It Begins: IRS Launches International Data Exchange Service

Zerohedge reports:

Yesterday, the IRS announced the International Data Exchange Service.

If you’ve not heard of it, it’s is an outgrowth of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which requires every single bank in the world to get in bed with IRS to share information about customers.

We’ve said this over and over, FATCA is probably the dumbest law in the history of the United States. And I don’t say that lightly, because there’s definitely stiff competition.

Like any other bankrupt government, the US government has taken to intimidating its own citizens and the entire world in an attempt to make ends meet.

Their hope was that the minority of people committing tax evasion would come clean and that it would result in some huge boost in tax revenue.

But the fact is that tax revenues actually haven’t improved at all.

Looking at tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, the numbers haven’t budged at all from their long-term average. Not a single bit.

So in actuality, FATCA has done nothing positive for America.

That said, FATCA has managed to destroy what little remaining credibility the United States government still had.

Bear in mind these people have spied on their allies, dropped bombs by remote control, and force fed people negative real interest rates and $18 trillion in debt.

But if that weren’t enough, FATCA goes after foreigners with absurd logistical challenges, commanding every single bank on the planet to comply.

Here’s the ultimate irony: there are nations in this world that are not recognized by the United States. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Abkhazia. Etc. Yet banks in these regions still have to sign up with the IRS.

It’s like– you don’t exist. But you must still comply.

The IRS tells us that so far more than 145,000 financial institutions have already signed information-sharing agreements.

Big Brother is watching your bank account.