8 thoughts on “Russia and US to share information on bank accounts”

1. *Hell has frozen over.

2. Here’s one I hadn’t yet seen (FATCA is one manifestation):

   http://www.iexpats.com/2012/11/fatca-digging-out-facts-about-the-global-tax-network/

   Global tax is undergoing a major upheaval that has largely passed without comment or notice.

   One after another, countries are falling in to line with the controversial Foreign Account Compliance Tax Act (FATCA) as Washington pressures foreign financial institutions to spill the beans on US taxpayers secreting assets in their vaults.

   Britain has already signed up to an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the US to supply FATCA information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in return with similar details from US financial institutions tipping off HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) about assets held for UK taxpayers.

   Singapore is the latest nation to join the talks, which is a surprise to some as Singapore has often shown a laissez faire attitude to how residents treat overseas tax. Singapore is one of the only countries that didn’t sign up to the European Union Savings Tax Directive.

   Other nations waiting to sign up to FATCA include Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and India.

   Tax talking shop

   But while FATCA takes all the headlines, a bigger shift is going on at a more seismic level.

   Although FATCA is US legislation, the inspiration is the tax treaty network slowly but surely being put in to place by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

   The OECD represents a tax talking shop for most of the world’s leading economies.

   Since a pact reached in Oslo, Norway, in 2010, the OECD has toiled to set up a reciprocal tax network that lets nations swap details on the financial affairs of non-residents with their home country.

   FATCA is one manifestation.

3. I have to say that I’m shocked that the world is accepting US demands so easily. But I still believe that South America will protest.

4. This is all a bad dream. Perhaps we are the very few hallucinating while the rest of the world has it all figured out. Thanks, fellow Brockers, for keeping each other sane and continuing to fight the good fight.

5. Let me offer a reading here…

   We know that the US is representing discussions with the famous 50 countries as essentially done deals, when clearly they are not. But what about the other countries? Are they necessarily caving in? They are caught between a rock and a hard place. Maybe they are playing for time. Maybe they can’t decide what to do and talking with the US is better than stonewalling. It might head off the day of doom just a bit.

6. @Northern Shrike, The US and the countries with which it’s seeking a FATCA agreement represent 74% of the world’s GDP. The rest of the world, as usual, is ignored.

   Besides China, another country that is surprisingly absent from the list is Austria. Although not as famous as Switzerland as a country where foreigners deposit their money, Austria has similar bank secrecy laws and neutrality.

7. Thought I would put this article of Russia up here.  Do you think these guys are going to do anything to help America with FATCA, or sign an IGA?  

   America’s New Cold War With Russia

   With the full support of a feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment, Washington is slipping, if not plunging, into a new cold war with Moscow. Relations, already deeply chilled by fundamental disputes over missile defense, the Middle East and Russia’s internal politics, have now been further poisoned by two conflicts reminiscent of tit-for-tat policy-making during the previous Cold War.

   In December, Congress, in a fit of sanctimonious lawmaking and indifference to larger consequences, passed the Magnitsky Act. In effect a blacklist without due process, it will punish Russian officials (and perhaps their family members) alleged to be guilty of “gross violations of human rights” in their own country. However odious such individuals may be, Russia’s political class was bound to resent yet another haughty American intrusion into its political and legal affairs. A no less capricious Russian Parliament quickly responded by banning American adoption of Russian orphans, long a highly sensitive issue, which will go into full effect in 2014. Little opposition was voiced in either legislature. 

8. FATCA / Russia? Ain’t gonna happen.

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22529251

   http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/05/14/purported-spy-letter-we-offer-up-to-1000000-a-year/