Anyway, most are aware of the newly hired IRS agents to police Obamacare crowned legal by the courts. The U S also has arms stretched to the Swiss and Caribbean island banks with even more work to keep an eye on where the American dollar can be located.
US forces financial institutions to report American account holders
“Banking could become more expensive in St. Maarten for everyone,” Windward Islands Bank director Jan Beaujon said yesterday in reaction to a decision by the American Internal Revenue Service IRS to oblige foreign financial institutions to report American accountholders with assets exceeding $50, 000.
“We have little choice, because if we do not comply we are no longer able to do business with the United States. All our international bank transfers go through New York,” Beaujon said.Finance Minister Roland Tuitt brought the legislation up at yesterday’s weekly press briefing. In 2010 the United States enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca). Foreign financial institutions like banks, pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers and private equity funds have to enter into an agreement with the IRS by June 30 of next year. These institutions will be obliged to “undertake certain identification and due diligence procedures with respect to its account holders” and to report to the IRS annually “on its account holders who are US persons or foreign entities with substantial US ownership.”
They will also be obliged to “withhold and pay over to the IRS 30 percent of any payments of US source income, as well as gross proceeds from the sale of securities that generate US source income.”
So don't let anyone tell you that it is an easy task to conduct business in the United States of America.
This country is now seeing to it that other countries, big and small, will now be regulated by our new laws and regulations and the cost of doing business continues to rise, let alone the policing.
Now this doesn't affect me and it probably does not affect you, but we all should be aware of what our government is doing. What our government does to one of us it does to all of us.
It's simply not that hard to pick up a valid passport for a country other than the US and keep your money in an account (anywhere) under that non-US person's name.
ReplyDeleteAnd therein lies the problem. As with many laws, they are set up to impact the law-abiding.