Under US law, do US citizens have to state their citizenship to foreign entities? If a foreign country's company or other organization that is not the US government asks if I'm a citizen of the US, am I required to state that I am? I understand that any and all penalties that the foreign entity can enforce upon me for lying would be my responsibility, but I am a liable for anything under US law? I was looking for a basic general answer to this under US law, but if you want a specific case here we go: Expats have always been required to register any foreign 'bank account's that run a balance of over $10,000 in any given tax year. What the IRS calls a 'bank account' is at times a mystery. Regular checking and savings are of course bank accounts. But, sometimes pension accounts and even certain kinds of life insurance can be seen as bank accounts if certain conditions are met. In 2010, Congress passed FATCA which took effect in 2014. This made it mandatory for foreign banks to report the balances on all accounts held by US citizens that exceed $50,000 or risk heavy penalties of 30% withholding on foreign exchanges. Most countries complied. What this means is that a bank, a foreign entity is basically forced to report full personal details as well as balances of anyone that meets those guidelines. This is a lot of extra work, so banks and other entities offering similar financial implements have started to reject US clients. Some expats that were caught unaware of these requirements have been slapped with massive penalties (50% of a year's balance). This has led to a spat of US citizens forfeiting citizenship and the US state department in turn making it more difficult and expensive to forfeit citizenship. So, given the above situation. Couldn't one not disclose they were a citizen of the US considering the bank does not require one to do so to normally open an account? Answering truthfully may mean the account is rejected or closed at a later date. Meaning that one might lose potential benefits or have to pay penalities with the bank or insurance company for early withdrawal. It could also mean one more account that the expat has to remember and report every year or face penalties.
It depends partly on where you are. If you're in the foreign country and they have a law compelling you to answer any questions asked by their government or some company, they you have to answer the question. Whether lying has any legal repercussions depends on the laws of the country, so you'd have to narrow it down a bit. If you're in the US, the only context where you can be compelled to answer a question is when ordered to do so in court (giving testimony), and you have 5th Amendment immunity from being forced to testify against yourself. If you are granted immunity from prosecution, then they can compel you to testify (answer the question). If a foreign entity asks you whether you are a US citizen, you can decline to answer. You can also make up any answer you want, and generally not run afoul of US law (though you could run into problems in that country). There are state and federal laws about making false statements in official investigations, which would not be applicable to what you describe. There is no general law that says you must always tell the truth. However, making a false statement could be part of the crime of fraud, so it would depend on the context of your statement, i.e. are you misrepresenting your citizenship in order to get something of value. In light of the topical update, again there may be country-specific penalties in country for lying about citizenship, and tax evasion is against the law here, which is true whether or not you lie. FATCA specifies a duty to disclose (sect. 6038d), which is not tied to truthful reporting of citizenship (in other words, there is no point in lying to the bank because non-reporting is still a crime). But: this law probably brings the lie with the scope of 18 USC 1001 ("Martha's Law"), which makes it a crime to conceal a material fact "in any matter within the jurisdiction of ...the United States". This means and has been held to mean not just that you can't lie to federal officers, you can't lie to anyone who reports your information to the federal government. FATCA also says "we don't care if it's a crime to report being an American in that country", so inconveniences certainly are not a defense.
That will depend on the specific provisions of Turkish law (in the example case) and the provisions of the tax treaty between Turkey and the US. The Turkish resident will probably have to file with Turkey. To what extent s/he will get credit for taxes paid to the US, and indeed to what extent income from a US company is taxable under Turkish law will depend on the specifics of Turkish law and of any treaty, and may well be different in a different country.
Given that you're centrally keeping customer financial assets, you're looking at a banking license. At that point, the question is not whether you need a lawyer, but how many. "Note that the issuer/bank would not itself offer currency exchange". Neither the Fed nor the ECB do, and quite a few smaller commercial banks also do not offer currency exchange. Doesn't matter, still banks. How many of the banking laws apply would depend on the customers, and services offered to these customers. So far you've only excluded currency exchange, which means that pretty much every banking law might still apply. You seem slightly hung up on the digital part. That's not how the law works. You'll need a banking license where you're operating your bank, not where its infrastructure is located. And yes, not meeting the requirements for registering a bank (whether financially, regulatory, or legally) will stop your idea in its tracks. This is one of the cases where "talk to a lawyer" might not be the appropriate response, but "hire a legal team".
This is less of a compliance question, and more of an infosec question. On one hand, you want to be able to restore access to an account to users who have lost their access. On the other hand, you must prevent unauthorized access e.g. from hackers. These factors must be balanced. Whether you'll fulfil a data subject access request will generally follow the same criteria as deciding whether you'll reset someone's access credentials, so I'll mostly discuss identity verification in general. Trying to validate names is generally pointless from a security perspective, since the name on the account might not be real, or because validation documents like scans from a passport can be easily forged. When a service has identity validation measures like requesting a copy of photo ID, or requesting a photo of you holding up a validation code written on paper, that doesn't actually help validating that the person requesting access is the account owner, but that the person requesting access appears to be a natural person, and now documents about their identity are on file. A lot of information like names, birthdates, or addresses is also not at all secret and could be easily guessed by a malicious actor. Most websites work by equating access with control over an email account. If you can receive a password reset code over email, you have access. In effect, this delegates the responsibility of account recovery to the email or OAuth provider. So the issue is what happens when someone loses their email account, which is not entirely uncommon for accounts that are multiple years old. One reasonable (and likely GDPR-compliant solution) is to deny access when someone loses their account. Quite a lot of services operate this way. A milder form of this is to email the old address that someone is trying to take over the account, and turn over the account only if you have other evidence of ownership and there has been no reply over multiple weeks. Since this is part of an identity verification measure, I don't think the GDPR's normal 1 month deadline would apply. However, this approach is very risky: an attack can succeed through the mere inaction of the true account holder, and it would arguably be a data breach if you give access to the wrong person – safer for erasure requests only. Also, emails like “click here or we'll delete your account” look a lot like spam (I get a lot of those about alleged problems with my Paypal account). A potentially more reasonable approach is to use questions about the account to verify ownership. When did they create the account? When did they last use it? Can they answer questions about non-public content of the account? (But don't let an attacker choose the questions!) You see some older sites that ask the user to select a “security question” for recovery purposes. But this isn't a best practice – they are frequently the weakest link in an authentication system. If the user answers truthfully, the answer may be easy to guess or discover for an attacker. E.g. the infamous “what is your mother's maiden name” question is horrendously insecure in the age of Facebook. If the user provides a more secure answer, that is essentially just another password that's even easier to lose than an email account. High-value accounts typically offer a secondary authentication method as a fallback. E.g. my bank can send me new access codes via physical mail. GitHub can optionally link a Facebook account for recovery purposes. But these measures would be overkill for most cases. Especially collecting a physical address for the sole purpose of offering account recovery would likely violate the GDPR's data minimization principle, though it may be fine when the user opts in with freely given consent. To summarize: what you're trying to do is extremely difficult, because you've need to balance different security aspects: keeping malicious actors out, and letting legitimate account owners in. Whereas I'd resolve that by denying any account recovery or subject access requests, other approaches exists with other risk profiles. The GDPR requires you to perform reasonable identity verification measures, but what is reasonable depends on the business context and is ultimately an infosec question.
Why is a business allowed to refuse a customer? Because also freedom of contract is a right. Except for discrimination on the basis of protected categories, a person or entity is entitled to discretion on whether or with whom to do business and enter contracts. The last sentence in your post reflects a misconception of "completely different set of values and laws" between the USA and members of the EU. Clearly there are many differences, but a comparison of the Wikipedia link you posted and, for instance, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 reflects an overlap of protected categories in the laws of the Netherlands and of the US, such as religion, sex, race, or national origin/nationality. One would need persuasive evidence to support a finding of unlawful discrimination in the two examples you have experienced. Assuming the bank responded to your GDPR inquiry truthfully, the bank's refusal to open an account might have stemmed from profiling or decision-making that (1) does not precisely require specific data about you, and/or (2) uses information the bank does not need to log for purposes of compliance with the GDPR. Note that the GDPR does not outlaw algorithmic decision-making. Since legislation in the EU (as in the US) portrays an approach of market economy, both bank and landlord are entitled to made decisions on the basis of their inner policies for risk management. The policies might be unclear to you, but that does not necessarily mean they contravene principles of equal opportunity.
Yes, so long as you are still a US citizen, it does not matter if you no longer maintain residence in the United States. If you no longer have any sort of residence that can be claimed as a current residence, you simply register at whatever the last residence you used was when you lived in the United States (even if someone else lives there now). You would then have an absentee ballot mailed to you overseas. However, if you don't maintain any sort of residence in the United States, you will only be eligible to vote for federal offices (president, senate, house). You won't be allowed to vote in state or local elections. The keywords you'll need for voting are: UOCAVA, which is a program that allows for easier voting overseas (in some cases the ballot can actually be emailed to you and you are only responsible for printing it out, filling it out, and mailing it back). FPCA, which is the form you fill out. It actually doubles as a registration and an absentee ballot request, so you only have to fill out one form. The absentee request is good for all elections in the calendar year it is submitted, so you only have to fill it out once for both the primary and the general.
Based on Irish law, specifically the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, can I live abroad after naturalizing as an Irish citizen and retain my citizenship just by filling that form? Yes, subject of course to factual disputes. The statute (as amended) provides that this revocation is not possible when the citizen has &quot;registered annually in the prescribed manner his name and a declaration of his intention to retain Irish citizenship with an Irish diplomatic mission or consular office or with the Minister&quot;: Revocation of certificates of naturalisation. 19.—(1) The Minister may revoke a certificate of naturalisation if he is satisfied— (a) that the issue of the certificate was procured by fraud, misrepresentation whether innocent or fraudulent, or concealment of material facts or circumstances, or (b) that the person to whom it was granted has, by any overt act, shown himself to have failed in his duty of fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State, or (c) that (except in the case of a certificate of naturalisation which is issued to a person of Irish descent or associations) the person to whom it is granted has been ordinarily resident outside the State or, in the case of an application for a certificate of naturalisation granted under section 15A, resident outside the island of Ireland (otherwise than in the public service) for a continuous period of seven years and without reasonable excuse has not during that period registered annually in the prescribed manner his name and a declaration of his intention to retain Irish citizenship with an Irish diplomatic mission or consular office or with the Minister, or (d) that the person to whom it is granted is also, under the law of a country at war with the State, a citizen of that country, or (e) that the person to whom it is granted has by any voluntary act, other than marriage or entry into a civil partnership, acquired another citizenship. To be precise, filing this declaration does not protect the citizen from revocation of naturalization under another subsection of section 19(1). But if we assume that the annual declarations were all filed promptly (or that there is a reasonable excuse for any failure to file promptly), and that there is no dispute about this, then it is plain from the statutory text that the minister has no discretion to revoke the certificate of naturalization under 19(1)(c). If it were a country like UK or New Zealand, it would straightaway revoke citizenship by claiming misrepresentation of the intention to reside. This is not necessarily true. If there is a reason for the decision to leave, the naturalized citizen could seek to rebut any presumption that there had been misrepresentation. In the case of Ireland, filing the annual declaration does not protect the naturalized citizen from denaturalization under 19(1)(a), so even if the declarations are filed, it could be necessary to show evidence that there was a genuine intention to reside in Ireland at the time of naturalization, and that the intention changed subsequently. If that intention did not in fact exist, then the minister could assert that the certificate had been obtained by fraud, and if the naturalized citizen is unable to rebut that assertion, the minister could revoke the certificate under 19(1)(a). Also see Part IV of the statute for other ways in which Irish citizenship may be lost. In practice, I don't think it is presently very common for countries that generally tolerate (or explicitly permit) multiple nationalities, such as Ireland, the UK, and New Zealand, to seek to denaturalize their naturalized citizens who move abroad. Denaturalization seems to be largely confined to politically sensational cases such as those of terrorists. Since Ireland is a party to the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, one way to protect your Irish citizenship may be to renounce your other citizenship(s), if that is possible. However, I do not see any related provisions in the 1956 act linked above.
Yes, depending on the local registration laws of the country in question, when you have a residence in that country. You can also be a resident of multiple countries under the same conditions. You can also be considered a non- resident citizen of your own country. In the European Union, Residence Laws are national laws only for periods up to 3 months are there generel EU Laws So to answer the question under what conditions is someone from Belgium, France or Italy considered a resident, you must look at the countries residence laws (if they have one at all). Note: This has nothing to do with residence permits. A resident permit only allows a foreigner to stay in a country. A foreigner must still fulfill the local Residence Laws, where they exist, as a citizen of that country must also do. Belgium: Moving to Belgium | Belgium.be Belgians who are returning home If you were registered at an embassy or consulate, and are now definitively returning to Belgium, it is in your interests to notify them before you leave. In principle, you should report to your new municipality within eight working days of your arrival in Belgium. After confirming your main place of residence you are recorded in the national register. Your new municipality will notify the municipality where you had your main residence before you moved abroad. If this municipality still holds your administrative records, they will forward them to your new municipality. As soon as you have been registered the procedure starts for issuing a new identity card. Foreign nationals The free movement of persons applies within the European Union, making the residence rules for EU citizens much more flexible than those for the citizens of other countries. "Free movement" also applies to countries in the European Economic Area (EEA): in addition to the EU states, these are Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. However, there are transitional rules for certain new EU Member States. Registering with the municipal authorities If as a foreign national you wish to stay in Belgium for longer than three months, you must report to the municipality in which you are staying within eight days of your arrival. You must be registered on the National Register; and for that you must have an actual place of residence in this municipality. both Belgians and Foreigners share the common procedure of registering with the municipal authorities France: France residence Wikipedia France utilizes a national identity card (carte nationale d’identité sécurisée or CNIS), an official non-compulsory identity document. The address information on the card is merely derived from other documents like electricity bills. There is no requirement to notify change of address, which leads to the situation that the current address is often verified by showing bills relating to the current home.[citation needed] Registering your residence abroad - France If you are an EU citizen, you don't need to register after 3 months in France. All EU citizens have the right to live and settle in France However, you can get a residence permit if you wish. Registration at their place of residence is voluntary (3rd Country) Foriegners Arrival in France | France-Visas.gouv.fr What you need to do in France Long-stay visa with the obligation to apply for a residence permit If the visa issued to you is a long-stay visa indicating an obligation to apply for a residence permit, you must complete this process within two months of arrival and contact the prefecture of your place of residence. Registration at their place of residence is mandatory Italy: The Immigration Portal (Translated to English) EU citizens who intend to settle in Italy, or in another European Union state, no longer have the obligation to request a residence card but, after three months of entry, it is necessary to register in the registry office of the municipality of residence ; no formalities are required for stays of less than three months. Italy - Residence of individuals An individual who moves to Italy must apply for registration with the Record of the Italian Resident Population in the municipality (comune) where they intend to reside. At the end of the stay in Italy, the individual is required to apply for the cancellation of their name from the Record of the Resident Population. While registered, you are considered to be a tax resident. An Italian citizen who transfers to a foreign country has to cancel oneself with the Records of the Italian Resident Population and has to register with the Records of the Italian resident abroad, the Anagrafe Italiani Residenti Estero (AIRE). Note: The first paragraph is for all persons, where as the second is specific to Italian citizens Italian citizens who fail to register with AIRE while abroad, often face huge tax bills when returning. Conclusions: The conditions can differ radically between countries, depending on the local resident laws (where they exist). In Belgium you are considerd a resident while registered in National Register In France you are considerd a resident when registered at the local prefecture, which is only mandatory for 3rd Country Foriegners In Italy you are considerd a resident while registered at the local Record of the Italian Resident Population in the municipality (comune) Assumptions should never be made, since the non compliance of local residence laws can have consequences. Resident registration - Wikipedia Africa Americas Europe Belgium France Germany Italy Russian Federation United Kingdom Asia and Oceania