Blockchain, Crypto , Finance

FATCA delayed again.

Banks and financial institutions around the world breathe a sigh of relief as the US delays the controversial FATCA once again.

In a statement issued at the end of last week the US Department of the Treasury announced that financial institutions based outside of the USA have been given six more months to complete all the procedures necessary to comply with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

The FATCA system is intended to stamp out tax evasion and the hiding of incomes by US taxpayers, requiring all foreign financial institutions to disclose information about their US clients.

The withholding provision was scheduled to come into effect on January 1st 2014, but, according to the Treasury, the date has now been pushed back to June 30th 2014.

Commenting earlier on his blog, deVere Group CEO Nigel Green said “To my mind, this latest date change signals how the US Treasury is continuing to struggle to have all the world’s governments sign up to the intergovernmental agreement (IGA). The IGA would force those countries’ financial institutions to report their American clients’ financial activities directly to the IRS – or be hit with a 30 per cent withholding tax and be effectively blocked from doing any kind of financial transactions with the US”.

To read the rest of Nigel Green’s blog
, please click here.