I am a U.S citizen who has been living in Argentina for the last 3 years. I am a legal permanent resident here and I work for an Argentine company, get paid in Argentine pesos and pay Argentine taxes. I receive no salary or benefits from any American company or government.
I received a letter from my Argentine Bank that I need to fill out a W-9 form and return it to them so they can send it to the IRS. They had no knowledge as to what I need to put on the form and they told me it's because of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
No one down here knows much about foreign tax laws and when I called the IRS they where even less helpful and told me just to put my name, SSN and sign it. The company I work for has a couple of Americans like myself and they have also received the letter but are also wondering if they should fill it out and give it to the bank. Some people have told me that this is more to find U.S citizens hiding money overseas to avoid taxes. I don't make that much in my job to raise any flags and no where near that $50,000 mark I keep reading about while searching on Google about FATCA.