JPLSU1981 LSU Fan Baton Rouge Member since Oct 2005 15916 posts Online
re: How Worried Are you about FATCA? (Posted on 5/1/12 at 2:58 pm to MStant1)
quote: estimate that it will cost each foreign bank with more 25 million accounts $250 million to sift through those accounts and identify those held by Americans. In total, that would cost the top 30 foreign banks $7.5 billion.
This seems excessive to me. How hard/expensive is a simple computer/database search?
tirebiter LSU Fan ATL Member since Oct 2006 4470 posts
re: How Worried Are you about FATCA? (Posted on 5/1/12 at 4:47 pm to MStant1)
From an individual/consumer perspective numerous expats and others married to foreigners are renouncing their US citizenship over this, especially when tax time appeared. The married ones that are American living out of the country also have to show detailed information on their foreign spouse's financial info and the account owning spouses are saying hell no and many foreign banks are simply closing consumer accounts to avoid compliance issues. Sounds grossly overreaching to me.
MStant1 LSU Fan New York, NY Member since Sep 2010 4056 posts
re: How Worried Are you about FATCA? (Posted on 5/2/12 at 9:45 am to JPLSU1981)
quote: This seems excessive to me. How hard/expensive is a simple computer/database search?
It's not as easy as running a filter through a database. Most large banks have ridiculous amounts of systems that don't communicate with each other and customers could be tucked away across multiple systems. The FATCA legislation also requires specific KYC items that many banks either don't have or are incomplete in the information they do have. So even if they are able to run a quick search you still have to possibly conduct a lengthy KYC remediation in order to solve it.
The biggest problem though is it is still unsure exactly what the FATCA legislation will require as the final legislation has yet to be written. Banks are basically flying blind. Not to mention FATCA is also competing for resources for Dodd Frank implementation.
MStant1 LSU Fan New York, NY Member since Sep 2010 4056 posts
re: How Worried Are you about FATCA? (Posted on 5/2/12 at 9:49 am to tirebiter)
quote: From an individual/consumer perspective numerous expats and others married to foreigners are renouncing their US citizenship over this, especially when tax time appeared. The married ones that are American living out of the country also have to show detailed information on their foreign spouse's financial info and the account owning spouses are saying hell no and many foreign banks are simply closing consumer accounts to avoid compliance issues. Sounds grossly overreaching to me.
It will be interesting to see how consumers and various banks will react. It's easier said than done to say you will no longer deal with the United States. The other issue is that many other countries are now in the infant stage of discussion to implement their own version of FATCA. In other words it soon could be virtually impossible to escape FATCA legislation if the EU and UK implement a similar model.
But yes I agree the FATCA is far over-reaching. I haven't spoken to too many who agree with the legislation.
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