Some of the folks down at the IRS may have been ‘confused‘ about how to apply the tax exempt organization rules, especially those rogue employees in Cincinnati. But the IRS isn’t confused at all about the power of FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It is America’s global tax reporting law. Never before has […]

Inter-governmental agreements (IGAs) aim to improve international tax compliance through domestic reporting and the automatic exchange of information. IGAs establish legal frameworks for the exchange of information between financial institutions and tax authorities in other jurisdictions. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) FATCA requires financial institutions outside the USA to report information on financial accounts […]

AS AT December 2015 the Draft Guidance Notes have been revised in response to requests from interested parties for further clarification on certain matters. Also, while Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey have continued to work in concert, the Draft is now being issued on a jurisdiction specific basis. It should be noted that […]

While the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has focused worldwide attention on U.S. efforts to create a mandatory cross-border exchange of tax information, the enactment of FATCA was not an isolated occurrence. For more than a decade, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been trying to obtain a multi-country agreement under […]

In his annual Christmas messages to more than one billion Catholics, the Pope may have left out something: offshore account compliance. Maybe, but the U.S. Treasury is more than happy to fill in the blanks. Just before Christmas, the Holy See reached the substance of an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) to hand over American account details. FATCA is everywhere, […]

The Internal Revenue Service have recently confirmed that under FATCA in order to be issued with a Global Institution Identification Number (“GIIN”) before the 1 January 2015 registration must be completed via the online portal no later than 22 December 2014. This is important as any Foreign Financial Institution (“FFI”) resident in a Model 1 […]

IT HAS BEEN SUGEGTED* THAT Taxpayers may soon have to report bitcoin and other virtual currency accounts held in foreign exchanges to the IRS as the agency’s focus on foreign assets sharpens. FURTHER there is a strong possibility that bitcoin accounts could fall within the scope of assets individual taxpayers must reveal to the Internal […]

Joshua Vandyk, an investment advisor, was sentenced today to serve 30 months in prison for conspiring to launder monetary instruments, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced. Vandyk, a U.S. citizen, and Eric St-Cyr and Patrick Poulin, Canadian citizens, were indicted by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern […]