Poland to sign FATCA, USA will get information about bank accounts

Poland is going to sign FATCA, thanks to the agreement USA will get information about Polish bank accounts of Americans and Poles with green card. Perhaps it may interest some users.

forsal.pl/artykuly/748635,polskie-konta-trafia-pod-lupe-us a.html

Ugh, I oppose any sort of data sharing with the US.

And yet it's still not any easier for Poles to get USA Visas.

And it won't be until less than 10% of Poles going to the US quit overstaying their visas. Blame it on your countrymen, not the US. It's that simple.

How can one be that ignorant?How many ******* times do you need to be told that % of Poles overstaying is irrelevant?Geez..

So now, Poland has joined dozen or so countries where you can't hide money from the USA. That can only hurt Poland, since there are already many better countries for it.

When you can't keep up the charade anymore you just go about looting the store.....

Totally. This is obviously just the government grasping at any way to fill its coffers as it plummets to its doom. Watch for more such acts of desperation as the titan falls. Interestingly enough didn't the Urzad Skarbowy recently get rejected when it tried to make it legal to check into everyone's bank accounts. I talked to a doradca at my bank and he wasn't even remotely concerned that this would become law as it's not constitutional to share info like that. Seems like it is going to be though.

No, it's not like that. According to Americans they cannot abolish visas for the country which THEY REJECT OVER ~10% of visa applicants. If it was as you say, then it would be objective condition.

But it's not.

BS. VWP rejection threshold is set at 3% not 10. Poland has been under 10% for a while now, besides the rejection rate based on a potential of an applicant to overstay his/her welcome is highly subjective, based solely on an intuitive judgments of US embassy and consulate personnel. Time to take a closer look at 1991 Polish law made in haste dealing with US visitors to Poland and perhaps overturn it like Brazil did few years earlier.

They won't overturn it. They get a few hundred bucks everytime a Polish person wants to go visit his/her aunt or uncle in Chicago or Greenpoint. You think the piggies will pass on free money? No way.

Your statement is true however I was talking about Poland doing a tit for tat diplomacy here and perhaps make a few hundred bucks on every Yank that's rejected.

Well I'm blaming the USA for that on the square. You can go and suck on egg.


They can kiss good bye some monies but as most banks are in foreign hands .....

That won't happen until the spineless band of croneys in charge of this place decide that Poland needs to do more than sell its highly-educated workforce as more than back-office workers for large Western companies. Someone with some cajones.

Anything more about this? Has anyone challenged it as an invasion of privacy (and as such it is unconstitutional) like the law professor in the article stated?

And how difficult is it now for someone without Polish residency to open a bank account in Poland?

Nordea used to do it no problem, but they got swallowed by a Polish bank.

It's not a problem at all. Millenium might be a decent place to start if you just want a basic account. Easy to use, can open it with a passport.

Thanks!

Any information about the constitutional privacy issues?

Poland could get a lot of investment from Polonia if they recognized a right to financial privacy. Polonia would come for a holiday and leave money in secret bank accounts and investment property. Any idea how the new government feels about this?

Not a chance in hell will that happen. If it did the USA would destroy the Polish economy, just as it did to Iran.

But why would Poland want to help criminal tax dodgers

Not possible. For a start, Poland would be silly to risk their entire financial system on the Polonia.


Quite.

To begin with, for people born with Polish citizenship, Poland only recognizes them as Polish citizens. Thus if a Polish citizen does not live and work in the United States, why is Poland sharing banking information with the U.S.? The issue is beyond "criminal tax dodgers" and is a matter of financial privacy, which one law professor in Poland said was constitutionally protected. Even when someone does not owe taxes to the U.S. government, U.S. civil law requires them to disclose foreign income and bank accounts. There are civil penalties for failing to disclose such information, even if no tax is owed, or the tax was paid. So even when it isn't a crime the U.S. government still attempts to exact penalties because big brother wants to know. On balance, unless there is some threat of not supporting Poland in the case of a Russian attacks, which is against the U.S.'s interests, it would benefit Poland to allow Polonia to invest without telling the U.S. government.

Whats wrong with paying taxes, that's what the majority of us do. Tax avoidance is not only criminal it deprives people of vital services that are provided by the government.

Again, someone missed the point. The issue is beyond paying taxes, but about Uncle Sam as Big Brother who needs to know too much about otherwise law abiding citizens. When no tax is due or owed, there is no issue of tax avoidance at all. The issue is one of personal and financial privacy, which again, a Polish law professor said was constitutionally protected in the Polish constitution.

" The issue is one of personal and financial privacy" so if one has nothing to hide and lives in democratic society why worry about what the government knows about your finances,

It is no different that your bank manager or financial adviser knowing your financial affairs . Unless there is something irregular to hide of course.

In a democratic society, the majority might decide to appropriate money from the minority. If laws are applied uniformly, then how much money a person has in the bank is unimportant. If the government and its minions want to appropriate money from unpopular people or groups, then it wants to know who owns what so that it might make decisions to prosecute or confiscate property.


reason/archives/2014/11/17/kiss-your-financial-privacy-go

The author above notes a report in the Washington Post that 60,000 people have had property confiscated by the government under civil forfeiture laws since the year 2000 where that person was never indicted or served with a search warrant, let alone convicted of any criminal offense, but still were unable to reclaim their property. The issue is broader than "crimes" and "criminals", and when the government can aggressively confiscate property, reverse burdens of proof, etc., a wise person might well decide to invest in a country with greater protections against such abuse.

Thats an issue you should take up with the US government. But at a guess, I'd say its because worked in the US and paid taxes there.

"government and its minions want to appropriate money from unpopular people or groups" I can see this happening in Bongo Bongo land but not in Europe any time soon.

Well unless the unpopular groups were terrorists etc.

Let me get my tin foil hat on here.
The U.S. government has wanted to eliminate cash money for the last 75 years.
It is one of their biggest headaches.
They want everything done electronically which they are slowly doing.
Hell you can even go to Micky D's and scan your order on your cell phone to pay for it.
You can't rent a car in the U.S. without a credit card and you have to give your social security number to get a credit card.

Their agenda of eliminating cash was not moving fast enough so 9/11 "happened" so they could create the infamous Patriot Act which gave the U.S. government complete transparency to ALL money transactions. You no longer can open a bank account without a social security number to track every single kind of monetary transaction in the bull**** excuse to stop terrorism transactions.

You no longer can buy house or car insurance with a social security number.
Now you think that you have lost your privacy in Poland in the name of terrorism turn the page.
The United States innocently now has/is collecting every bit of your personal health care information that they can get their paws on.
Most likely in Poland too without your knowledge to keep it off the radar until it is to late to do anything about it.
They have been collecting DNA on EVERY baby that is born in The United States (WITHOUT parents consent or knowledge) and give them a mandatory social security number at birth since about 1990. (Coming to Poland soon if they aren't doing it already without the parents consent or knowledge)

The United States government can tell you when and what you are going to die of.
With your personal health records to use against you they now have complete control of your life because you no longer have any privacy of any kind all in the fake name of terrorism.

You can't get health insurance without a social security number.
You can't collect welfare without a social security number.
Even though when I got my original social security number to work back when it said right on the social security card in red letters: This number will not be used for identification

Another lie by the United States Government.
Poland as well as the rest of Europe and the United States no longer have ANY privacy so 'they' have complete control.
They know how much money you earn (electronic pay check deposits) and how much and where you spend it (credit cards) to what all your living expenses are and where and when you travel (passports).

What privacy ? You no longer have any privacy.
Welcome to Agenda 21

Johnny : All that you have stated has been the norm here in Europe for about two decades (apart from baby dna) Poland has its Pessel and the UK has NI and driving licence number.

If you get arrested in the uk you will automatically have your dna taken, if subsequently no charges were proved the DNA is retained by the security services.

Bio metric passports allow the security services to trace you by facial recognition using any CCTV cameras that they have access to. which is a big number in the UK.

Welcome to the new world, If you are a good boy you just might be ok.

My point is..........You no longer have any personal privacy.
Bank accounts are the last of your worries.
Me......I am so squeaky clean I have no worries about big brother.
I converted most of my assets to gold and silver before the Patriot Act.
The government has no idea how much I own, what I paid for it or how much I sell it for.
Pretty hard to tax that even though I report ALL my capital gains on it.
I like to stay as honest as my government is. :-]

Fair Enough Johnny better be safe than sorry.