We used to call the USA the land of opportunity. But with FATCA, the USA has become the land of importunity.
The US is forcing all the banks in the world to give them banking information. To say this is an importunate demand is a bit of an understatement.
Update analysis of the FFI Capitulators…
The list contains the current 77,353 names of financial institutions and other entities that have completed Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) registration with the IRS and obtained a global intermediary identification number (GIIN). At least another 70,000 – 100,000 FFIs remain to register and/or are waiting to receive a GIIN, although the IRS has stated in the FFI List FAQs the total number could reach as high as 500,000.
From July 1st a withholding of 30% will apply to FATCA withholdable payments to the 140 countries and jurisdictions without an IGA. 68 countries and jurisdictions have a an IGA with the USA and thus a FATCA registration extension until the end of the year. See yesterday’s article about the IGAs and other deadlines.
20% of the FATCA compliant financial firms hailed from Cayman Islands at 14,836 registered whereas BVI had 1,837. 2.053 Netherlands financial firms registered thus far, whereas nearly twice as many Swiss firms had GIINs at 4,040. Liechtenstein only had 239 register. Of the BRIC countries, only 211 China firms were registered to date, 246 Indian ones, and 514 Russian ones, compared to 2,258 for Brazil.
The most obscure GIIN registration is perhaps AK BARS Investments Corporation which listed BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY. Falkland Islands even had a registration, albeit a branch, as did Wallis and Futuna (French Pacific territory). The most contentious GIIN registrations will be the 23 from “the State of Palestine” (I must have missed the State Department press release recognizing its statehood). …
read on at
http://profwilliambyrnes.com/2014/06/02/77353-ffi-listed-by-irs-as-fatca-compliant-heres-a-breakdown/
@ Just Me
I see at the bottom there is an ad for ” Practical Compliance Aspects of FATCA and GATCA”
Did you ever copyright “GATCA”?
Interesting point about Palestine.
#IRS #FATCA FFI List FAQs re Mordor GIINs, the modern equivalent of “Mark of the Beast” via @williambyrnes http://bit.ly/1ktKSWK
the USA global klausterfauck is on. 77, 353 banks have signed up to chase down and identify 7.6 million US citizens living overseas, 10’s of millions of immigrants, and a few hundred real tax evaders dumb enough not to know what is coming..
From Prof. Byrnes’ post:
In other words, these aren’t “77,000 banks” at all. They’re SPVs which were slow-footed enough to get caught in the “FFI” definition. Basically “77,000 banks” is nothing more than the usual inflationary misinformation we’ve come to expect from IRS “offshore” garbage press releases, just like “$5 billion collected from tax evaders!” (the vast majority of which wasn’t tax but fines, and against which the real tax evaders are now forewarned) and “50 countries signed up for IGAs!” (half of which are dependent territories which aren’t even important as tax havens, and the other half of which are only signed up “in substance”)
And none of China’s Big 4 have GIINs either for mainland China or HK entities.
Oddly enough, China Everbright (also state-owned) does have a GIIN. So does Banco Delta Asia, a Macau bank which is already banned from the US financial system after helping the North Koreans launder money.
And then there’s my favourite entry so far: “Japan Self Storage Holding HK Limited”. I wish the U.S. Treasury best of luck finding all those offshore tax evaders who have hidden their money underneath the cushions of old couches in self-storage units.
IRS Introduces Tool for Checking FATCA Foreign Bank Registration
So the modern equivalent of Mordor’s “Mark of the Beast” has provided a quick way to check if you have one. Get your GIIN before we sanction you is the message.
BTW, Have you noticed that the IRS has recognized the State of Palestine in the first list of 77,000 compliant little FFIs and that a Swedish candy company is registered? This thing just gets weirder and more strange. Wonder when this monster will blow up.
…and where does the IRS get the resources to manage the 500,000 FFIs its FAQ page thinks might register? How many agents does that require. Maybe those 16,000 ObamaCare gate keepers will be given additional global responsibilities.
@Eric, very interesting.
@Hazy
No, GATCA is my gift to the world! LOL
As I look at the FFI’s in Sweden, the first name pops up is anticimex.
http://www.anticimex.com/Corporate/About-us/
Anticimex is the company you call when you find out that you have termites or water damage in your home.
FATCA is implemented to find out that the house is rotting.
the fatca lookup page
http://apps.irs.gov/app/fatcaFfiList/flu.jsf
Just me: Mordor’s “Mark of the Beast”: nice literary mixed metaphor. Coming soon to a theatre near you: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Left Behind Series.
Anticimex will also rid your house of bedbugs. Maybe hiding the cash under the mattress isn’t such a good idea.
The list of UK “banks” includes:
– 17th Earl of Pembroke W/T -Lady Pembroke
– D M Williams deceased Will Trust
– J M Marvin deceased Will Trust
– Triangle Regional Aircraft Leasing Limit
– Branch
– Enotria Wine Group Limited
– HSBC Vehicle Finance -UK- Limited
– HSBC Workplace Retirements Services Fund
– Newton Global Higher Income Fund
– Marks and Spencer Financial Services plc
– John Lewis Financial Services Limited
So, that’s three trusts from deceased individuals, an aircraft leasing company, an unidentifiable entry (there are many of these), a wine distributor, a vehicle finance company, a workplace pension scheme, an investment fund (there tons of these), and subsidiaries of two of the UK’s leading retailers (M&S offers savings accounts, John Lewis apparently doesn’t so it’s probably credit card finance/securitisation). All from the first few pages of United Kingdom “banks”.
@Edelweiss
It’s in the IRS’s favor to make it seem like a huge number of banks are in the program. Maybe the number is a lot smaller because people registered the kitchen sink.
@Neill
I totally agree that it’s in the IRS’ interest to make it look like banks are complying. Some commentators have said that the 77,000 number is astounding. It is but not for the reasons they state.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised anymore given the state of journalism, but, it took about 2 minutes to find those examples.
If some enterprising journalist had entered the word “fund”, they would have discovered 13,813 entries while “bank” has 5,604 entries. Honestly, that took less than 15 seconds but nobody reporting this stuff can be bothered.
FATCA’s “77.000.” registered FIs and non-FIs:
IRS and Treasury = Masters of “Lies, damn lies, and statistics”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics
http://profwilliambyrnes.com/2014/06/02/only-68-igas-the-day-before-the-june-3rd-fatca-registration-deadline/
“Only 68 IGAs the day before the June 3rd FATCA registration deadline
Posted by William Byrnes on June 2, 2014
“The silence is deafening. In the past two weeks, only two additional IGAs have been added to the list (UAE and Barbados) so that as of Monday June 2, 2014, only 68 FATCA IGAs have been signed or treated as if signed. These 68 include 28 signed Model 1s with another 33 treated as if signed, and 5 signed Model 2s with 2 treated as if signed.
FFIs in the remaining 140 countries and jurisdictions rush to register by tomorrow, June 3rd, with the FATCA portal that they may be included on the GIIN List by the July 1st start of FATCA withholding. Meanwhile, US withholding agents gear up to begin FATCA withholding for payments from July 1st.
What if these 140 Non-IGA countries agree an IGA after July 1?”……….
How much confusion about witholding like this
http://www.bankersonline.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1928759
do you think FATCA will spawn?
http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2014/06/03/see-if-your-bank-is-fatca-compliant/
“See If Your Bank is FATCA-Compliant ….
June 3, 2014
Just about 77,000 financial institutions have registered with the IRS to comply with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which takes effect July 1. If you wish to learn whether your bank or financial institution has registered, the latest IRS FATCA FFI search tool will help!”
@Edelweiss
We have 2731 or 3.5% called ‘branch’. Let’s compile a list of the stupid entries and send it to the daily caller.
And meanwhile, as per usual, the IRS can’t collect from those homelanders within arms reach that it has good reason to think ACTUALLY owe taxes to the US:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/23/pf/taxes/federal-workers-delinquent-taxes/
‘Federal workers owe IRS the $3.3 billion’
By Jeanne Sahadi @CNNMoney May 23, 2014: 4:00 PM ET
“Lots of people haven’t paid all their taxes — including employees of the federal government.
The IRS released data this week showing that roughly 3.3% of federal employees and retirees owed $3.3 billion in unpaid taxes as of Sept. 30.
That means they either couldn’t pay the full amount owed when they filed a return, or they got snagged by an IRS audit and were told they owed more than they already paid.
The data, released after USA Today requested it under the Freedom of Information Act, broke down delinquency rates by departments and independent agencies.
……… The rate among the population at large is at least 8.7%, the IRS estimates.
A few weeks ago the IRS found itself in hot water with Congress for having paid $1 million in bonuses to 1,100 IRS employees who were late in paying their taxes or had willfully understated their tax liability or income.
But it turns out the delinquency rate among Congressional staffers is higher — 4.87% in the House and 3.24% in the Senate — than those of IRS workers. ……….”…..
Don’t know if this has made the rounds….
“Has the most powerful nation on Earth lost its mind?”
by Jonathon Gatehouse, May 15, 2014
Printed in Macleans magazine, May 26, 2014 issue
“Everywhere you look these days, America is in a rush to embrace the stupid. Hell-bent on a path that’s not just irrational, but often self-destructive.”
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/america-dumbs-down/
So looking at the file we have the first column as a GIIN. The format of the GIIN is 6 chars that represent an entity and then 5 chars of incrementing counter. Country code and entity type are the other fields.
So that leaves on 74623 unique entities. So 77k banks isn’t correct unless you count their branches in other countries and in fact many of the branches just put their name as ‘branch’.
@ Neill
Good idea.
“Deceased” – 16 entries
“Will Trust” – 33 entries
“hotel” – 56 (mostly hotel investment funds)
“aircraft” – 15 (mostly aircraft leasing/specialty finance)
“airport” – 23 (mostly airport holding companies)
“school” – 26 (not all are actual schools but a school system in Birmingham, England is FATCA registered (maybe private equity owned?))
“bidco” – 26 (indicative of private equity owned holding company structure)
“holdco” – 157 (indicative of private equity owned holding company structure)
“midco” – 37 (indicative of private equity owned holding company structure)
“topco” – 44 (indicative of private equity owned holding company structure)
“acquisition” – 144 (indicative of private equity owned holding company structure)
“Mezzanine” – 156 (indicative of private equity and specialty finance)
“special purpose” – 7 (indicative of specialty finance)
“SPV” – 119 (special purpose vehicle, indicative of specialty finance)
“renewable energy” – 20
“energy” – 316 (mostly energy investment funds or energy trading companies)
“windfarm” – 7 (there were also a few farms)
“VCT” – 9 (venture capital trust, a special UK investment trust with beneficial tax treatment)
“LLP” – 321 (limited liability partnership, a corporate structure extremely rare for a bank)
“partnership” – 265 (a corporate structure extremely rare for a bank)
“building society” – 27
“infrastructure” – 261 (most likely infrastructure investment funds)
“warehouse” – 7 (specialty finance)
“warehousing” – 3 (specialty finance)
“property” – 364 (most likely investment funds)
“pension” – 254
“superannuation” – 9
“mortgage” – 170 (most likely specialty finance)
“employee” – 62
“film” – 9
“residential” – 57
“AXA” – 645 (a French financial services firm) – nearly 1% of registered entities came from one company – I hope their FATCA compliance team gets paid overtime
“Aegon” – 179 (a Dutch financial services firm)
“Aviva” – 61 (a British insurance company)
AB Acquisitions and Alliance Boots – 16 entries – the entire holdco structure for KKR owned UK retailer/pharmacy/optometrist Alliance Boots
Bridgepoint – 72 (a UK private equity firm)
3i – 45 (a UK private equity firm)
I haven’t figured out the numbering system yet, but I think “branch” is a foreign branch of a parent company elsewhere registered with a real name.
There are also loads of spelling errors. When a typo could cost you millions!