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Comment by Hizonner | Hacker News Reader

Um, no, it attempts to compel foreign banks, which may not even have a presence in the US, to disclose information about US citizens, using various threats. It doesn't threaten to throw foreigners in jail, but it does threaten to use US government "clout" against them... and the actors it's trying to put obligations on are absolutely not US citizens.

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Funny how you make tax evasion and money laundering on par with political speech. Fighting for your rights to be corrupt is a pretty weird take. If we can talk someone into doing what we want, that's perfectly legal as long as we or they aren't violating any laws. And nobody complains because getting dirty banks to spill is in everyone's best interests. Remember how happy everyone was at all the FIFA corruption data we uncovered.

They didn't make anything on par, they gave an example of the US government enforcing US laws on foreign entities abroad.

Another example is that e.g. AWS Europe, even if every single one of its employees, board and what have it are all Germans, are still compelled to hand over their data if Amazon US is the parent company, under the likes of the CLOUD Act or FISA. That's a foreign entity comprised of foreign citizens and concerns the assets (data) of foreign citizens.

It's only a tax evasion concern in the first place because the US started the trend of hoovering up wealth generated in other countries, which in-context still sounds like US overreach.

They weren't arguing for anyone's right to be corrupt in the first place though. If US citizens really have to pay extra taxes and have arduous reporting requirements then so be it, but why is the rest of the world dragged into that mess? This isn't a "dirty banks" issue; it's nearly impossible to get a bank account at any reputable institution as a US citizen abroad just because of the PITA of the reporting requirements. It's a mediocre law from questionable authority.

Besides the extraterritoriality issue, the other problem with FATCA is that it makes Americans living overseas (99% of whom are just normal people not trying to evade taxes) radioactive to overseas financial institutions because of the potential consequences of failing to report on someone's accounts properly.

Sadly a lot of Americans hear "foreign bank account" and immediately think "tax evasion" without realizing there are a lot of ordinary Americans overseas who just want to pay the rent and save for retirement but can't because Uncle Sam follows us wherever we go for life.

Plenty of honest and law-abiding Americans living abroad have a hard time banking because of this law. Many banks simply won't accept American citizens as clients. Even those that will let you open a current account won't let you have anything more complex.

Just one example: https://help.revolut.com/help/wealth/stocks/licences-regulat...

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