Financial Institutions: The Challenge. Compelled “U.S. person” status

By ftsig-admin | March 7, 2025

1. Background

Although the Internal Revenue Code properly recognizes your right to choose a nonresident alien status and be unenumerated, banks and financial institutions are so heavily regulated that they often take a position at odds with this lifestyle. As part of their Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) compliance measures, financial institutions frequently MANDATE the following:

  1. That you MUST provide an SSN to register for or obtain the product or service.
  2. That even if you are a nonresident alien not engaged in the “trade or business” franchise and therefore not required by law to have or use an SSN or TIN under 26 C.F.R. §301.6109-1(b), you STILL must provide the SSN or TIN.
  3. That its “the law” for them to do so, even though the AML/BSA statutes allow for NOT providing an identifying number.

Examples of financial institutions that do this include:

  1. Green Dot. This company makes all the gift cards sold and grocery stores for amounts less than $600. You can’t activate the card online without providing a Social Security Number.
  2. Privacy.com. They make a virtual credit card for online use. You can’t register for their service without providing an SSN.
  3. Coinbase.com. Like Privacy.com, you can’t register for their service without providing an SSN.
  4. Banks. Virtually all banks require you to provide a W-9 or W-8 to open an account. If you give them a W-8, they will INCORRECTLY insist on a FOREIGN passport and their system will not recognize the right of nonresident aliens to be unenfranchised “nationals of the United StatesP” and POLITICAL “citizens*” instead of CIVIL Citizens**+D under  26 C.F.R. §1.1-1 (a). See:

2. Properly Describing your nonresident alien status to a financial institution

For information about how to properly present your status as a “nonresident alien” and a “non-person” who has no legal obligation to provide an SSN or TIN, see:

W-8SUB, Form #04.231
https://sedm.org/Forms/04-Tax/2-Withholding/W-8SUB.pdf

3. AML/BSA Compliance

For more on AML/BSA compliance requirements of financial institutions and how to respond to them, see:

  1. Money Laundering Enforcement Scam, form #05.044
    https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/MoneyLaunderingScam.pdf
  2. Notice and Demand to Correct Faulty Banking Software, Form #04.228
    https://sedm.org/Forms/04-Tax/2-Withholding/NotDemandToCorrectFaultyBankSoftware.pdf
  3. Permanent Address Notice for Online Use, Form #04.230
    https://sedm.org/of/04.230.pdf
  4. Why It is Illegal for You to Enforce Money Laundering Statutes in My Specific Case, Form #05.046
    https://sedm.org/Forms/06-AvoidingFranch/MonLaundEnfIllegal.pdf
  5. Demand for Verified Evidence of “Trade or Business” Activity: Currency Transaction Report (CTR), Form #04.008
    https://sedm.org/Forms/04-Tax/0-CorrErrInfoRtns/DmdVerEvOfTradeOrBusiness-CTR.pdf

4. Legal Actions Against Banking Discrimination

If you want to search for caselaw that you can reuse in your own litigation against discrimination in opening a nonresident alien account, search for: “de-banking”.

Below is a series of Meta AI questions which show how to sue for banking discrimination.

Meta AI: How do I sue a bank for discrimination in opening a nonresident alien account?, FTSIG
https://ftsig.org/meta-ai-how-do-i-sue-a-bank-for-discrimination-in-opening-a-nonresident-alien-account/

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