Business
U.S. issues “final” FATCA regulations on Caribbean and other offshore tax havens
It said it has collaborated with Caribbean and other foreign governments to “develop and sign intergovernmental agreements that facilitate the effective and efficient implementation of FATCA by eliminating legal barriers to participation, reducing administrative burdens, and ensuring the participation of all non-exempt financial institutions in a partner jurisdiction”.
In order to reduce administrative burdens for financial institutions with operations in multiple jurisdictions, the Treasury Department said the final regulations “coordinate the obligations for financial institutions under the regulations and the intergovernmental agreements”.
Since the proposed regulations were published on February 15, 2012, the US Department of Treasury said it has collaborated with Caribbean and other foreign governments to develop two alternative model intergovernmental agreements “that facilitate the effective and efficient implementation of FATCA”.
It said these models serve as the basis for concluding bilateral agreements with interested jurisdictions and “help implement the law in a manner that removes domestic legal impediments to compliance, secures wide-spread participation by every non-exempt financial institution in the partner jurisdiction, fulfills FATCA’s policy objectives, and further reduces burdens on foreign financial institutions located in partner jurisdictions”.
The department said seven countries have already signed or initialed these agreements, identifying them as Norway, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland, and Spain.
The Treasury Department disclosed that it is also “engaged” with more than 50 countries and jurisdictions, including some unidentified ones in the Caribbean, “to curtail offshore tax evasion”.
It said “more signed agreements are expected to follow in the near future”.
