Russian article, published in Russian:

http://www.klerk.ru/law/news/274541/

Anyone with Russian who might provide a good translation? Google translation, with the usual disclaimers, follows. It’s good enough to get the general drift:

According to the letter of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Russia has no plans at the international level to harmonize the application in our country the law of the United States, which relates to the mandatory disclosure of payments to the persons subject to taxation in the United States. This May 4 at the conference “Compliance in Russia,” said Director of the Department advising on risk management and compliance at KPMG Dmitry Chistov. From the event: Klerk.ru correspondent Sergei Vasiliev.

It is known that in 2011 the U.S. passed a law which is denoted by the abbreviation FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). Because it will come January 1, 2013 and thereafter will affect the activities of Russian credit organizations, whose operations have anything to do with the United States.

The essence of law lies in the fact that credit institutions in the world should conclude with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service U.S. Treasury Department, an analogue of the Russian Federal Tax Service), a cooperation agreement. In the framework of the bank will be obliged to identify persons among its clients the U.S. (those taxable in the U.S.) and to disclose information about them and their balance sheets in the periodic reporting to the IRS. In addition, the bank will keep 30% of all payments, whose beneficiary is the person the United States, and the source of payment is income associated with the United States, if such payment is directed to a credit institution, have not concluded an agreement with the IRS (or in the customer’s address, which refused to allow the transfer of their data IRS).

If the Russian bank does not enter into such an agreement with the IRS, 30% of its international transfers may be retained by force. FATCA will cover payments made after December 31, 2012.

In February, 2012 IRS has released a detailed explanation of the use of drill-FATCA. In particular, a definition of “wealthy client’s account” in respect of which applies the amplified analysis. Its lower limit is set at one million U.S. dollars. The minimum size of money to be examined the accounts of legal entities, and insurance accounts increased to 250,000 U.S. dollars. By the end of 2015 sends information about the accounts will be limited to owner name, address, taxpayer identification number and account balance. Retention of 30% of non-acceptance will be introduced as from 1 January 2017.

Requirements FATCA, however, contrary to the laws of many countries. Government of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain announced that the U.S. government signed a bilateral agreement: customer information from financial institutions will be concentrated in a government agency and then centrally, automatically transferred to the United States.

For banks in these countries abolished the requirements of the closing accounts of clients who refuse to support the implementation of FATCA; direct debit transfers from customers who refuse to support the implementation of FATCA; direct debit transfers from financial institutions in the participating countries. In response, the United States undertake to collect and centrally in the relevant countries to send information on the accounts of their citizens in American banks.

Even last year, the Association of Russian Banks asked the Finance Ministry on its official position regarding the application of FATCA Russian credit institutions. Recently, the reply of the Ministry, according to Dmitry Chistov, says that at the international level, Russia’s accession to FATCA is not planned. Thus, Russian banks have set for themselves to decide whether or not to perform the requirements of U.S. law.