A friend of mine has received a letter asking for confirmation of country of tax residency.  He has no assets or income other than age pension from U.K.  Why would they ask for this information and why should I respond ?

There was a recent change to UK tax rules that meant all financial institutions had to write to their account holders requesting this information. If you have a live account and do not reply then this may cause problems with HMRC and/or your account may be closed. If the only assets are a UK pension then a reply may negate you being taxed in the UK and Thailand.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

Is the letter in old snail mail form or email ?

 

Email  ignore it.

 

Snail mail ignore it.

 

To really  upset the sender if it is snail mail  mark it  ''return to sender '' in a package containing a brick and send it air mail cost a  packet at the other end.

 

The whole request is about as kosher as a pork pie in a synagogue.

1 hour ago, delphioracle said:

Is the letter in old snail mail form or email ?

 

Email  ignore it.

 

Snail mail ignore it.

 

To really  upset the sender if it is snail mail  mark it  ''return to sender '' in a package containing a brick and send it air mail cost a  packet at the other end.

 

The whole request is about as kosher as a pork pie in a synagogue.

The banks ask this because the taxman told them to.

All over Europe.

So it seems to be kosher and halal.

1 hour ago, delphioracle said:

Is the letter in old snail mail form or email ?

 

Email  ignore it.

 

Snail mail ignore it.

 

To really  upset the sender if it is snail mail  mark it  ''return to sender '' in a package containing a brick and send it air mail cost a  packet at the other end.

 

The whole request is about as kosher as a pork pie in a synagogue.

I had a letter from the Halifax regarding this, just fill it in correctly and send back as I had a postage paid envelope. It's another step in stopping money laundering etc, nothing to worry about if you're legal.

2 hours ago, Lucky mike said:

Why would they ask for this information and why should I respond ?

I suppose you shouldn't.....that would be for your friend to do?

Remember the distinction between  being domiciled and being  resident, its important.  I won't repeat it here, for concern at giving wrong information, but do check it out with HMRC and the Home Office website.  I will however, refer you to this website.

 

https://www.expertsforexpats.com/expat-tax/the-difference-between-domicile-and-residence/

I had one from the Coop bank. I ignored it. A second one came a few months later. I filled that one in and sent it back. 

2 hours ago, Aquaman2016 said:

There was a recent change to UK tax rules that meant all financial institutions had to write to their account holders requesting this information. If you have a live account and do not reply then this may cause problems with HMRC and/or your account may be closed. If the only assets are a UK pension then a reply may negate you being taxed in the UK and Thailand.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

 

Thank you for your help, I will share your reponses for him to act on......

3 hours ago, delphioracle said:

Is the letter in old snail mail form or email ?

 

Email  ignore it.

 

Snail mail ignore it.

 

To really  upset the sender if it is snail mail  mark it  ''return to sender '' in a package containing a brick and send it air mail cost a  packet at the other end.

 

The whole request is about as kosher as a pork pie in a synagogue.

Clearly you are up to date!

 

42 minutes ago, Lucky mike said:

Thank you for your help, I will share your reponses for him to act on......

I had one of those. I was unable to answer all the questions, but I sent it back with a cover letter explaining why, and never heard back. They didn't bring it up when I visited the bank in the UK recently, so must have been satisfied. They probably consider it a waste of their time and just ticking the box that letter sent and reply received.

I certainly don't advise ignoring the letter. If they don't get a reply, they may assume you are dead.

A tax info. sharing requirement. No doubt money laundering, too. All banks and building societies are doing, or have already done, the same. 

My understanding is that this is related to MIFID 2. You ought (stress - ought) only to receive this if you get income from a source which should be assessed for tax in its country of origin. I received just such a letter from a UK bank about an account in a location over which the UK claims jurisdiction (a non-mainland based account). Pensions are assessed as taxable income, and if you have a high enough pension, will be taxed. This is the case for my mother, who has enough pension income that she actually pays tax. I would generally have expected that the income would have to cross some threshold before the recipient would need to declare tax jurisdiction, but the interest on my own account amounted to about £0.50 a year.

 

The bank was very insistant that I fill out the forms and return them, along with certified / notarised ID. I also agreed with them that they could transfer my account to non-interest bearing, allowing both of us to save a lot of hassle for such a small sum in the future. The bank was very accommodating - it gets them off the hook too! They still wrote back asking for a Tax ID for my now accepted jurisdiction (Thailand) and I wrote back to them explaining that since I had no tax footprint here, getting one was not possible. That prompted a warning that they may still be obliged to send reporting information - but since they accept that that would be to Thailand, I suspect this will go away.

 

My understanding is that this process has been prompted by the banks being fined huge sums by various watchdogs for not addressing money laundering sufficiently thoroughly - making the offshore business a high risk one for them. You personally run the risk of having the institution that is asking you for information, reporting back income info to the jurisdiction that they consider to be appropriate. It may not concern or inconvenience you to do this (pensions below tax threshold probably wouldn't) - but it is also possible that they may refuse to serve any account in future. You can expect this requirement to have to be satisfied every 3 years (similar to the WBEN8, for investors in American companies).

Me too, it is from HSBC. I always put my UK personal income tax code. It is just a normal practice, I suppose.  

This is part of the Common Reporting Standard procedures, which have been adopted in many countries. Google the term for more information. Don't reply, or don't reply to your bank's satisfaction, and you'll probably lose the bank account at some point.

In my country it always to do whether the bank should be charging with-holding tax on deposits interest earned, or not.  Could be similar. 

Many countries have long had a form related to withholding tax, to declare yourself non-resident of the particular country or to claim tax treaty benefits. But the form asking you to declare your tax residence and provide your tax number is different, and a new requirement under CRS. If asked, you need to complete it without regard to whether there's any withholding tax issue.

 

The point of CRS is that you provide your tax residence and tax ID number to the bank, and  the tax authorities in the country where you're resident are then informed of your foreign bank account.

I received one this week from HSBC. I was rather miffed that I had to do the donkey work and dig out tax details from 4 countries, and pay for a stamp back to Singapore. It also said if I did not reply they would send details based upon what they did know. That sounded good to me, so it went in the bin. I await a second sending....

Tell your friend to think of the obvious

Just had the same letter from First Direct. This is the second one in two years, I also had one from Nationwide. I'm assuming its because I have my Thai address on both accounts.

10 hours ago, dotpoom said:

I suppose you shouldn't.....that would be for your friend to do?

Am always intrigued- why do every other posts always involve a friend ? 

 

You know the sort of thing concerning the girlfriend / boyfriend/ mother in law / money issues / guns/ etc etc etc. 

 

its really strange 

Like to thank you for all of your input especially those doubting my ability to try and help a friend....reminds me of Buddhist saying "only speak if it improves the silence !"

As pointed out it is the new crs system (common reporting standard ) which as i far as i remember started in april 2016 with a lot of countries signing up for it . Thailand was not one of them . I had one a while ago and threw it in the bin

Been a lot of threads on CRS for anybody not aware or only just receiving a communication from a home country financial institution suggest you do a search or start perhaps with this thread - 

My search just for CRS dragged up a whole host of threads from the last 6/9 months

On 6/20/2018 at 9:19 AM, dragonballz said:

As pointed out it is the new crs system (common reporting standard ) which as i far as i remember started in april 2016 with a lot of countries signing up for it . Thailand was not one of them . I had one a while ago and threw it in the bin

Thailand has agreed in principal but is not planning to implement for a few years yet - which could mean a long time...........

As part of Know your customer regs your specific institution may not take too kindly to you just ignoring them but everybody's circumstances will be different so up to you.

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 1:25 PM, hansnl said:

The banks ask this because the taxman told them to.

All over Europe.

So it seems to be kosher and halal.

All over the world by most countries.

Thank you for your replies, my friend has contacted bank and all is well !

20 hours ago, topt said:

Thailand has agreed in principal but is not planning to implement for a few years yet - which could mean a long time...........

As part of Know your customer regs your specific institution may not take too kindly to you just ignoring them but everybody's circumstances will be different so up to you.

you are quite right its up to me but unlike the op when i recieved this letter i contacted my nats west bank  not old grumpy expats and they explained to me it was  a government thing but as thailand had not signed up to this agreement i did not have to fill it in so i never 

On 6/22/2018 at 1:01 PM, dragonballz said:

you are quite right its up to me but unlike the op when i recieved this letter i contacted my nats west bank  not old grumpy expats and they explained to me it was  a government thing but as thailand had not signed up to this agreement i did not have to fill it in so i never 

If the sending bank knows Thailand hasn't signed up to the agreement then why ****** send it?