US-based financial journalist Emmanuel Olaoye (@emmanuelolaoye) recently wrote a blog post for Reuters entitled “Firms subject to U.S. FATCA advised to press on with preparing despite rule delay”. This is mostly an unremarkable pastiche of quotes from Tax-Industrial Complex FATCA cheerleaders of the type with whom we’re all familiar. But in the middle, it features this howler:
The extended dates will allow firms more time to implement systems for checking hundreds of thousands of customer accounts when FATCA becomes effective, said J. Richard Harvey, a former senior advisor to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman and now a professor at the Villanova University School of Law.
I can hardly think of a less neutral person to quote on the topic of how firms should make use of the time given to them by the latest FATCA delay, besides perhaps Carl Levin. Yet the editors over at Reuters are apparently happy with this anodyne description of Harvey which offers no hint to the reader of his conflict of interest. Continue reading
