In many parts of the world banks have started closing the accounts of U.S. citizens rather than have to try and comply with U.S. law. There are many stories where U.S. citizens living in other parts of the world are now facing major disruptions in their lives because their ability to conduct their daily lives has been hampered due closed bank accounts. The number of U.S. citizens who gave up their U.S. citizenship in 2013 is 600% higher than in 2008 and many experts expect it to grow higher.

If any of you have had issues, are there large global banks that are recommended? I have heard HSBC is starting to close the overseas accounts of U.S. citizens so I would guess they are ones to avoid.

Thanks

 

[BobbyBiplane]

Use a US bank and credit cards with a debit/cash card. It has worked for me since 1994 with no issues.

Bob

 

[Gear Disagree]

No issues with my HSBC account. I transferred money back home to buy a house cash last month. Ontop of that I make monthly transfers of just above 5K with no issues. All of this complies with US tax law and is not illegal. I have no idea what NED is talking about. Legal $ in (report it)... legal $ out... that pretty much sums up US EXPAT airline pilot tax law.

 

[Golden Falcon]

In the GCC countries it becomes effective July 2014....apparently on accounts with an annual aggregate value of more than 50,000USD...not sure exactly what that means

 

[Freight Dog]

No issues with my HSBC account. I transferred money back home to buy a house cash last month. Ontop of that I make monthly transfers of just above 5K with no issues. All of this complies with US tax law and is not illegal. I have no idea what NED is talking about. Legal $ in (report it)... legal $ out... that pretty much sums up US EXPAT airline pilot tax law.

No issues here either... YET.

However, a growing number of banks are limiting or closing US citizens' accounts because they don't want to deal with FATCA nonsense.

Imagine if Mexican tax authorities passed this law and required say Bank of America and Wells Fargo to report all Mexican citizen accounts to them or face withholding of 30% of all of their transactions in Mexico. And then imagine if BofA and Wells Fargo said "To hell with Mexicans. We'll just close all their bank accounts and not deal with these issues or chance losing big chunks of our Mexican transactions because of these people."

I think it's safe to say that there would be some major class action lawsuits flying left and right over discrimination, constitutionality, etc.

I think the worst is yet to come... and all this to catch a very few bad apples.

 

[typhoonpilot]

In the GCC countries it becomes effective July 2014....apparently on accounts with an annual aggregate value of more than 50,000USD...not sure exactly what that means

What exactly becomes effective?


TP

 

[NEDude]

No issues with my HSBC account. I transferred money back home to buy a house cash last month. Ontop of that I make monthly transfers of just above 5K with no issues. All of this complies with US tax law and is not illegal. I have no idea what NED is talking about. Legal $ in (report it)... legal $ out... that pretty much sums up US EXPAT airline pilot tax law.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertw...izenship-up-221-all-aboard-the-fatca-express/

 

[Golden Falcon]

What exactly becomes effective?


TP

The banks in the GCC region begin reporting qualifying bank accounts to the IRS

 

[bafanguy]

Some background on how FATCA fits into the Big Picture. They're from the government and are here to help:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/24/rahn-foxes-in-the-financial-henhouse/