Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

17 thoughts on “UK Explanatory Memorandam on FATCA IGA”

  1. How the once-mighty British Empire has fallen – from colonizer to colony, and over taxes, no less – such a bitter irony. The U.K. enthusiastically rolled-over to become America’s star G5 FATCA bitch when the U.S. whispered sweet nothings of imaginary reciprocity in her ear.

    I just don’t think I’ll be able to handle it when Canada does the same thing, for I know in my heart our government will. They’ve already given away control over wholesale chunks of our natural resources to foreign governments, so why not banking and taxation? Especially since the TD Bank alone has so foolishly overextended itself into the waning U.S. market, you can rest assured that our government will soon sell us out too, just like the U.K., with nary a public debate.

  6. Pretty pathetic indeed.

    Notice again how this IGA is repeatedly referred to as a “Treaty” in a UK context.  The same would evidently be true in Canada.   Not in the U.S., though, where it’s an “executive agreement.”   We certainly don’t want to let the Senate have any say on this!

  7. @Tim. Did you see this? Not sure what to make of it, but the UK has extended the consultation dates on the FATCA IGA. Are they struggling with how to write the regulations to comply with the IGA or are their still questions to be addressed by the FFIs now saddled with this?

    13 February 2013

    Implementation of the UK-US FATCA Agreement

    On 18 December 2012, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) published a summary of responses to the consultation seeking views on the implementation of UK-US FATCA Agreement in the UK. They also published draft regulations and draft guidance.

    Following the publication of the final FATCA regulations by the US Treasury and Internal Revenue Service on 17 January 2013, HMRC has extended the consultation period on the draft regulations and guidance – to give you more time to consider the US regulations. Please send any comments to FATCA consultation by 28 February 2013.

    Summary of responses: Implementing the UK-US FATCA Agreement

    Implementing the UK-US FATCA Agreement: FAQ’s about data protection (PDF 18K)

    Read the draft regulations (PDF 1.5MB)

    Find the draft guidance (PDF 281K)

  8. Tim…
    Picked this up off Linkedin…

    Do you know the answer to the question?

    Is HMRC serious about receiving comments on the draft FATCA regulations?
    The consultation in December provided for consultations to be received in February 2013 however the only feedback channel publicised on the HMRC website is a simple comment box. This is a poor medium in which to convey detailed feedback.

    I submitted a comment asking for an email address which could be used to send a response but after a week there has been no reply.

    Does anyone know of an alternative email route by which a substantive response can be sent?

    http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget-updates/march2012/index.htm#13Feb13

  9. The comment box has a button so that it can be enlarged to any size. (bottom right-drag the corner) That being said, people tend not to read any comment more than a page.

  10. Some interesting comments on Linkedin about the UK IGA in light of the delay… as of July 17th, IGA is the law of the land in the UK…

    FATCA now a legislative reality in the UK

    UK Finance Bill 2013, including FATCA, have now passed the third reading in the house of Lords, and will as such become law once it has received the Royal Assent.

    We are currently awaiting HMRCs guidance as to how to implement FATCA under the IGA considering that the US FATCA have been delayed, but the UK Legislation, which is the one that UK FFIs must comply to, includes the previous dates.

    So for example, “post-2013” accounts are defined as any accounts opened after 1st of January 2014 as per the UK legislation, and if this does not change, UK FFIs will have to use this date for new accounts on boarding while US FATCA will have until the 1st of July.

    I do not know enough how the government manages these type of legislative issues, but there can be no changes to the law from this point on, and Finance Bill 2013 will at least for a while state the previous deadlines.

    Does anyone have any knowledge of how the UK Government may manage this?
    Seems bizarre if UK FFIs will have to implement FATCA before everyone else.

    For more information on the Bill:
    http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/finance.html

    Additionally…

    Ben Bjorkberg • A further update from the UK Parliaments web page

    “Following agreement by both Houses on the text of the Bill it received Royal Assent on 17 July. The Bill is now an Act of Parliament (law).”

    So whatever else happen, FATCA is now law in the UK (with the previous agreed date rather than the new deadlines published by IRS on Friday)

    Further comment…

    Ben Bjorkberg • @Ashish Kumar: It is quite interesting, we know what is in it at the moment, the legislation and guidelines can be found on HMRCs webpage:
    http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/fatca/index.htm

    We have also written an article explaining the UK IGA for those interested:
    http://www.dbfs.co.uk/consultancy/regulatory/dbfs-fatca-services/

    But what I’m really curious about is how the UK government will handle the fact that, as of this afternoon, UK FFIs in theory have a stricter deadline for FATCA compliance than any bank following the IRS deadlines posted on Friday.

  11. Cameron, the Poodle 😛

    I suspect that it’s all more of a racket for bankers and brokerages firms, accountants, financial advisors, etc. A compliance industry is being created. I suspect that the minnow who has never filed will probably be reasonably safe because the IRS tend to focus on egregious cases though bully us….it’s essentially a PR stunt, a crackdown. It is what it is…

    I inadvertedly created complexities but have done all I can to simplify my situation and make future compliance much more straightforward and LESS EXPENSIVE.

    I will have had to pay my accountant close to £15,000 over several years to sort all my sh*t out. Yikes.

  12. I could see minnows being sent threatening warning letters about having to file tax returns, FBAR, etc. It’s really a honeypot for all the professionals to leech us, LOL.

    Understandably, at least my accountant has had to follow the word of law because she is an enrolled agent so very compliant with IRS standards.

    Life goes on. 🙂

  13. I’ve often wondered if Boris Johnson might be a potential ally in all this, having claimed to renounce his U.S. citizenship though probably not been official, etc. Obviously, the U.S. will not want to creat an diplomatic incident with Britain so I really begin to believe that it’s more the accountants and attorneys who could be the potential sharks…caveat emptor

  15. Any chance the queen might veto the bill? She actually has that power, but it hasn’t been used in over 300 years.

  17. Never mind, I hadn’t read the whole post carefully. The queen gave the royal assent on July 17, 2013.

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