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International firms tell millionaires to take their money and run

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The world’s largest wealth management firms have a message for American millionaires: We don’t want your business, Bloomberg reported.

HSBC Holdings plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Bank of Singapore Ltd. and DBS Group Holdings Ltd. all say they have turned away business in advance of the implementation on Jan. 1 of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which seeks to prevent tax evasion by Americans with offshore accounts.

“I don’t open U.S. accounts, period,” said Su Shan Tan, head of private banking at Singapore-based DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest lender, who described regulatory attitudes toward U.S. clients as “draconian.”

The law requires financial institutions based outside the United States to obtain and report information about income and interest payments accrued to the accounts of American clients. It means additional compliance costs for banks and fewer investment options and advisers for all U.S. citizens living abroad, which could affect their ability to generate returns, Bloomberg said.

“In the long run, if Americans have less and less opportunities to invest overseas, it would be a disadvantage,” Marc Faber, a fund manager and publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report, said.

The almost 400 pages of proposed rules issued by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in February create “unnecessary burdens and costs,” the Institute of International Bankers and the European Banking Federation said in one of more than 200 letters submitted to the agency.

The IRS plans to hold a hearing May 15 and could amend how and when some aspects of the rules are implemented. It can’t rescind the law, Bloomberg said.

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