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.
Mind elaborating? Did they restrict your account specifically, or does the website simply treat logins from the US differently? I’m surprised you wouldn’t retain full cloud access so long as your account exists under the terms you signed up for.
I don’t understand why you would tell your Belgian bank that you left Belgium, particularly when your new residence is the US which flags you as a toxic asset that requires special handling. That could only work against you. Surely you would be better off not telling them you moved and use a VPN to Belgium to access your acct.
My home country is one of those with a residence registry, run by the government. The banks get their address data about me from this registry. Unless I were to hide from that government that I’ve emigrated, which is legally dicey from several aspects, including to whom I should pay taxes, I have no way of hiding my address from the bank. And lying about which country I’m in - and then wandering in to the consulate in US and ask about renewing my European passport… No thanks.
Yes, the bank restricts parts of their web portal to anyone they deem being a resident of the US. IIRC that might not even have been primarily due to FATCA (I moved about the time when FATCA laws were being implemented around the world, not sure if I moved before or after my country implemented it), but to a second US law, called the Dodd-Frank act.
But of course they would, if the bank has subsdiaries inside Usa where they must observe their laws.
Well the subsidiary might be liable to share all data, but what if the subsidiary has no data, on purpose?
Bingo. This is true even across EU borders. Rabobank in Netherlands does not exchange info with Rabobank in Belgium, IIUC. (but note I think Rabobank quit doing business in Belgium eventually anyway)
If you owe money to the government, is it a good excuse then to say you don’t have any?
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.
Spain and Italy: you’re most likely correct.
When US is involved: there are special rules. Every country in Europe has an agreement with US that they’ll write their own law that compels all local banks (not only banks which does business in US) to tell US authorities about any customer that US considers to have some form of connection with US. This case appears to be about the Belgian edition of this set of laws.
Huh, Wikipedia has a blurb about the Belgian process of implementing this law, back in 2014-2015: “the Belgian Ministry of Finance orally confirmed that the IRS agreed to delay the FATCA reporting deadline. Belgian financial institutions now will have until the 10th day following the publication of the Belgian FATCA law into the Belgian official gazette to report their 2014 FATCA information to the Belgian tax authorities. The Belgian FATCA law is expected to be voted on before 2015 year-end.” [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance_Act], the section about ‘Delays in implementation of IGAs’.
The point being that this law has nothing to do with “sanctioned individuals”.
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.