Comment by fauigerzigerk
16 days ago
The key difference being that it is perfectly legal for the US to request data on income and gains received by US taxpayers while it is illegal for the US to spy (in certain ways) on US residents.
It is completely routine for countries to exchange data on financial accounts [1]. The only aspect that makes FATCA somewhat unusual is that the US taxes US persons even when they are residents of other countries.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/international-excha...
Oh 100%, the content (and context) is completely different. The similarity I mean is a government passing a law that asks a foreign company to hand data over to them.
It's legal in the same way this UK thing is legal - because there's a law justifying it. It may make more moral sense, depending on your political persuasion.