[hunnibee514]

Hi,

I'm a US citizen and I already signed up for a HK bank account thinking that I could buy and sell HK stocks. But when I tried to buy a stock, I was denied and the message said I was not allowed to. Is it true that US citizens cannot participate in buying and selling securities here in Hong Kong? Do you know who or where I can go to get more information on this?
Any help will be much appreciated!! Thanks!

[PDLM]

Er, why don't you ask the bank who you are trying to trade through?

I know that there are some problems for US Citizens because of the way your government tries to impose its rules globally, and some banks in HK regard it as not worth the effort to comply with US reporting requirements, so they just refuse certain types of business from US citizens.

[freeier]

if u read around, you'd realized that most broker reports has a clause that says 'not distributable to US nationals anywhere in the world'...blar blar blar.. 8-)

anyway the key reason is because US citizens are subject to capital gain tax on any share purchase i'd think. whereas elsewhere in the world no other country or exchange imposes that... maybe japan...

[Sleuth]

When we met with B of A officials, they said we (US citizens) can not invest in HK. And looking at the HSBC info, there are a lot of "HKID only" clauses to go along with the US citizen clauses.

[discobay]

Same with BEA who ask if you are a US citizen before allowing you to buy something as small as a time deposit.

[bana]

US/Canadian citizens cannot even open an investment account. This is a strict compliance issue. Or it could be painstaking to declare your interests for tax purpose. Anyone who has come across forms like W8-BEN would know it best. Besides stock, unit trusts here also tend to keep US/Canadian citizens/residents away.

[HKFella]

Originally Posted by bana

US/Canadian citizens cannot even open an investment account. This is a strict compliance issue. Or it could be painstaking to declare your interests for tax purpose. Anyone who has come across forms like W8-BEN would know it best. Besides stock, unit trusts here also tend to keep US/Canadian citizens/residents away.

Never before seen Canadians lumped together with US citizens in this regard. Actually, Canadians living in HK should have little problem opening investment/stock accounts locally because, unlike the US which seeks to tax its citizens worldwide, Canada does not tax non-residents on non-Canadian income, and therefore does not try to demand tax reporting on them (assuming the government even had the kind of clout that the US govt does to impose this overseas).

[OK, the one fringe group that may encounter some problem would be Canadian RESIDENTS trying to approach a Canadian financial institution outside Canada for interest-/ income-/gains-generating accounts. The latter companies face pressure from their government to report tax income for Canadian residents - lest they be hiding income overseas - and they may decline such accounts if they decided there wasn't critical mass for such business to warrant setting up the mechanisms for T4 reporting etc].

[hunnibee514]

Hi all,

I did ask my bank and they said I couldn't invest because of my citizenship but they didn't give me much info so I wanted to ask around. Thanks for the helpful information!