The president of the French banking association the Federation Bancaire Francais Laurent Mignon has written to finance minister Bruno Le Maire laying out his concerns about international banking accord FATCA – which obliges banks across the world to notify US tax authorities of all accounts owned by US citizens.
It was intended to combat tax avoidance, but has ended up snaring many US citizens of modest means who live in other countries, as well as 'accidental Americans' who have citizenship through family connections and may never have lived in the USA.
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An extract from the letter from France's bank federation president Laurent Mignon to finance minister Bruno Le Maire
The requirement has created an administrative headache for French banks, which can face fine up of to 30 percent of their US revenue if they do not comply.
Among the information they must supply is the account holder's US tax number – but many 'accidental Americans' have been previously unaware of their need to file a tax return in the US and therefore do not have a tax number.
A short-term concession negotiated between France and the US means that French banks can – until December 31st 2019 – supply just the individual's date of birth if they do not have a US tax number.
But after this waiver expires, Laurent Mignon warns that French banks may face no choice but to close the accounts of all 'accidental Americans' – thought to be about 40,000 people.
He writes: “As from 1 January 2020, including for accounts opened before that date, if they are unable to provide such information, banks may be unable to fulfil their reporting obligations to the tax authorities.

The Criminal US Empire strikes again. Poor accidental Americans
This is nonsense. Everyone in the expat community knows or should know that US citizens must report their income. If they don’t want to keep the blue passport they can expatriate (and of course pay the taxes due). These are mostly people who have been avoiding tax for years and now have to pay up. Not deserving of anyone’s sympathy
The point here is that many of these ‘accidental’ Americans do not have US passports and have never made any claim against US citizenship.
It is a particular problem here in Brittany where a lot of people did go to the US to find work and a fair number returned with children in tow. Those children were largely unaware that they had tax liabilities in the US as they grew up in France, are totally French and in many cases have never set foot in the US since their parents brought them back to France.
If the US wanted to help the accidental Americans it would offer speedy expatriation as a gesture of goodwill. Only Eritrea shares the same antiquated taxation system with the US. Joe, let’s say you were born in France (assuming the French had the same taxation system as that of the US) and brought back to the US at the age of three months. How would you like to pay taxes to France? And BTW expatriation is anything but easy. I’m not an accidental American but I can tell you that I would expatriate myself if I could.