I am trying to setup a Charles Schwab account as we speak and everything is going fine, but when I get to the end and see:
“By checking the checkbox that follows, you declare the following under penalty of perjury:
By checking the checkbox that follows, you declare the following under penalty of perjury:
1.The number shown on this application is my correct Taxpayer Identification Number;
2.I am not subject to backup withholding because (a) I am exempt from backup withholding, or (b) I have not been notified by the IRS that I am subject to backup withholding as a result of a failure to report all interest or dividends, or (c) the IRS has notified me that I am no longer subject to backup withholding;
3.I am a U.S. citizen or U.S. resident alien as defined in federal tax regulations; and
4.I am exempt from Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) reporting.”
Everything, except for 4 is true, which means I am not eligible for this account, despite having a US address I can use.
Is there a proper way to deal with this? I wouldn’t want to knowingly falsely declare something under the penalty of perjury.
I did talk to them. They said that section of the application ONLY applies to Foreign entities (corporations, partnerships, trusts, and estates) and since I am opening an individual account, that would not apply. So, I opened the account and they even applied the promo code soon after that, since I had neglected to mention it in the application.
when I established my Chs. Schwab acct I looked into that a little as well; my tax guy told me that the key is to annually report the existence of any foreign account you have, IAW BSA (that is, file file your Treasury/FinCEN Form 114 “Foreign Bank Account Report”). Although the threshold is having $10,000 or more at any time in the acct, it might not hurt simply to file the report annually, as long as you have the acct.
Yes, this applies to all accounts outside the USA. They should be reported in the FBAR if their total is over 10,000 USD. And to be on the safe side, include crypto accounts, precious metals accounts, etc. Better safe than sorry with the draconian penalties in place.
As long as you have a US address, a VPN and a US Tax ID, yes. They basically want to know you are US-based, as far as my understanding goes. Maybe if you dig you’ll find you don’t even need all of the above and you can pull it off otherwise.
Hi George
My problem is that although I do not have a tax id in the US, most of my income comes from there, and as far as I can tell it is legitimate. I work through Upwork and at the moment I am sending my money from Upwork to PayPal. My problem is that I am not allowed to keep my money in PayPal for more than a month, then I HAVE to bring it into South Africa. I am not even allowed to buy anything out of PayPal BEFORE bringing the money into my SA bank account and sending it back out to PayPal. It is a SA Tax regulation.
So I am looking for a US$ bank that is willing to give me an account with a piece of plastic, take my money and allow me to spend it when and how I want to.
You should be able to open a bank account in the US despite not having a US TIN. I would check out a fintech like Revolut USA as they are more flexible that most traditional banks. The issue you would probably face is that you would need to have a US address to declare as your address to at least get your papers and card mailed out to that address. I would probably use a VPN so as to appear as being US-based when going through the application process. New-comers like Revolut are likely more eager to draw new customers and they are built to be more flexible and adaptive to the modern world than traditional banks. And they have lower fees for everything like moving and using your money internationally as well. If you have access to a friend in the US whose address you could use to receive your card and forward it to SA, assuming you can successfully create the bank account, you should be all set.
Hi George
Thanks a lot for the information. Yes, getting the card mailed somewhere is really not an issue, have enough people in the US that can accept the card on my behalf and I can get it couriered from there.
I would be interested to know whether this works, as I would personally be surprised to see a US bank open a bank account without some form of TIN to allow for some sort of reporting to FedGov.
Hello, I write from Venezuela, I don’t speak English so I use the translator, I also work online and they pay me through Paypal, one option you can use is to open an account in Payoneer, you withdraw from Paypal to the account in USD that payoneer gives you to receive payments. of companies, you request the debit card and you can request the shipment to your residence, I believe that South Africa is a market served by payoneer, one of the conditions of payoneer is to have a bank account where to withdraw the funds I suppose that your local bank account will do, it is only to open the account you do not necessarily have to withdraw the funds
Another option is the myBambu application, it gives you an account and prepaid Visa debit card from the Metropolitan Commercial Bank, it is really designed for Latino immigrants but I don’t think you have a problem being from another country. You can affiliate the account with Paypal to withdraw your earnings, the limitation is that being a product designed for immigrants in the USA, the card can only be used outside the country informing you that you will be traveling and for how long, if you do not need it it is better or order it and keep only the virtual card, and the account has a limit of $ 10,000 maximum balance. In order to open the account, you need a VPN that I located there, a virtual number and a residential address of a friend. I advise you that both the IP that the VPN gives you and the virtual phone number correspond to the same geographical area. Any identification of your country of origin serves to verify your identity.
Hi CArlos, thank you for your input, I will give Payoneer a look.
As long as I do not have to bring the funds into the country. I know that PayPal and the South African Revenue Service has some kind of agreement and as a resul the Revenue Service knows what is happening in my PayPal account, I do not necessarily want that .
I’m reading that you work through Upwork, payoneer is one of the payment methods on that page and you have more facility to request the card, normally you must receive the equivalent of $ 100 in payments from companies to request it, but I think those who open the account through Upwork can be requested without having received payments.
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