By Robert W Wood – FORBES<\/p>\n
Never heard of FATCA? You will. FATCA<\/a>\u2014the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act\u2014is America\u2019s global tax law. It was quietly enacted in 2010, and after a four-year ramp up, it\u2019s finally in effect. What is most amazing is not its impact on Americans\u2014although that is considerable\u2014but its impact on the world. Yes, the whole world.<\/p>\n Never before has an American tax law attempted such an astounding reach. And it\u2019s clear FATCA has succeeded, after shrewd diplomacy by President Obama and his Treasury Department. (There are probably some congratulatory emails somewhere!) FATCA requires foreign banks to reveal Americans with accounts over $50,000. Non-compliant institutions could be frozen out of U.S. markets, so everyone is complying.<\/p>\n Here are 10 facts about FATCA:<\/p>\n 1<\/strong>. FATCA Blew In On a Perfect Storm. FATCA grew out of a controversial rule. America taxes its citizens\u2014and even permanent residents\u2014on their worldwide income<\/a> regardless of where they live. In 2009, the IRS struck a groundbreaking deal with UBS for $780 million in penalties and American names. Recently, Credit Suisse took a guilty plea and paid a record $2.6 billion fine.<\/p>\n Since then, with over a hundred Swiss banks taking a DOJ deal and many other developments, banking is now more transparent than could ever have been imagined. FATCA was enacted in 2010, when only some of those developments were unfolding. The idea was to cut off companies from access to critical U.S. financial markets if they didn\u2019t pass along American data. And boy did that idea work.<\/p>\n 2<\/strong>. Everyone around the World is Complying. More than 80 nations\u2014including virtually every one that matters\u2014have agreed to the law. So far, over 77,000 financial institutions have signed on too. Countries must throw their agreement behind the law or face dire repercussions. Even tax havens have joined up. The IRS has a searchable list of financial institutions. See FFI List Search and Download Tool<\/a> and a User Guide<\/a>. Countries on board are at FATCA \u2013 Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3<\/strong>. Even Russia and China Agreed to FATCA. If you think money anywhere can escape the IRS, think again. Even notoriously difficult China and Russia are on board. Which is more amazing? Probably Russia. The U.S. and Russia were negotiating a FATCA deal until March, 2014, but Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea caused the U.S. to suspend talks. That meant Russian financial institutions faced being frozen out of U.S. markets. Russia took last minute action to allow Russian banks to send American taxpayer data to the U.S. when President Vladimir Putin Signed a Law in the 11th Hour to Satisfy U.S. Treasury<\/a>.<\/p>\n 4<\/strong>. FATCA is America\u2019s Big Stick. Cleverly, FATCA\u2019s 30% tax and exclusion from U.S. markets would be so catastrophic that everyone has opted to comply. Foreign financial institutions must withhold a 30% tax if the recipient isn\u2019t providing information about U.S. account holders. The choice is simple, and that\u2019s why everyone is complying.<\/p>\n 5<\/strong>. Everyone is on the Lookout for American Indicia. Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) must report account numbers, balances, names, addresses, and U.S. identification numbers. For U.S.-owned foreign entities, they must report the name, address, and U.S. TIN of each substantial U.S. owner. And in what is a kind of global witch hunt, American indicia will likely mean a letter. Don\u2019t ignore it.<\/p>\n 6<\/strong>. FBARs Are Still Required. FBARs predate FATCA, but get ready for duplicate reporting. FATCA just adds<\/em> to the burden, including Form 8938, but it doesn\u2019t replace FBARs. The latter have been in the law since 1970 but have taken on huge importance since 2009. U.S. persons with foreign bank accounts exceeding $10,000 must file an FBAR by each June 30.<\/p>\n These forms are serious, and so are the criminal and civil penalties. FBAR failures can mean fines up to $500,000 and prison up to ten years. Even a non-willful civil FBAR penalty<\/a> can mean a $10,000 fine. Willful FBAR violations can draw the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the account for each violation\u2013and each year is separate. The numbers add up fast. Court Upholds Record FBAR Penalties, Exceeding Offshore Account Balance<\/a>.<\/p>\n 7<\/strong>.\u00a0FATCA is Compelling Compliance. U.S. account holders who aren\u2019t compliant have limited time to get to the IRS. The IRS recently changed its programs, making its\u00a0Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program<\/a>\u00a0a little harsher. Yet for those not willing to pay the 27.5% penalty\u2014which rose to 50% August 4, 2014\u00a0for some banks\u2014the new IRS\u2019s\u00a0Streamlined Program<\/a>\u00a0may be a good option for those who qualify.<\/p>\n The latter applies now to both foreign and U.S.-based Americans. Some still want to amend their taxes and file FBARs\u00a0in a \u201cquiet disclosure<\/a>\u201d which could bring civil FBAR penalties or even prosecution. Thus, caution is clearly in order.<\/p>\n 8<\/strong>.\u00a0Banking Will Never Be the Same. FATCA is making banking transparent worldwide.\u00a0With Swiss bank deals, prosecutions, summonses, and FATCA, the IRS has quicker,\u00a0better and more complete information than ever.<\/p>\n 9<\/strong>.\u00a0Forget Repeal or Dismantling FATCA. Republicans have mounted a lackluster repeal effort, but there\u2019s no serious push to repeal FATCA. At least not one that\u2019s getting traction. (No hate mail please, but honest, repeal now isn\u2019t likely.) Some say FATCA will be like prohibition, lasting for a time but doomed. We\u2019ll see, but it sure doesn\u2019t look that way now.<\/p>\n Still, Canadians recently\u00a0Filed Suit To Block FATCA And Prohibit Handover Of U.S. Names To IRS<\/a>. The suit claims the Inter-Governmental Agreement under which Canada can turn over private bank account information \u00a0is illegal.\u00a0The legal\u00a0claim<\/a>\u00a0challenges the constitutionality of the agreement the Canadian government struck with the United States.<\/p>\n 10<\/strong>.\u00a0Don\u2019t Count on Other Passports. Some dual nationals or U.S. Green Card holders think they can bypass FATCA\u2014and other U.S. tax rules\u2014by using a non-U.S. passport and non-U.S. address with their foreign bank. Don\u2019t. You may just make it worse, handing the IRS another badge of willfulness. Your bank and the IRS will likely find out eventually, even if not right away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Robert W Wood – FORBES Never heard of FATCA? You will. FATCA\u2014the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act\u2014is America\u2019s global tax law. It was quietly enacted in 2010, and after a four-year ramp up, it\u2019s finally in effect. What is most amazing is not its impact on Americans\u2014although that is considerable\u2014but its impact on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[25,28,23,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fatca","category-fbar","category-irs","category-us-tax-return-1040-1040nr"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustaxconsultants.es\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}