The United States is no longer the world's center for making dreams come true. At least this can be said about those cases when foreigners try to achieve success in the United States remotely. This is at least strange considering the leading role of the United States in the world and globalization in particular. The "American Dream" remains an invention of the century before last. And it has not been adapted to modern realities. It is unlikely that this was done on purpose. Most likely, no one thinks about the essence of the ongoing processes.
Foreigners can open a business in the US remotely. But foreigners cannot open a bank account for that business remotely. Even if the IRS issues an EIN to a foreign entrepreneur, US banks will require the foreigner to come to a bank branch in person to open an account. But in many cases, this is not possible. This may be the case when the cost of traveling to the US is very expensive, the foreigner does not have a visa, etc.
The result is a paradoxical situation. A foreigner owns an enterprise, but cannot conduct business activities because he does not have a bank account. What is happening is not someone's evil intent. And this is bad! Because it would be better this way. But it gets worse. What is happening is a common disease for all American legislation. The implementation of laws is such that it changes the meaning of laws.
The author of these lines first encountered this problem in May 2024. Then I was unable to receive my fee from the United States. As it turned out, I and 1 million Ukrainian citizens located in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government are under US sanctions. These sanctions were not introduced officially, but were in effect technically. This was described in detail in the article "Why Ukraine is under US sanctions".(1)
Going to meet my "American dream" I decided to open a bank account in the USA, get my money and do business in the USA. But...! An even more monstrous discovery awaited me. Despite the fact that I managed to remotely open a company with the help of BusinessRocket, Inc employees, I was unable to open a bank account for my company. My PAVLOKULIUK LLC registered in the city of Albany, New York, became a real outcast in the US banking system. Banks required that I personally come to the branch to open an account. But this was impossible. Since I have a small business and I am 8,000 miles from the USA!
These bank demands are an attempt to comply with the Patriot Act. This law requires banks to identify customers in order to open an account. But the devil is in the details. Here's how my book "How to Bypass US Sanctions by Saying "Please-- (2)* describes the essence of the events.
"The Patriot Act does not put forward "specific requirements" for identifying bank clients. Instead, the law requires banks to develop such requirements in accordance with the size, location, and type of business of the bank. But most importantly, the law places the responsibility for developing and
enforcing these rules on the boards of directors of each bank! It was personal responsibility, and then the lack of clear requirements of the law, that led bankers to decide that doing "too much" is better than doing "too little". Here is the result. Although the Patriot Act does not prohibit foreigners from opening accounts in the United States remotely, it is actually impossible to do so. The implementation of the law changed the law! Incredible!
This is a quote from the law about it. Page 6-7 of the Patriot Act(3), "Rather than imposing the same list of specific requirements on every bank, regardless of its circumstances, the proposed regulation requires all banks to implement a Customer Identification Program (CIP) that is appropriate given the bank's size, location, and type of business. The proposed regulation requires a bank's CIP to contain the statutorily prescribed procedures, describes these procedures, and details certain minimum elements that each of the procedures must contain.
In addition, the proposed rule requires that the CIP be written and that it be approved by the bank's board of directors or a committee of the board. This latter requirement highlights the responsibility of a bank's board of directors to approve and exercise general oversight over the bank's CIP."
But it's not just the law that's changed. Banks are trying so hard to comply with the law that they're breaking the law itself. The text of the law says that banks' requirements for identifying clients must be: "reasonable and practicable" (Page 10 Section 326 USA Patriot ACT). But many banks, upon learning that I only have an EIN, asked me to visit the office in person to open an account. And other banks asked me for an SSN and ITIN to open an account remotely.
Both requirements are impossible to fulfill. I have a small business. I am 8,000 miles from the US and 20 miles from the Russian military. This makes it impossible to come to the US and open a bank account in person. I cannot have an SSN because I am not a US citizen. I cannot have an ITIN because I have never been to the US and have no connection to the US economy".
I spent 3 months trying to open a bank account in the US to no avail. Now I am forced to open a bank account for my US business in Europe! This is an incredible situation. But I am paying taxes in the US despite, not because of, the current business climate!
Of course, I do not question the need to protect the state from terrorists and criminals who want to launder money. But the freedom to do business is one of the foundations of the United States. In this case, the specific implementation of the Patriot Act calls this freedom into question.
There is no doubt that the problem can be solved with political will. Modern technical means allow for reliable identification of a person at a distance. But will American politicians want to deal with this problem? For now, this option seems unlikely. As in the case of sanctions,(4) the problems of foreign entrepreneurs in the United States are of little interest to American voters. This means that there is no point in American politicians dealing with this problem. The situation may change if the possibility of remotely opening accounts for foreign entrepreneurs becomes part of a program to develop legal immigration in order to reduce illegal immigration. But that is another story.
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