British citizen has had payments frozen by PayPal due to lack of U.S. tax documentation

[Tim_Magee]

Good afternoon,

My wife has had a PayPal account in the US for a dozen years. This was before PayPal had accounts available in many other countries. It is convenient as her online clients can pay for her services through PayPal and she can transfer those funds to a bank account.

My wife is British, and does not even live in the States. A few days ago, she received a payment on PayPal US from a British client. PayPal informed her that they had frozen the deposit until June 2nd or until she could provide them her U.S. tax information. If she does not provide them the tax documentation by then, they will deduct 24% to send to the IRS and then release the rest of the funds.

She does not have any U.S. tax information as she is not a citizen nor does she live there. It is not a large some of money—so she's not particularly concerned about that. It is ongoing transactions that she's worried about.

Do any of you know of a way that she can legally avoid this challenge?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Sincerely, Tim [removed]

[kernowlass]

Duplicate post.

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Managing-Account/How-can-a-foreigner-living-outside-of-the-US-re...

[Tim_Magee]

Hi Kernowlass,

Thank you. Actually this isn't quite a duplicate.

Yesterday I was asking about a permanent solution (or an alternative) to a foreigner using Paypal US. We are already setting up a British PayPal acct.

Today I'm asking how do we unfreeze her funds that are frozen in her US account that we need to close down.

Thank you for your help and understanding.

Tim [removed]