Wednesday, March 26, 2014
US Citizen? No Foreign Bank Account For You!
Jeff Berwick
Activist Post
Many people laughingly remember the image of the Soup Nazi in Seinfeld. If you did anything out of order or that he didn’t like, “No soup for you!”
Sadly, thanks to the upcoming Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in the US, banks around the world are turning away US passport holders, “No bank account for you!” But you don't even have to do anything wrong other than having been born a US citizen.
Decades ago holding a US passport was a ticket to worldwide opportunity. Today it is nearly the opposite. First it started with the erosion of the US's reputation as a bastion of freedom. Then, legislation-after-legislation made it nearly impossible to do business with US persons as the nation became increasingly paranoid and fixated with raising funds.
Faced with draconian penalties on foreign banks who accept US citizens countless banks worldwide are deciding it is easier and safer to just turn away all US customer business. Not to mention much cheaper.
NO INVESTMENTS OR BROKERAGES FOR YOU EITHER
This has been the case for a long time in regards to investments and brokerages. The SEC has made it clear to anyone worldwide that if you even offer investment opportunities to US citizens they will come after you with the full power of the US government. The reason, they say, is to protect the fragile and gullible American citizens from losing money in foreign investment opportunities. What it really does is limits the investment options of Americans dramatically … at a time when the US economy is tanking and other economies around the world have been booming.
One such example is at Peter Schiff’s EuroPacific Capital in St. Vincents. EuroPacific has a great option … you can actually hold gold with them and have an ATM card where you can withdraw fiat dollars from your gold holdings. He opened up operations there because opening it within the US would have been too difficult regulatorily (sound familiar?). But, in order to get outside of those regulations they also do not allow American clients. In fact, they go so far as to not even answer the phone if it comes from a US area code!
BANKS RAPIDLY SHUTTING DOWN US CLIENTS
With thousands of banks in the world it is impossible to keep track of the changes taking place. But it will probably become a rule-of-thumb that international banks simply do not accept US clients ... in fact, most banks we deal with at TDVOffshore do not accept US clients.
Most information we receive just comes from US passport holders who have recently had their accounts closed down or were denied application. The future is clear: banks are no longer accepting Americans because of FATCA. From Europe to Asia to the Caribbean the same is true.
The decision is simple for banking institutions. In fact, it is merely an issue of the bottom line. It is not worth it to track and report the data they are now required to under FATCA.......