The documents include a 24-page summary of responses to a consultation conducted earlier this year; a 36-page draft of the regulations, as they are to be enforced in the UK; and 81 pages of guidance notes.
All three appeared on the HMRC website yesterday, as part of a package of “draft Finance Bill 2013 clauses, explanatory notes, tax information and impact notes and other tax updates, including responses to consultations”.
As reported in February, the UK was one of five European countries that agreed to a so-called “intergovernmental agreement”, or IGA, with the US, under which financial institutions in these countries would forward the necessary data on their American account-holders to the tax authorities of the respective countries – HMRC, in the case of Britain – which in turn will forward it to the Internal Revenue Service. Since then, other countries have signalled their willingness to agree similar arrangements.
FATCA, formally known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, is aimed at cracking down on American citizens who make use of offshore bank accounts in order to evade their US tax obligations, by forcing foreign financial institutions to report to the US on any American clients they have.
It was signed into law by President Obama in 2010, and is now due to begin being implemented in 2014, a year later than originally planned.
In the introduction to the guidance notes, which may be viewed by clicking here, the Revenue said it recognised that “there are still some gaps in both the legislation and guidance as some areas of the process, such as how financial institutions will register for FATCA and the format for the submission of data, are not yet finalised”.
“Discussions on these issues are continuing, and we will publish further details as soon as they are possible,” it added.
In the meantime, it said it welcomed further comments on the legislation published on 11 Dec – a reference to the three pages on FATCA that were contained in the 296-page Draft Finance Bill – the draft legislation published yesterday, and on the draft guidance, “by the 13th Feb 2013”.
To view a pdf summary of responses to the FATCA implementation consultation, which includes a list of the names of all the entities that filed responses, and which took place between 17 Sept and 23 Nov, click here.
To view the draft regulations – which state that they come into force "in 2013" but features asterisks in place of the day and month – click here.
