In each bill I get from my bank(a european bank),it's noted,right next to the headings, that if you are an american citizen,the bank will report any operation on your account to the US administration! US went to great lengths to compel foreign banks who operate in the US to snitch on US citizens abroad,even those who havent lived in USA for a long time. I'm not really sure how many countries in the world do that.
I'm currently working for a Dutch bank, and as far as I can tell, this is a specific exception for US citizens. There's also specific rules for doing business with countries the US doesn't like (Cuba, North Korea, Iran and a few others). Other countries don't get special exceptions.
That said, of course all countries try to catch tax dodgers, but they go about that in a different way than the US does.
And yet with all this reporting, they IRS can't just calculate the damn taxes themselves, but require you to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars to produce reams of paperwork.
