America Now enforces Capital Controls

Found by Young Grasshopper...

Three days ago over at zerohedge.com, they ran a story titled “It’s Official – America Now Enforces Capital Controls.” Here’s the story’s lead-in:

" It couldn't have happened to a nicer country. On March 18, with very little pomp and circumstance, President Obama passed the most recent stimulus act, the $17.5 billion Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (H.R. 2487), brilliantly goalseeked by the administration's millionaire cronies to abbreviate as HIRE. As it was merely the latest in an endless stream of acts destined to expand the government payroll to infinity, nobody cared about it, or actually read it. Because if anyone had read it, the act would have been known as the Capital Controls Act, as one of the lesser, but infinitely more important provisions on page 27, known as Offset Provisions - Subtitle A – Foreign Account Tax Compliance, institutes just that. In brief, the Provision requires that foreign banks not only withhold 30% of all outgoing capital flows (likely remitting the collection promptly back to the U.S. Treasury), but also disclose the full details of non-exempt account-holders to the U.S. and the IRS. And should this provision be deemed illegal by a given foreign nation's domestic laws (think Switzerland), well the foreign financial institution is required to close the account. It's the law. If you thought you could move your capital to the non-sequestration safety of non-U.S. financial institutions, sorry you lose – the law now says so. Capital Controls are now here and are now fully enforced by the law. "

After reading through the “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act,” which is actually H.R. 2847, not H.R. 2487 as indicated above, the assessment by zerohedge.com appears to be accurate. Sure there are those who will say that this bill is about “cutting down on tax evasion” not “capital controls,” but I think that’s naïve. Even so, I encourage you to read the entire piece by zerohedge.com (link here) and all 48 pages of the HIRE Act (link here) so you can decide for yourself