A Belgian agency ruled that the government’s sharing of Americans’ financial information with the IRS [Internal Revenue Service, the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes] under a US law violates European data protection laws.
The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, requires reporting of foreign bank account information to the US agency.
The Belgian Data Protection Authority issued the ruling Thursday, saying sharing of this data in accordance with FATCA violated provisions in the EU General Data Protection Regulation, and it gave the Belgian government one year to bring its data-sharing into conformity with the GDPR.
- The authority initially blocked the sharing of data in 2023, in a case brought by the Accidental Americans Association of Belgium. A Brussels Market Court reversed the decision and sent it back to the authority later that year.
- The Association of Accidental Americans President Fabien Lehagre said his group welcomes the decision, which he said will stop the data transfers, but he decried the decision to give the government a year to comply. “Accidental Americans” are people who hold US citizenship by virtue of their birth but are established overseas.
- “Data protection cannot accommodate a political or administrative timetable,” he said. “Transfers must cease immediately.”
I don’t think so. Why would they close your account? They might not share your data, but your account is still active imo, at least that’s my understanding here.
I don’t know the method by which my bank (which is European, indeed) could be punished by US if they didn’t share the data that IRS and FINCEN wants, true, at least if they don’t have any official activities in the US. I think I recall the was something about US strongarming every other country into effectively making FATCA reporting into local law? (Maybe that’ll change?) What else could US do? Designate officers of the non-cooperative bank as “money laundrers” and make their private lives hell on the international arena?
What I do know is that they (my bank) already is unhappy about the fact that I’m a “US person” and they’ve told me as much in person. They do not allow me to open new accounts. They do not allow me to do any trades beyond moving money between the savings accounts and use their bank card (which I do use when I’m in Europe). They would however allow me to close my accounts! Half their internet banking site is off-limits to me - it’s sometimes difficult to access documents like annual statements because the logical path to that part of the site got roped off!
I’m pretty sure they’re already looking for an excuse to cut me off.
But of course they would, if the bank has subsdiaries inside Usa where they must observe their laws.
A subsidiary in US, or a subsidiary in any non-EU country that doesn’t feel bound by this verdict to remove any domestic laws compelling banks to report on their customers.
Ah, then yes. I just understand @BullishUtensil’s comment that their bank is European. I am not sure, though.
Well the subsidiary might be liable to share all data, but what if the subsidiary has no data, on purpose?
Given all the various “know your customer” rules, I suspect that argument wouldn’t fly.
That only prohibits dealing with sanctioned parties, and I doubt the US will start sanctioning EU banks over this.
There might be different implementations of these laws in different countries, but i can mention at least one country where "know your customer"applies to every single person they deal with, no exceptions.
Yeah, but the US subsidiary does not deal with that US citizen, the EU bank does. The US subsidiary might even know that that person is the customer of the EU bank, but might not know the details of their bank account, like one bank doesn’t necessarily know the details of other bank accounts. If you were a sanctioned individual and the EU bank deals with you, the US subsidiary would have to cut the EU bank off, but that does not mean that the EU bank has to transfer all data about all accounts to the US subsidiary beyond whether they deal with you, and even that is only if you are on “the list”.
I mean it works like this at EU banks, they have a responsibility to give data to the tax office of the country you are tax resident of, but not all tax offices even in the EU. If I’m an Italian citizen residing long-term in Spain, and thus being a tax resident of Spain, the (likely Spanish) bank will have to provide all banking details to the Spanish tax office. The Italian tax office however has no such right, even though I’m an Italian citizen.
If you owe money to the government, is it a good excuse then to say you don’t have any?