Financial Imperialism: Outrage Over New US Anti-Tax Law
The US Treasury has opened a new front in its war against offshore tax evasion. Overseas banks are being ordered to cooperate with the US Treasury and help identify which of their customers might owe the government taxes – a move that some equate to a form of “financial imperialism, INFOWARS reports.
Under the newly inked treaties with the United States, some 100,000 foreign financial institutions in more than 100 countries must report to the Treasury on the accounts of any so-called “US persons” — a US citizen, or anyone with an immigrant’s “green card” or a US work permit.
If banks fail to comply, the Treasury Department charges them with a 30 percent withholding tax on American bank earnings.
Thus American citizens with bank accounts overseas, and foreigners working inside the United States, are being told by their banks in Paris, Tokyo and/or Beijing that their account information is being handed over to the US agency for review, sparking an outrage.
“That’s shocking, how can they do that?” said Helene, a French woman working in Washington after receiving a letter like that from her bank back home.
“I know that foreign nationals who live in the US, some of them have had their bank accounts back in Europe shut down,” Dan Mitchell, a tax reform expert at the Cato Institute, said.
“You are not talking only about Swiss banks or Cayman banks… you are talking banks in the UK, in Japan. Nobody likes this law.”
“There is no reciprocity, it’s a one-way street. It really is financial imperialism on the part of the USA,” Mitchell said.
It is estimated that FACTA will generate $8 billion in additional tax payments to the government over 10 years.
