FATCA Essentials

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is a U.S. law intended to combat tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers who hold investments in offshore accounts. Congress enacted FATCA in 2010 to address the fact that the U.S. Treasury loses an estimated $100 billion each year to international tax-dodging schemes.

Under FATCA, U.S. taxpayers holding financial assets outside the U.S. must report those assets to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and foreign financial institutions (FFIs) must provide the IRS information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers. FATCA imposes a substantial withholding tax on U.S. taxpayers and FFIs that fail to disclose the required information, making FATCA training that much more crucial.

The topics covered in the course include:

• Overview of FATCA
• Entities Impacted by FATCA
• Foreign Financial Institutions and Non-Foreign Financial Entities
• FATCA Compliance by U.S. Taxpayers
• FATCA Compliance by Foreign Financial Institutions
• Model 1 Intergovernmental Agreements
• Model 2 Intergovernmental Agreements
• FFI Agreements
• U.S. Accounts
• Reporting by Foreign Financial Institutions
• Compliance Challenges