Topic: Why are some international payment companies not allowing Americans to join? - page 2. (Read 5940 times)

If it's any consolation, I'm also squeeky clean and am being sorely abused by the policies and strength of the U.S.  It's not just Bitcoin either.  It was hell just trying to get a few $100's worth of machine parts from an outfit in New Zealand.  And they are one of our most faithful minions for Christsake!

The reason I started this thread because I wanted to join a foreign exchange that would allow me to send USD to and obtain bitcoin to purchase bitcoin mining hardware. Since Mt. Gox had their account seized in the US I was concerned about sending money to them, so I went to BTC-e. They didn't have an easy way to send money other than international wire transfer which was going to cost a sh*t load of fees, so I looked around at some of the the other methods they offered and each one I went to said no new accounts from the US. I was taken back by this because even if the US requested a foreign company to comply with anything, it is optional for the foreign company to do so. Although I wasn't interested in money laundering or any other kind of illegal act such as buying controlled substances, but had a legitimate purpose, I didn't understand why they wouldn't want to do business with Americans. Certainly in Mt. Gox's case failure to comply was costly, and I'm sure once they cross their t's and dot their i's they will get their funds released. The government just wants to make sure they can catch the bad guys, and that's fine by me.

This may be the case with Liberty Reserve.  I have not followed the case, so the fact that I haven't seen any particularly compelling evidence the government claims about it are true doesn't mean much.

However, the Megaupload case strikes me as a classic case of government overreach, the raid on Kim Dotcom was pure jackboot lunacy (and later thrown out by a New Zealand court as illegal), and so far, the U.S. has woefully failed to make any solid case against Megaupload itself (as compared to its customers).  It appears to me that either what Megaupload was doing is legal, or else what a lot of other more well-established corporations (including Google/YouTube) are doing is just as much a crime.

It appears to me they went after Kim Dotcom more because of his larger than life persona (see what I did there) and appearance of being a buffoonish egomaniac than because he actually broke the law.  If he is a lawbreaker, then apparently lawbreaker is just another name for a successful entrepreneur without a big corporate backer.

Because they don't want to be caught up with 30% tax which always kills entrepreneurs at that rate. Also maybe they just hate and despise the American dream.

Read at least wikipedia about it.  You are flatly wrong.  As long as we (the U.S.) have geo-political reach to impose our will on the rest of the financial world, we can impose $20 of cost on foreign entities for $1 in revenue gain.  I, as a U.S. citizen who is not completely 'isolationist' financially, suffer for it but I'm not representative of the class who is being protected.  Just the opposite most likely.

It is also the responsibility of all financial institutions that do business in the US to enforce various rules, and also to make sure all financial institutions they deal with do the same regardless of in what jurisdiction those institutions might be located.

How about check my last post?
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3405622

Because sadly the US is a rogue state and a menace for any company giving payment or copyright-related services to its citizens.

It is the responsibility of the US citizen to report their assets to the IRS held in foreign accounts, not the foreign company.

There must be another reason.

Cause its Americans, so many restrictions.

  BO is printing bucks himself ，he only let you take dollars, he wont permit ya guys use other currencies

Because.

The reason why multiple financial institutions outside the US are rejecting US citizens is called FATCA - Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

FATCA forces "Foreign Financial Institutions" to provide burdensome reports on every "US person" (US citizen/resident or green card holder) they happen to have an account with. If they don't do so, they suffer a 30% tax (or something close to it) on any financial instrument they might hold in the US. And I think it has some sort of recursive function too: to be compliant, you must ensure that every financial institution you work with is also compliant, or you risk having your financial instruments in the US heavily taxed just because you accept to do business with someone who did not respect FATCA. I don't know for sure what "do business" mean though. What I know is that due to US's weight in the financial world, the US government is able to impose an international law.

The easiest path for such FFIs is to simply deny doing business with "US persons". This way they're compliant.

This is the most outrageous form of capital controls ever enacted. It isn't an explicit capital control, but in practice that's what it is, since from now on US persons will have great difficulty to send money abroad. And it's outrageous because it's one government forcing financial institutions of the whole world to behave as they want. In many countries, for FFIs to comply with FATCA, they'd need to violate local laws.

FATCA is already responsible for a raise in the number of US citizens dropping their US citizenship. I think many more will do so in the next couple years.

Online poker is legal in most states but sending money to those website is not. They didn't arrest anyone for running an online gambling website, they did because of "money laundering".

The U.S. claims that anyone, regardless of where they are located, that does business with someone in the U.S. is subject to U.S. laws. This claim became real in 2011, when the U.S. shut down three foreign online poker sites and arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned their CEOs. Online poker is illegal in the U.S. and people in the U.S. were playing poker on these sites.

Doing Financial Services for US citizens means having to comply with various US regulations.
Selling Goods or Software in the US means being target of patent trolls.

Who needs that crap? The world is big enough without US.

It's because of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance_Act

It's a problem not just for electronic payments, small european banks are kicking out US citizents because it's more EXPENSIVE to adapt systems and make all reports requests that your goverment makes than keep US clients and earn profits from their transactions.

Basically it's a way that the US goverment have to keep money on US banks, a desperate move to try to kick the "new finantial system meltdown" can to the future.

Why?

cuz the US government is a dogpile piece of crap that ruins everything in its path.

Cause US government  don't want people to keep bitcoin instead of USD

A rare point of agreement between you and I it seems.

I'd add that most likely, "you ain't seen nothing yet."  I find it exceedingly unlikely that we'll turn this around before we plumb some very much darker depths.  The sad thing is that in doing so, many souls around the globe will suffer even more than we will here.