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SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS MISSING THIS MONTH


gringal

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1 hour ago, Tiny said:

My impression of this problem with expats and US investment and banking is a side effect of a law, FATCA, that was passed in 2010. The main purpose of the law was to control money laundering. 

It seems like investment companies and banks vary in their application of the law.

https://investorjunkie.com/investing/expat/

I became concerned about this part of the article referred to:

" One of the biggest things to look out for, beyond exchange rates, is taxes. Contrary to popular belief, U.S. citizens living abroad are required to file a U.S. tax return. This is true even if they don’t owe taxes to the IRS. "

According to Senor Google in several references, filing a return is not required below a certain income level.

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21 minutes ago, gringal said:

I became concerned about this part of the article referred to:

Sorry that you became concerned that the writer missed that little point. I think they were trying to say that you need to file, if required, even when you live abroad and you need to report overseas income.

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2 hours ago, gringal said:

Banking issues have been plaguing expats on many levels.  There are banks that insist you open the account in person and have a U.S. address.  This leads to a complicated scenario involving a phony address and often requiring a friend or relative to take responsibility for handling your mail.  Then there are Mexican related banks like the US Banamex that dumped their expat customers several years ago.  Sometimes I get the impression that the U.S. government wants to make life difficult for anyone who has the effrontery to move out of the mother country.🙄  Or maybe I'm getting paranoid.😉

Which government  would  not prefer retirees stay home and spend locally..If you are an Australian retiree on a government pension, it gets cut off if you are out of the country for more than 6 months 

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37 minutes ago, lakeside7 said:

Which government  would  not prefer retirees stay home and spend locally..If you are an Australian retiree on a government pension, it gets cut off if you are out of the country for more than 6 months 

Bushels of apples and oranges there.

What sort of pension Australian retirees may receive is not the same as the EARNED Social Security retirement system.  It is bad enough that we can't use the Part B Medicare but must pay for it monthly or risk a huge penalty if we ever want to use it again in the States.  Yes, of COURSE the U.S. would prefer we retire there and spend our money even though most desirable places are un-affordable on retirement pensions and whatever we've managed to save.  Frankly, I don't give a damn what the U.S. government would prefer!!!  These latest intrusions into citizens' privacy are looking too much like ....TOO MUCH.

 

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Exactly, I never worked for the government there so I sure do not have a government pension. I pay taxes so what is the problem..?  I can see whay they want to know their customers but do they have to cut off their income without warning?  We never received any uestions, neer got a message they wanted to know where outr money came from and frankly the IRS has that answer so what gives?

 

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22 minutes ago, gringal said:

These latest intrusions into citizens' privacy are looking too much like ....TOO MUCH.

What latest intrusions are you talking about? FATCA has been law for 8 years.

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1 hour ago, lakeside7 said:

Which government  would  not prefer retirees stay home and spend locally..If you are an Australian retiree on a government pension, it gets cut off if you are out of the country for more than 6 months 

Not quite, but I would love to meet the group of drunks who came up with the actual laws about traveling to and from Australia while receiving a pension: https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/enablers/age-pension-if-you-travel-outside-australia/31171

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26 minutes ago, Tiny said:

What latest intrusions are you talking about? FATCA has been law for 8 years.

The OEPD's CRS (Common Reporting Standard) was devised in 2014, though not adopted by Canada and Mexico until 2017.   

FATCA is a US law with tentacles that reached to other countries.  CRS is a multi-national OECD initiative adopted by scores of countries.  But oddly not the US (it feels FATCA serves its purpose).  CRS is called GATCA by many.....a Global version of FATCA.

Here is a decent explanation of CRS. 

https://www.expatbriefing.com/expat-features/Update-On-The-Common-Reporting-Standard-574811.html
 

Quote

 

Numerous legal mechanisms have been put in place for tax authorities to exchange information with each other. These include bilateral double taxation avoidance agreements, regional initiatives like the European Savings Tax Directive and its successor the Administrative Cooperation Directive, and international agreements such as the OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. The CRS effectively standardizes these separate regimes, at the same time lowering administrative costs, according to the OECD

"A proliferation of different and inconsistent models would potentially impose significant costs on both government and business to collect the necessary information and operate the different models," the OECD states.

The CRS Basics

The CRS was endorsed by G20 finance ministers in February 2014 and the final version was approved by the OECD Council in July that year. The Standard sets out the financial account information to be exchanged, the financial institutions that need to report, the different types of accounts and taxpayers covered, as well as common due diligence procedures to be followed by financial institutions.

Automatic Exchange

Countries that have signed up to the CRS will exchange information "automatically" with one another. This represents something of a step change in international tax enforcement.

Traditionally, information about an individual or business has been sent from one tax authority to another on request, based on evidence that tax fraud or some other crime has taken place. However, the OECD, which is driving new international standards in taxation, has long called for such information to exchanged automatically, and slowly, this has concept has come to be accepted as the norm rather than the exception; the EU could be said to have led the way with the Savings Tax Directive, followed by the United States with FATCA.

In summary, "automatic" exchange of information will entail the systematic and periodic transmission of "bulk" taxpayer information by the source country of income to the country of residence of the taxpayer concerning various categories of income or asset information.  The information exchanged is normally collected in the source country on a routine basis, generally through reporting of the payments by financial institutions and other payers.

From FATCA To "GATCA"

While there are technical similarities between the CRS and FATCA, there are some key differences, mainly that US-specific rules have been removed from the CRS. For instance, FATCA is based on US citizenship, a concept fundamental to the US tax system, whereas the CRS is based on residence. Also, unlike FATCA, the CRS does not provide for thresholds for pre-existing individual accounts, but it includes a residence address test building on the EU savings directive. Additionally, the CRS has special rules dealing with certain investment entities where they are based in jurisdictions that do not participate in automatic exchange under the standard.

What Information Will Be Exchanged?

The financial information to be reported with respect to reportable accounts includes interest, dividends, account balance, income from certain insurance products, sales proceeds from financial assets and other income generated with respect to assets held in the account or payments made with respect to the account.

Reportable accounts include accounts held by individuals and entities (which includes trusts and foundations), and the standard includes a requirement that financial institutions "look through" passive entities to report on the relevant controlling persons.

The financial institutions covered by the standard include custodial institutions, depository institutions, investment entities and specified insurance companies, unless they present a low risk of being used for evading tax and are excluded from reporting.

Will My Information Be Kept Private?

In theory, yes. The standard contains specific rules on the confidentiality of the information exchanged and that the underlying international legal exchange instruments already contain safeguards in this regard. Where these standards are not met (whether in law or in practice), countries will not exchange information automatically.

Time will tell how watertight the system is in practice, however.

Which Countries Have Signed Up To The Standard?

Over 100 jurisdictions have either begun exchanging information under the CRS, or have committed to do so. All bilateral exchange relationships in place as of December 21, 2017, can be viewed on the OECD's Automatic Exchange Portal.

 

 

 

 

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We have ss and other needed money in an American bank. Then we write a check  to Multiva for about 3  months of money we predict we will need. We have a savings ( investment account) . I believe it goes into the bank part and we have them release it to Banamex. 

This has been our method for years. Suddenly our check took 3 months to clear. Multiva could not account for this. This, however, caught us a bit short with a bunch of medical and repair bills. 

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1 hour ago, Floradude said:

My monthly check was deposited in my Intercam account on the 3 rd. of the month as normal.

Anyone having their checks deposited in Banco de Inversion (formerly Actinver)?  Did they arrive as usual or not?  As of today, ours haren't.  The bank claims it's a computer glitch in the intermediate bank. 

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Our problem is a Schwab problem.. They are hiding behind the fact they could not ask us the questions as they could not get in touch with us. Our postion is that we do not have any message from then either oral or written and that when we asked what were the questions a couple od days ago, they did not know and had to wait a day to get the questions as they had not been formulated.. Our checks also go through a clearance bank and there was no problem there.

We send an e-mail to SS and they responded they would respond within 5 working days..We will see what happens to the checks then..

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It is not good to hear so many problems. My husband thankfully has not had problems with his Military and VA checks but he will soon file for SSN. It seems, to me anyway, that the little people pay for what others with so much have caused in laundering and such. Yet I continue to read stories of all these offshore things still going on. I hope that they would put a bigger burden on those people.

Withholding a SSN payment because of fear of laundering is ridiculous.

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