FATCA's now a teen-ager! So, 13 years on: Just how well do you know your FATCA?

Today, March 18, 2023, is the 13th anniversary of the signing into law of FATCA. And as we've done in the past, we're marking the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act's 13th "birthday" today by sharing some of our favorite, impossible-to-resist questions about it, in order to test just how well we've all been paying attention.

We're doing this because we know only too well that, without really meaning to, many American expatriates as well as tax industry experts, lawyers and others have become experts on the subject of FATCA over the past 13 years it's been around...   

  • Tax

Ross McGill: ‘FATCA isn’t the problem: CBT is’ 

In the early years of this century, a number of major media exposés reported how Homeland Americans, as well as rich people from other developed and developing countries, were making use of secret overseas bank accounts in order to avoid their tax obligations back home. 
 
Switzerland, where bank secrecy was enshrined in law, was an unsurprising favorite of many such wealthy individuals, but other jurisdictions were also named...

EU to push 'for a more permanent solution' to accidental American issues at meeting with U.S. this week

The European Union intends to "ask about the posibility [of] a more permanent solution" to the problems Europe's "accidental Americans" are continuing to struggle with as a result of the 2010 U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act this week, when the latest in a regular series of bilateral meetings between the EU and U.S. is set to take place, an EU official has said. 

  • News

IRS issues 'temporary relief' (through 2024) for banks of 'accidental Americans' who lack TINs

The Internal Revenue Service has quietly announced that it is introducing "temporary U.S. Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) relief" for non-U.S. banks and other "foreign financial institutions" located in certain countries, so that they won't be deemed to be in "significant non-compliance" of their obligations under the U.S. tax evasion-prevention law known as FATCA, because one or more of their apparently American citizen account-holders say they're unable to provide them with their U.S. taxpayer identification number (TIN).

  • News

U.S. and Argentina agree FATCA IGA at last

(...but it's said no more reciprocal than other Model 1 IGAs)

Argentina has at last agreed a FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the U.S. government, according to a statement on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Argentina, tax industry sources, and news reports in that country.

Until now, Argentina had not participated in the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Agreement program, which was signed into law in 2010, and came into force in 2014.

  • News

New European Parliament 'update' of 2018 report on FATCA said to acknowledge many FATCA critics' concerns

(..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.

  • News

Lehagre's Assn of Accidental Americans requests U.S. district court 'expedite' its renunciation fee challenge case

The Association of Accidental Americans, a Paris-based advocacy organization, together with 20 “accidental Americans” (persons deemed to be U.S. citizens because they happened to have been born in the U.S. but who've lived all of the rest of their lives elsewhere, as citizens of other countries), yesterday filed a motion to expedite a legal challenge it filed in 2020, over the legality of the Renunciation Fee.

  • News

UK's tax authority to reach out to 'hundreds' with possible links to bank in non-CRS-compliant Puerto Rico

As the UK's tax collection agency, HM Revenue & Customs, is reported to be preparing to reach out to "hundreds" of customers of a bank located in Puerto Rico over possible tax irregularities, financial services industry observers have been pointing out that the bank in question is located in one of five U.S. territories that, like the United States itself, have not signed up to the OECD's Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

  • News
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Opinion

Ross McGill: ‘FATCA isn’t the problem: CBT is’ 

Ross McGill: ‘FATCA isn’t the problem: CBT is’ 

In the early years of this century, a number of major media exposés reported how Homeland Americans, as well as rich people from other developed and developing countries, were making...

Mar-18-2023