Big signs

[CNHT]

I knew about the taxpayer ID.  I understand they are not hard to get

Of course not. This is the alternate way of reporting income to the IRS... I don't know why it would be needed in the case of a credit card where you are the one paying the bank, but I guess it's for reporting interest on savings. So for our purposes, really no different in whether we could circumvent the IRS...?

[Quantrill]

Ok, I guess I haven't been up on current affairs.  What exactly happened with BoA?

I knew about the taxpayer ID.  I understand they are not hard to get

I've been curious about this.  You don't have to give a SSN to start your own business do you?  Your biz would have a tax ID  and you could open an account with no SSN, probably at just about any bank...

[CNHT]

Ok, I guess I haven't been up on current affairs.  What exactly happened with BoA?

I knew about the taxpayer ID.  I understand they are not hard to get

I've been curious about this.  You don't have to give a SSN to start your own business do you?  Your biz would have a tax ID  and you could open an account with no SSN, probably at just about any bank...

Originally it was thought that SOME people would get to have accounts with NO SS# or anythingthat would ID them to the IRS, but that this would not include people like you and me. I was not surprised that some on this board were for that as it was pandering to special interests. Then it turned out that NO one would really escape the IRS, because the law would never allow the bank to do that...and in fact they would require some sort of TAX ID, so they would be reporting interest earned in any case. I guess then the credit card issuance is moot since as long as you have some money in savings I guess they figure you can pay the credit card interest. The bank is just really insterested in making money from you ? and anyone else they could not before....I doubt they are interested in liberty of any kind, which is why I am always stunned when the politically correct calling themselves 'libertarian' crowd jumps to support things like that.

[jaqeboy]

...Bank America scandal that is now going on...I'm pulling my business from them tomorrow.

Yeah, this is great! BoA is allowing accounts and credit cards now with no SSN. Several libertarians are rushing over there to see if they can open one today - most libertarians have been trying to do that for years!

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-02-13T053517Z_01_N13447905_RTRUKOC_0_US-BOFA-CARD.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Thanks, Jane for giving another example of a good test to show if one is a libertarian, or its opposite, a conservative.

Here's the test:

Bank of America allows accounts without SSN, Do you...?:

A. Rush over to close your account...
B. Rush over and open up an account...

If you answered A, you're a conservative; if you answered B, you're a libertarian!

Um Jack my excellent engineering friend! That is quite a stretch. I don't think this has to do with labels of who is libertarian and who is a conservative. Do you think shifting the tax burden from one set of people onto another is 'libertarian' ?

I think you are going to find that you won't be able to open an account without your SS number. So if you are a true libertarian (not that we are having to pass litmus tests, but since you posed it that way) I should think you would CLOSE your account in protest of BoA's discriminatory practices..

Um, I think I'm not the one to label what is pro-freedom and what is conservative - that's been done by others way before me. I'm just identifying it in this case.

The conservative issue set rares up here and a sample statement from that crowd seems to be "hey, they're getting some freedom - hey, government, crack down on those people - we don't want them to have more freedom! [because they are a them]"

Whereas, the libertarian says "Hey, cool, those people are getting some more freedom. Let's go over and see if we can get some more, too, and we'll all be freer."

See how those are opposite? One is upset   and angry  and lashes out (often calling for the heavy hand of the state to be involved  ) and the other rejoices!  :icon_cheers2:

The other interesting point is that BoA responded to a market that was unserved - we should be cheering that behaviour on, too! We should be piling on them showing them the size of our market for them to respond to.

BTW, I don't like BoA either and wouldn't generally go to them. They're just the one in the news.

And, yes, you can get a bank account without a SSN or any other number - there's a discussion on another thread, I think in the "business and job networking" area where a lot of that is laid out. It became more complicated with USA PATRIOT, which pushed a more stringent ID requirement onto Treasury, and Treasury through regs  pushed CIP's, or customer identification programs down onto the banks, and the banks usu. use SSN as one of their primary ID methods.

Some new ground needs to be broken here, but the basic legal point is that there is no law requiring anyone to have an SSN, but there is a law and Treasury regs requiring the banks to ask for one. What happens in the middle ground formed by this dilemma is where the hassles are, but, basically, since the bank is acting in their capacity as an agent for the federal govt. ( by collecting info for them), they cannot discriminate against anyone (violation 0f 1964 civil rights act) under threat of $10,000 penalty, so the customer wins, with the bank usu. compromising by offering a non interest-bearing account.

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with Big Signs, so off of the SSN thing for me, now. I am interested in the oversize printer, though!

PS: apologies for the long post.

[Russell Kanning]

Or you get extraordinarily rendered to Syria and tortured for a year.

I hate it when that happens.

[Braddogg]

And BoA still sucks!

BoA moved to New Hampshire????

They have branches here...yes.

I got the joke, eques 

[Russell Kanning]

.... and yes BofA moved here .... a year or so ago ... when they merged with some east coast bank.

[error]

BofA still sucks.

They closed my account a year and a half ago, without notice or warning, and without giving any reason.

Last month, they started E-MAILING ME about the account.

"We've switched your account from paper to online billing! Enjoy the benefits of..."

WTF.

[CNHT]

No one called for the 'state' to take over anything in this case ? I don't see where I said that. (You might be confusing that with another thread where people are calling for the state to take over the children, in the name of 'more freedom' for them...)

I just said that discriminatory 'freedom' is not really freedom and to me, not very 'libertarian'.

I see it as more 'liberal' or 'left-wing' to support what we 'thought' they were doing, because it's fraught with special interests in that only certain groups should have rights that others don't somehow deserve and can't get.

If BoA were truly able to circumvent laws about reporting income to the feds, then they should do it for everyone.

However, I think it's a moot question, because I think they are unable to get around this law, hence the fact they will require a 'tax ID' which serves the same purpose as the SS#...

As I said, no change in BoA practices in the end.

(Had they really been giving out savings accounts with no reporting, I'd have been down there today giving them a chance to remove my SS# from my accounts since I'm an equal opportunity liberty seeker....)

[Lloyd Danforth]

As I said above, they would probably be glad to offer any one of us this deal.  But, even if they won't, they are a private company and can discriminate all they want.

[KBCraig]

And BoA still sucks!

BoA moved to New Hampshire????

They have branches here...yes.

I got the joke, eques 

[eques]

And BoA still sucks!

BoA moved to New Hampshire????

They have branches here...yes.

I got the joke, eques 

I was wondering if I was a little too subtle...

[Lloyd Danforth]

Apparently....for me

[KBCraig]

Apparently....for me

When you make the permanent move, I'll let you in on it. ;-)

[Lloyd Danforth]

Nevermind...I think I got it.