Siam Commercial Bank and the U.S. government mandated reporting thingie

[Jingthing]

OK,

I recently was told this clearly and explicitly in person at a major Siam Commercial Bank branch.

-- New accounts from Americans will be required to fill out a U.S. form about this

-- EXISTING accounts will not

I had thought going in for in person business would trigger a demand to fill out the form. That didn't happen, so I asked about it. So above is what I was told.

If you have a U.S. passport with an EXISTING SCB account and your experience is different than mine, please post about it.

Also, a question.

Does that mean because they are not making EXISTING U.S. customers sign the form that they will NOT be reporting the required info the U.S. government for those customers? Hmm.

[Langsuan Man]

Without your social security number it would be impossible for SCB or any Thai bank to report your information to the US Government. The IRS does not keep records alphabetically, every thing is tied to your unique social security number or TIN (taxpayer identification number)

[Jingthing]

Yes but practically if you have been filing fbars if required and you should they would know about your accounts anyway without the ss number. I am not sure this is a good thing that they're not bothering with existing accounts.

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Crossy]

It's not just Americans, I opened an SCB account a couple of months back, even as a Brit I had to fill out the FATCA form

[NancyL]

Perhaps this was some sort of "compromise" they reached with Uncle Sam. Bangkok Bank seems to be doing the same thing. They haven't asked us for our SSN for existing accounts, but when I went in recently to roll over some fixed accounts and open new ones I had to fill out all the "we're telling Uncle Sam" paperwork, complete with a W-9.

No big deal, we do all the FATCA stuff already. It's really a big pain since Hubby and I are signatories on accounts for several charity organizations here in Thailand, but never mind, we told them upfront this is what happens if you let Americans have signature authority on your club's accounts.

It takes us twice as long to do the FATCA reporting each year than it does to actually complete our Federal Income tax filing. It would help if they actually streamlined the reporting process and developed decent software that meshed with TaxAct or some other free on-line software. Actually our financial lives our very simple, but the FATCA/FBAR or whatever it's called reporting requirement has made what was supposed to be very simple retirement tax filing into something very time consuming.

Edited October 25, 2014 by NancyL

[zydeco]

It's not just Americans, I opened an SCB account a couple of months back, even as a Brit I had to fill out the FATCA form

That sounds ironic. A nation, the USA, founded in part as a reaction against taxation is now reaching out and inspecting people from the nation who once taxed it to see if that other nation's citizens might "owe" the IRS tax.

[Jingthing]

It's not just Americans, I opened an SCB account a couple of months back, even as a Brit I had to fill out the FATCA form

That sounds ironic. A nation, the USA, founded in part as a reaction against taxation is now reaching out and inspecting people from the nation who once taxed it to see if that other nation's citizens might "owe" the IRS tax.

Not against taxation per se.

Taxation WITHOUT representation.

[mania]

Yes but practically if you have been filing fbars if required and you should they would know about your accounts anyway without the ss number. I am not sure this is a good thing that they're not bothering with existing accounts.

As you say most if not all already know about fbars & the new accounts form is just an admission of sorts that you have been

yet again notified/made aware of reporting requirements

Truth is your either on the grid or 100% off meaning no accounts ever opened with your passport which surely

if a US passport has been linked somewhere to your SS#

Not bothering with existing is just not going back to remind those who already had accounts once again of that which we all know.

"Now my advice for those who die. Declare the pennies on your eyes"

Edited November 2, 2014 by mania

[Chivas]

It's not just Americans, I opened an SCB account a couple of months back, even as a Brit I had to fill out the FATCA form

One of the very reasons if you have an old existing account that you should keep it active and avoid at all costs having it closed for being dormant or being below the annual debit card fee which auto closes the SCB account

[maphraw]

Based on some the of the posts above, existing Thai bank accounts that were opened before FBAR requirements will not be reporting your financial information to the US government. So I guess I could keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in my Thai bank accounts that existed before the FBAR requirements and it would go undetected by the IRS. I have a Siam Commercial Bank account that I opened 14 years ago and I use it quite a bit. They have never asked me for my SSN or any other information. But I recently opened another Siam Commercial bank account and they actually interviewed me and asked numerous questions about my work here, family members etc. I don't remember if they asked me for my social security number or not. A Thai mutual fund that I have had for the last 12 years sent me a W-8 form ( I think it was a W-8 form) for the IRS and said it must be completed by me and then they would send it to the IRS along with all of my financial information regarding the fund to the IRS. I have 2 other Thai bank accounts that I have had for more than 15 years and they have yet to ask me for my social security number.

[Crossy]

It's not just Americans, I opened an SCB account a couple of months back, even as a Brit I had to fill out the FATCA form

One of the very reasons if you have an old existing account that you should keep it active and avoid at all costs having it closed for being dormant or being below the annual debit card fee which auto closes the SCB account

Unfortunately they (or at least Bangkok Bank) are on to that one. Had to fill out the form to renew my expired Debit/ATM card

Yes, I'm still a Brit.

[Chivas]

It's not just Americans, I opened an SCB account a couple of months back, even as a Brit I had to fill out the FATCA form

One of the very reasons if you have an old existing account that you should keep it active and avoid at all costs having it closed for being dormant or being below the annual debit card fee which auto closes the SCB account

Unfortunately they (or at least Bangkok Bank) are on to that one. Had to fill out the form to renew my expired Debit/ATM card

Yes, I'm still a Brit.

No I only just renewed my 10 year old Hip Card for a new one in November.......