The U.S. must make some significant changes to the way it applies regulations set out under its 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act to those dual U.S./EU citizens known as "accidental Americans," according to a report just released by seven EU Petitions Committee members who conducted a five-day "fact-finding mission" in Washington, DC last July. 

(..as FATCA critics respond with calls for immediate EU action)                                                                          

A new report by a European Parliamentary think tank that had been commissioned by the Parliament's Committee on Petitions (PETI) to "update" a previous report on the subject of "FATCA Legislation and its Application at the International and EU Level" is being welcomed by FATCA critics in Europe for its acknowledgement of certain  concerns about the way the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is implemented that the original report didn't fully identify.

Members of the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions (PETI) will spend next week in Washington, DC, as part of what is being described as a "fact-finding mission" aimed at finding "concrete solutions" to the FATCA-related problems that "numerous EU citizens and their family members" are being impacted by.

In July of 2018,members of the European Parliament resoundingly approved a resolution which supported the right of Europe's estimated 300,000 "accidental Americans"  to be allowed to cast off their American citizenship (and thus their taxation by the U.S.) more easily and cheaply than is currently possible under U.S. law. (The vote was 470 to 43, with 26 abstentions.) 

European Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni has again drawn fierce criticism from Americans and accidental Americans in Europe, with his remarks on the the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) – this time for saying that the European Commission is technically unable to directly address problems with "the monitoring and enforcement of EU data protection rules" that he acknowledges FATCA is causing. 

The European Union should update its tax avoidance legislation and revamp its systems for assessing harmful tax regimes if it is to ensure that member states are not deprived of substantial revenue, European Parliament lawmakers agreed on Thursday, in a non-binding resolution that was seen to be a response to the release earlier this week of the so-called Pandora Papers.

In an 18-page document mostly containing formal texts having to do with the implementation of EU requirements for the exchange of tax information, the European Parliament has devoted several paragraphs to criticizing the 2010 U.S. tax evasion-prevention law known as FATCA, saying that it "deplores" FATCA's "lack of reciprocity," and adds that it is resulting in "the United States becoming a significant enabler of financial secrecy for non-U.S. citizens" as a result.

A German citizen has posted a petition on the website of the Deutscher Bundestag (German Parliament) which calls on the  German government to intervene with respect to the difficulties many "German citizens" are struggling with as a result of the American tax evasion law known as FATCA – and says he is hoping for "wide support" from "accidental Americans" as well as other American expats and even non-Americans who simply care about privacy and data protection issues. 

Correspondence and other documents having to do with the way the U.S. tax evasion-prevention law known as FATCA was agreed upon, and is now enforced by EU governments – along with similar materials having to do with the OECD’s more recent automatic exchange of information (AEOI) regime known as the Common Reporting Standard – have been published by a campaigning lawyer with London’s Mishcon de Reya law firm.

A number of European citizens who have been struggling for years with legacy American citizenship issues, as a result of the 2010 U.S. law known as FATCA, expressed their frustration with Europe's executive level of government – among others – during a two-and-a-half-hour European Parliament hearing on FATCA in Brussels yesterday.