

Ask HN: people outside the USA, will NSA issues help your economies? - mark_l_watson

I am just curious. I live in the USA, and I worry that the so-called &quot;Patriot Act&quot; and NSA issues on privacy will hurt our economy.<p>Turning this around, do people in vibrant tech communities outside of the USA see this as an opportunity?
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Ovid
Right now, non-US based cloud services are using the PATRIOT Act as a way of
selling themselves ([http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/12/patriot-act-
and-p...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/12/patriot-act-and-privacy-
laws-take-a-bite-out-of-us-cloud-business/)). As an example from that article:

 _BAE Systems had ditched Microsoft Office 365 over PATRIOT Act concerns,
because Microsoft could not guarantee the company 's data wouldn't leave
Europe._

Also, you may not have heard of FATCA, but it's hurting business for Americans
outside the US. I'm an American living in Paris and I was approached about an
executive level position at a company that really wanted me because I'm an
expert in my field. However, due to the nature of the position, I'd have
signing authority over this company's accounts. This triggers FATCA laws which
would compel this _European_ company with _no_ US business to spend a lot of
money preparing financial statements to turn over to the IRS. The exposure and
cost outweighed the benefits of hiring me. I'm not the only American abroad
whose been screwed this way thanks to US laws. The laws are designed to catch
rich tax dodgers, but they wind up punishing a bunch of innocent Americans
like myself (I'm a very far cry from rich).

On top of that, many Americans abroad are now losing banking services due to
FATCA ([http://www.overseas-exile.com/2012/07/ing-france-turning-
awa...](http://www.overseas-exile.com/2012/07/ing-france-turning-away-us-
customers.html)), meaning that for many Americans abroad, it's getting very
hard to do any sort of business at all. Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook
cofounder who famously gave up his US citizenship strongly hinted that this
was blocking his business opportunities, so like some Americans abroad, you're
faced with giving up your US citizenship or giving up your business. Not a fun
choice.

 _TL;DR_ : Americans abroad are getting squeezed out of business opportunities
thanks to FATCA and American businesses abroad are losing customers due the
PATRIOT Act. If you're in business, it's a rough time to be a US expat and all
the business opportunities we lose are going to foreign companies. Thanks,
Congress!

~~~
mark_l_watson
Thanks Ovid - that is interesting about FATCA - I had never heard of that.

~~~
Ovid
You're welcome.

Most Americans back home (we expats often call them "homelanders") have never
heard of FATCA. It was a law recently passed which stated that every foreign
financial institution (FFI) had to turn over information to the IRS about
American customers. Never mind that this was often in violation of their
country's privacy laws and expensive as hell to implement. It also had a wide
variety of other consequences which have eventually led to many FFIs referring
to Americans as "toxic assets" and refusing to do business with us.

I have more background in a variety of articles I've written about it:
[http://www.overseas-exile.com/search/label/fatca](http://www.overseas-
exile.com/search/label/fatca)

It's still wonderful to be an expat and see the world, but if you get caught
up in the IRS mess, life can become hell.

