All E-gold Accounts Now Require Tax ID Information
It was July 21 of this year when Dr. Jackson spelled out his plan for upgrading the e-gold system. His goal is to quickly make the e-gold system into a US compliant financial business.
From that July post, Dr. Jackson, acknowledged “… that e-gold is indeed a Financial Institution or Agency as defined in US law and should be regulated as a Financial Institution. E-gold Ltd. …will be exerting every effort to bring e-gold into compliance with US law and regulation as quickly as possible.”
Today, from the e-gold blog, they are announcing a major move towards US financial compliance and customer identification.
Effective immediately, all e-gold users will be required to provide a Personal Tax Identification Number for the point of contact on the account. Non US users will have to provide their local tax information for their jurisdiction.
e-gold Ltd. remains highly committed to continuing to offer a cost effective Internet payment system making instantaneous settlement, free of chargeback risk, available to customers around the world. We continue to be confident that a regulated e-gold rebuilt to a more systematic specification will be less hospitable to criminals, and more attractive to mainstream business use without being less accessible to those disregarded by legacy payment systems.
Congratulations to Dr. Jackson and the e-gold team on their move forward.
Kudo’s to Alan’s blog for the pic
Comment by Alan on 20 September 2008:
Hi Mark. Well, I agree with you that it is a step in the right direction, but I wonder if TAX IDs are really necessary. Isn’t a drivers license or passport enough proof of ID? Are they going to ask us for blood samples next?
Alans last blog post..Radical US bailout plan has a jawdropping price tag
Comment by Bill St. Clair on 21 September 2008:
Congratulations? Move forward? I realize that it was comply or shut down or die in a hail of bullets, but I’m not sure which was the best choice. Can’t blame him for making the choice he did. Most of us would have done that. But won’t be rejoicing about being tracked like cattle.
Comment by link on 21 September 2008:
Should’ve left the states altogether when they had the chance. These new regulations will deter future customers from dealing with them.
Screw E-gold and their suck up to the Fed compliance.
Comment by Mark on 21 September 2008:
I agree, should have never had servers in the US or an office.
Bill, thank goodness for other non-US systems.
The one thing everyone is not yet acknowledging is that NONE of us know what Dr. Jackson knows. After what he has just been through with the gov, there are probably volumes of information about the future of the industry he’s not blogging about !
If he’s asking for an item, whatever it is, perhaps all other services might be asking for that next year and e-gold is just getting ahead of the game. They are very smart people there at e-gold, whether you agree or not, they know what they are doing. If you don’t like the new plan, just change companies, don’t bad mouth them he gave us all a decade of fine products and services and is now going off to prison in Nov. because of that…you have no right to say bad things about the future of he company.
Whatever compliance they are asking for, you can bet it will keep e-gold ahead of the KYC and compliance curve for the next decade or two. “They know” what to do in order to keep the new e-gold on top, I would not be too worried about what they are asking for or who they share it with, if you don’t like it, change companies there are plenty of others to use.
With the US economy headed down and the Treasury prancing off to debtors prison, next year do you think Joe Public be putting his money in the PayPal money market or digital gold? There is an ENORMOUS opportunity for the first US compliant, US based, digital gold currency. If they lose all of their 5 million account holders, I’m sure there are another 50 million that are ready to jump in… I’m betting DGC over dollars and I’m also betting Dr. Jackson knows this too.
Mark
Comment by Bill St. Clair on 22 September 2008:
I’ll have to admit that the choice to keep e-gold in business, with tracking, allows people to get most of their money out. They now have to explain it to the IRS, but at worst they’ll have to call it all income, pay 30% to the protection racket, and keep the rest. Had they chosen to shut down, lots of people would have lost everything.
Comment by Pecunix user on 22 September 2008:
The top boy’s need to get there dues at the end of the day, even if your based offshore palms need to be greased, massive respect to Dr Jackson for pioneering DGC’s and weathering the onslaught that only pioneers can.
It is clear KYC has to be as standard, there is no innovation to get round that wherever your based, tax id’s are not a requirement of businesses as that is a job for the tax man, if offshore.