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How does my bank know...?
Hi Expats,
I'm customer with Beobank for many years. For the last 2 1/2 years, I lived in the US about 9 months out of the year, for which reason I had to turn in my Belgian identity card.
Now I received a letter from Beobank stating that they were going to inform the US tax authorities about my account balance for 2016. But I've never told them that I left Brussels!
So how in the world do they know about that? Does the government inform the banks if somebody returns their ID card?
All of the banks in Belgium have access to the "Registre national". In all probability, as part of the normal "know your client" rules and safeguards in banking, they probably check the register for all their customers at least once a year, to see where they live and check their records are up to date. Given that you handed in your ID card, there is a record of you having left the country. The bank will have access to that information.
(see here, Beobank is one of the financial institutions allowed to access the national register : https://www.privacycommission.be/fr/beneficiaires-rn-02-2011)
If there is a change to your status, the banks know about it. They would have been informed that you had surrendered your ID card (or rather residence permit) and that you were living in the US, therefore liable to US tax.
They therefore have an obligation to report certain things to the US authorities.
Here we go again......FATCA Mike!
FATCA is a US law that all countries in the universe must implement or the USA will send them back to the stone age by shutting them out of the US banking system. It's enforced by threats and extortion by our dear "allies" and it has cost us a fortune to implement.
Even Russia and China have capitulated.
FATCA requires that all financial institutions look for "US indicia" and if found, they must report that person back to the USA.
US place of birth.
US parent(s).
US phone number.
US payments.
Plus much more.
All are considered "US indicia" and should that financial institution not report you to the USA, they risk closure by the USA.
J, as usual, is massively wide of the mark in claiming that this is about you owing US tax because you live in the USA, you owe US tax because you are a "US person" and this would apply if you were living in Brussels, if you have never seen the USA and even if you were a Belgian citizen.
The next thing you might learn is that this is not really about taxes, it's about penalties. What taxes could be due on the interest you received? Nothing.
The penalty for failing to report your Belgian account to the USA (pension, savings, investments, day to day account) START at $10,000 per account per unreported year and if they think it's wilful rather than out of ignorance, the penalty is $50,000 per unreported year or 50 percent of the account, which ever is the greater.
Per account, per unreported year.
These penalties are being levied on resident citizens of other countries and not one government has stood up to this and said no, all protected the banks from closure by the USA.
At what point, J, will you actually google this and stop accusing me of paranoia?
Mike get off your soap box we all o ow your views if you are that unhappy stop being a US. It citizen and become Belgian and if you're not a US cotize. Why rant about it at every opportunity. That said it
Amazes me people think they can get by the law and pretend I. The age of digital information that they have no assesst abroad and he surprised when companies obey the law and declare it for them
The OP never said (s)he was a US citizen.
Which is why I didn't mention FACTA.
The OP did have a question about how the bank would know.
Which I answered from personal experience.
You ought to read the question there properly Mike. Going off on one like that just makes you look like a jerk.
Newstart77, you can reliably ignore Mickey's rants on here about FACTA. His only knowledge of FACTA comes from watching a couple of Youtube videos by wierdo conspiracy theorists. (I'm sure he'll drop by and post a few of them later!!)
ANON.
The videos I posted are made by Parent and Parent LLC, a top US international tax specialist. Not quite the sort of people who would go for conspiracy theories, eh?
Parent & Parent, LLP
60 E 42nd St #4600
New York, NY 10165
You just make yourself look very stupid when there is a mountain of solid evidence from solid sources (like the government!?) that this is all too real.
What makes me laugh is people come here and claim it's me passing on a lunatic conspiracy theory when 30 seconds googling will show articles from literally hundreds of reliable sources, court cases being held all over the world and seriously big guns in US politics and indeed all over the world trying to get something done.
Oh yes, why does the EU commission hold meetings and investigations about my conspiracy, why is the Canadian government being dragged through the courts for capitulating to US demands that are nothing more than my conspiracy?
Senator Rand Paul and super lawyer James Bopp spend half their lives fighting my conspiracy in the courts and indeed, recently held a hearing at ways and means in order to discuss the horrendous consequences on peoples lives caused by what is nothing short of persecution.
J...I understand you never mentioned FATCA (You now at least acknowledge it exists!) because the OP did not say he was American but your comment still shows that you do not understand what is going on here.
Millions of people in the USA are also falling foul of this, people who were guilty of nothing more than maintaining accounts in their home countries who are not facing a slap for not reporting them, the penalties START at $10,000 per unreported account per year going back at least 6 years.
When I say "account" who in the USA on a 12 month project thought that their Belgian pension could ruin them in the USA?
It can be even worse for failing to file certain returns on those accounts, going back forever!
Does a $60,000 fine for failing to report a $10,000 account (your pension you left at home?!) on which no tax was evaded or avoided sound normal to you?
More, these are often the resident citizens of other countries, British, French, Belgian! Their only connection to the USA could be a parent born there!
CC_R...Why rant about this?
Because it is a monstrous injustice on people being forced down the throats of the entire world at the point of a financial gun by the USA, our "ally" who will send us back to the stone age by closing our banks if we do not help them enforce their unique and human rights abusing tax laws on our residents and citizens, leaving US IN BELGIUM to pick up the tab for their care in old age because the USA took their pension and more for not reporting it to the USA?!
Not only that, the cost of implementing this law in the UK alone has amounted to around $700 per UK household, costs that will eventually be born by us all.
Lose US citizenship you say? Take Belgian?
For starters, nobody can just take a citizenship, it has to be paid for or earned. If I need another citizenship in order to leave the USA, that is a clear human rights breach.
Being forced to renounce in order to protect myself from persecution by a country I left is another clear breach of the UDOHR.
And just renounce? People say this like it's throwing away a pair of old pants. Leaving aside the deeply troubling fact that renouncing is the only way to escape this, renouncing is not easy. Apart from the emotional aspects, the USA has managed to make renunciation of US citizenship the most difficult and expensive in the free world and by far, recently quadrupling the basic consular fee but that's likely to be a drop in the ocean compared to the tax compliance costs.#
It saddens me that you don't give a feck, they should just renounce.
Does it not concern you that the USA is using a financial gun at the head of the entire world in order to help them apply immoral laws, taxation and penalties on the rest of the planet?
No, because you don't think it effects you.
Oh, you want a video from conspiracy nuts, ANON?
Here you go, here's some conspiracy nuts from the US government.
The overwhelming majority of us here don't give a flying sh*t what the US does or does not do to its citizens. Take your rants elsewhere.
This is about Belgian banks.
I understand you don't give a sh*t, J Because you are too dumb to realise that this is money stolen fror your pocket, your bank charges increasing, fellow citizens getting ruined by life destroying fines from the USA for failing to report their pension to a foreign country, leaving us to pay for their old age.
No, people like you need a bill written in person to you, or perhaps a family member hanging from a tree by the neck when they realised they could not pay, they could not renounce.
The SWEDISH persons crime that he and his family be ruined by the USA?
Born to a US mother.
I see you couldn't be bothered to watch the video. Thankfully, some people with a better moral compass than you DO give a sh*t, and that includes me.
Newstart77...Be very careful.
Failure to file FBAR on your accounts(s) even with no tax evaded or avoided and with it being accepted that you never knew you had to report, start at $10,000 per account per unreported year.
Wilful failure to file is $50,000 or fifty percent of the accounts whichever is the greater, per unreported year.
