Is the Internal Revenue Service suborning European Banks to keep tabs on their American customers? According to this editorial from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, a number of German Banks have ‘understandably’ decided to drop their U.S. customers due to the expense of complying with IRS data provisions and for fear of being on the wrong side of the American tax collector.
The Financial Times Deutschland editorial says in part:
If some European banks are now concluding that doing business with U.S. customers is no longer worthwhile, it is entirely understandable. The risk of suddenly finding oneself in the cross-hairs of the U.S. tax authorities is too great, as some Swiss banks recently have. Plus the returns are just too low, considering the administrative burden of potential fines and other legal ramifications should there be a failure to heed U.S. regulations.
For U.S. citizens, it is indeed a clear cut case of discrimination. But it is one that emanates directly from their own executive authorities. For their exclusion is a reaction to American attempts to turn foreign banks into agents of the U.S. tax authorities. So address your grievances to the authorities sitting in Washington – not Europe.
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