Earlier this week the IRS issued proposed regulations to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The press release from the Department of the Treasury states,
After many months of intensive discussions with foreign governments, the Treasury Department today also jointly issued a statement with France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom expressing mutual intent to pursue a government-to-government framework for implementing FATCA – an important step toward addressing legal impediments to financial institutions’ ability to comply with the regulations.
The statement does not contemplate an exemption from FATCA for any jurisdiction, but instead offers a framework for information sharing pursuant to existing bilateral income tax treaties and allows FFIs to report the necessary information to their respective governments rather than to the IRS. [emphasis added]
Given what some countries have looked at as the US sticking its fingers into local law, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. A good test will be Canada, as our neighbor to the north is not happy with how previous discussions on FATCA have progressed.
Other coverage:
TaxProf Blog
Washington Post
Tags: FATCA