Do US banks exchange info with countries abroad?

Question

Are US-based bank accounts (with BoA for example) for EU citizens somehow being reported back to EU?

Sort of a complex question, but the background info is the following - I lived 1 month in the USA as part of my MBA last year and have in that time connected two large manufacturers (one from EU and one from USA) on a pretty large joint project. For that service I got/am getting paid a commission this/next year (about $75k in total). I'm not a financial expert but it is my understanding that the company already taxed that somehow, but I was nevertheless forced to sign a few (W?) forms saying that any problems with this abroad are my responsibility. Since money is tight right now I'm tempted to just let things lie and not do anything more about it - but would/could something like this come and haunt me in the future? Would a US bank report that to the EU somehow? (I'm a EU citizen and my BoA account is tied to a EU address)

Answer 1

Banks do not report transactions within accounts except as required by law, usually as part of anti-money-laundering efforts. Generally those involve tracking large cash transactions.

As far as large payments go, there are two reasons they might be reported to the government: taxes, and criminal investigations.

For tax purposes, if the payment is considered a salary or wage (that is, you are an employee of the company and the payment is for your time working there), then the company paying you is responsible for reporting the wage and withholding applicable taxes from your salary. If you are considered an independent contract employee, then you yourself will be responsible for reporting the income to the IRS and paying the applicable taxes yourself.

In the second case, unless you are already under investigation, I wouldn't worry about it. Banks are very touchy about financial records being kept private, and won't release them without a subpoena.

One caveat is that this is under US law. Banks which maintain branches in multiple countries must, of course, comply with all local laws in the jurisdiction where they do business.

The take away from this is that Bank of America is unlikely to report a single deposit of $75,000 into your account to anyone on their own. If it is a paper check being deposited they will probably place a hold on it to make sure it clears, but that is all.