The FATCA disaster
American neo-serfs, and why it costs the US way more than it brings in
Note: Before starting, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not American, and am therefore not directly concerned by the fact that the US taxes its citizens wherever they live, nor by FATCA. I share the reasons that led me to make this analysis later in the article.
London, 2009. Boris Johnson, then "just" Mayor of London, sells his main London residence. In the UK, this does not trigger capital gains tax, so he didn't have to pay a single cent to the taxman.
At least, that's what he thought: he had forgotten that he also had to declare the sale to the American tax authorities, and pay capital gains tax in the United States.
He was caught by the IRS, and despite declaring that their demand was "absolutely outrageous", had to find a middle ground, and pay the tax.
If you're a little surprised, even shocked, that a man who is clearly British and has sold a property on British soil should find himself having to pay tax on that transaction to another country, you're not alone.
In fact, and this is not widely known, Boris Johnson was unlucky, and suffered a kind of curse at birth, a sword of Damocles that hung over his head throughout his life, unbeknownst to him.
Because, you see, Boris Johnson was born in the United States, in New York itself, simply because his parents were studying there. And he didn't stay there long: his parents had returned to the UK just 3 months after his birth.
He never lived there again, making only occasional visits.
But this was an unimportant detail, at least in the eyes of the American government: as Boris Johnson was born in the USA, he automatically became a citizen, with all the rights and duties that implies, regardless of whether he lived there for 3 minutes or 30 years.
This is a characteristic shared by many countries on the American continent1 , the immigration continent par excellence, but the United States has an additional characteristic that makes this fact particularly pernicious.
You see, virtually every country in the world has a residency-based tax system: if you're a resident of a country, then you pay that country's taxes.
The criteria that determine whether you're a resident or not differ from country to country, but broadly speaking it's the country in which you spend the most time, and with which you have the most ties, that has the most right to tax you2.
FATCA, or how to be a serf of the United States
But there is an exception to this principle: the United States considers that the mere fact of being an American citizen gives the right to be taxed, even if the citizen does not live in the United States.
This means that if, for example, an American, whom we'll call John :
Has been living in Spain for over 20 years
Has no U.S. source of income
And does not benefit from the infrastructure and services of the United States.
He will still have every year to:
File his US tax return and send it to the US tax authorities
Pay taxes to the US tax authorities on his income, even if it's not from a US source
Have to report all non-US bank accounts which have $10,000 USD on an FBAR report3
And this will not prevent him from also having to file his tax return in Spain, and pay his taxes in Spain4.
So John will have a lot more paperwork to fill out each year than his Spanish neighbors or indeed any other nationality, and in some cases, like if he subscribes to a savings plan sponsored by Spain or another non-US state5, he'll have to fill out a special form each year which, according to the US IRS itself, takes over 40 hours to complete6 ! Yes, we're talking about the equivalent of one week's full-time work just to hold a small savings plan.
And it was, of course, the sword of Damocles that fell on Boris Johnson, who is one of those people known as "Accidental Americans", having citizenship purely by chance, with no real connection to the country.
Boris Johnson was so burned by this episode that he officially renounced his American citizenship in 2016.
Update : And to give you an idea of the wonderful interactions that can take place between two tax systems, here are a few examples of what an American expatriate in the UK must experience, according to international tax specialist Dan Neidle in his article published just a day after mine :
To make life more fun, those tax returns will often cover a different period – for example the UK tax year runs from April 6th, but the US tax return runs from January 1st. Even if you’re employed, and all your income is exempt in the US under the foreign earned income exclusion, you still have to file.
You always get the worst of both worlds. For example, the US and UK take the opposite approach to the taxation of your house. The UK gives you no tax relief on your mortgage payments, but exempts you from capital gain on the value of the house. The US gives you tax relief on mortgage payments, but then taxes the capital gain. Both are somewhat balanced results. A U.S. citizen living in the UK gets the worst of both worlds. They get no tax relief on the mortgage for their UK tax, but have to pay US capital gains when they sell. That’s an unbalanced result.
It’s a nightmare for the spouse. If a couple have a joint account, and one is a US citizen and the other is not, then the joint account becomes subject to U.S. tax. Married couples can normally not worry about the tax treatments of their family finances – but where one of the couple is a US citizen then even simple arrangements like joint accounts become very complicated.
Why is the USA the only Western country to have implemented this doctrine?
How is it possible that the United States has set up such a system, virtually unique in the world7, which places such a burden on the shoulders of its expatriate nationals?
Its origins lie in the American Civil War: to prevent some citizens fleeing the country and ceasing to contribute to the economy at a crucial time, the very 1st federal income tax law, passed in 1861, instituted heavier taxation for expatriates, but only on American-source income.
But that changed in 1864: the system evolved into the current one, in which every American citizen had to pay taxes in the United States, even those who no longer lived in the country.
Why did the US Congress pass this measure?
It's an interesting question, because even today, historians and researchers are still tearing their hair out to find out exactly what the legislators' reasoning was, as sources are very sparse on the subject8. The most frequently put forward reason is that it was to maximize state revenue9, but, it's hard enough to force people to pay taxes in a country where they don't live in the 21st century (as we'll see), so in the 19st century it was virtually impossible.
The few discussions or remarks by senators that have come down to us on the subject show a certain disdain for Americans residing abroad, "living in luxury while avoiding the burdens of citizenship10", rooted in a true American mentality that considers the country so large and "complete" that it is difficult to understand, even suspect that anyone might want to leave it11.
From that point on, the principle was enshrined in legislation, never to be called into question or even re-explained by successive governments.
The long road to the practical enforcement of this global taxation system
In the end, this taxation was quite theoretical: throughout the 20th century, it was very easy for an American living abroad not to declare his exact income, and to evade American taxation, as the means for the American tax authorities to verify his declarations were extremely limited.
The ability to find Americans abroad and collect the tax they owed changed dramatically when the Qualified Intermediary Regime was introduced in 2001, to force every financial institution around the world to review all their current and future client lists to determine who was a US taxpayer.
Once identified, the financial institution was then required to “report, withhold and remit” to the US tax authority on all US taxable transactions that took place in that American taxpayer’s account
How was it possible for the USA to force foreign banks to cooperate in this way, even though it had no jurisdiction over them?
Because it was essential to every financial institution around the world that they have US dollar corresponding banking relationships and be able to access US securities markets on behalf of their clients. Using this access as leverage, and threatening a denial of access to US correspondent banking and markets for non-compliant entities, the US government was able to eventually get every financial institution around the world to sign an Agreement with the US Treasury.
Some financial institutions tried to defy their QI obligations for large legacy American clients. Most famously this included UBS, whose breach of their QI obligations was discovered in 2007. This was quickly followed by similar disclosures by other institutions such as Credit Swisse and HSBC, which resulted in heavy fines and even the closure of one storied Swiss private bank.
And that's where FATCA comes in: in 2010, taking advantage of the much easier exchange of information made possible by computers and the Internet, the US government decided to force banks in as many countries as possible to send it the statement of any bank account held by an American.
We're going to look at this in more detail, because taxing their citizens on their nationality, rather than their residence, could be a way for nation-states to reduce the disruptive effects of the Internet and the fact that their citizens no longer need to be on their territory to do business there, and, as we'll see in other articles, many have considered this.
The U.S. government introduced FATCA for several reasons:
To combat the tax fraud enabled by the use of offshore bank accounts to conceal assets. This fraud was estimated to cost the US between $36 and $100 billion a year in revenue, although some people, such as IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, have stated that there are no credible estimates of lost tax revenue due to offshore tax abuse12.
To increase government tax revenues: it was estimated at the time that FATCA would bring in $8.7 billion from 2010 to 2021, or $790 million a year13.
But how could the U.S. force banks in foreign countries to send information about their U.S. customers, when 1) they had no jurisdiction over them, and 2) national laws often prevented banks from sending information abroad?
It's simple:
Any bank that fails to comply with FATCA requirements is subject to a 30% withholding tax on all dollar transfers from US financial institutions.
The U.S. government has actively negotiated agreements with various governments, putting all its weight behind obtaining exemptions from national laws preventing banks from disclosing customer information.
The United States has also committed to reciprocity for many countries: in exchange for this information, it provides the other country with information on bank accounts held by its nationals.
Many critics spoke out against FATCA in the early 2010s, many denouncing American imperialism for forcing thousands of foreign banks to become free agents of the IRS (the US tax authority)16.
These criticisms were so numerous that Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department Robert Stack wrote a FAQ to dispel the "myths" surrounding FATCA in an article published in 2013 on the U.S. Treasury website17.
The "reassuring" FAQ from the US government
Let's take a look at some of the "myths" pointed out by Robert Stack, and his response, before checking whether history has proved the US Treasury right.
Myth No. 1: Some claim it’s overly costly and burdensome due to complex regulations and difficult to meet reporting requirements.
"FACT: Treasury and the IRS have designed our regulations in a way that minimizes administrative burdens and related costs. "
Has history proved the Treasury right here?
Well, not really.
Numerous studies and reports show, on the contrary, that the cost to financial institutions is very high.
Thus :
The British government has estimated that the cost to British businesses will be between £1.1 and £2 billion for the first five years18.
FATCA even cost the United States $574 million between 2010 and 202019
A 2019 study20 shows a six to fifteen percent drop in profitability for financial institutions that have become FATCA compliant and :
That this is a recurring cost, not just a one-off expense for the banks
Smaller entities were much more affected than larger ones
That many entities have registered with the US tax authorities even though they were not obliged to do so, demonstrating confusion on the part of many institutions, and a scope of US law greater than that envisaged by the legislator.
The study concludes that the IRS has indeed transferred a large part of its tax collection and compliance costs to foreign private entities
What's more, as we'll see just below, FATCA directly brings in far less than it costs the U.S. government.
However, it indirectly brings in more... thanks to the fines imposed on banks with the withholding tax mechanism, thus clearly showing that FATCA has a huge implementation cost for banks.
So we can see that the US Treasury has got it completely wrong here.
Probably just an isolated case, right? Let's take a look at some of his other answers to be sure.
Myth No. 2: Some claim that U.S. citizens living overseas will become outcasts in the international financial world.
"FACT: FATCA withholding applies to the U.S. investments of FFIs whether or not they have U.S. account holders, so turning away known U.S. account holders will not enable an FFI to avoid FATCA."
There are21 so22 many23 articles published24 in the25 press about the growing number26 of non-American banks refusing to open accounts for Americans, or only for those bringing in substantial funds that justify all the paperwork their administrative departments will have to deal with, that it would be tedious to list them all here.
But one look at all the footnotes I've sown in this previous paragraph will convince you that this "myth" isn't a myth after all.
Myth No. 3: Some claim that Americans living abroad will give up their U.S. citizenship because of liabilities and burdens created by FATCA.
"FACT: FATCA provisions impose no new obligations on U.S. citizens living abroad. Instead, FATCA’s withholding obligations fall on institutions making payments to FFIs, and the due diligence and reporting requirements fall on the FFIs themselves."
Fortunately, the IRS regularly publishes a list of all people renouncing US citizenship or long-term resident status, who either have assets of at least $2 million, or have paid an average of at least $190,000 in taxes each year over the past 5 years27, which affects people with annual incomes of at least $500-600,000.
(It's an attempt at "name&shame", instituted by the Clinton administration to discourage wealthy Americans from emigrating. It's like a modern-day version of the pillory, in which citizens who have "erred" are subjected to public opprobrium.)
Here is a diagram showing the number of renunciations of U.S. citizenship of all these people, from 2000 to 2022:
To interpret this graph correctly, we need to take into account the fact that the figures published by the IRS are approximately 12 to 18 months late. For example, from the beginning of 2020, American consulates closed many services for around 18 months to guard against COVID, including the waiver service, effectively blocking many applications.
This didn't happen until 2021, because of the publication deadline.
So we see a net increase in waivers just before FATCA was voted in, probably because clever Americans anticipated the problems, and then a lightning acceleration from the moment it actually starts to be implemented in many countries.
This is also very clear when we look at the first two decades: the number of Americans meeting the wealth criteria shared above who gave up their nationality from 2000 to 2009 are 5111 and ... 31,449 from 2010 to 2019, an increase of more than 6 times.
In fact, in response to the significant increase in the number of renunciations even before FATCA was passed, the U.S. government raised the renunciation fee from $450 to $2,350, the most expensive price in the world for this service28.
As you can see from the graph, this didn't stop many people.
These included celebrities such as Jet Li in 2009, who took Singaporean citizenship, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who was also Brazilian, in 2010, Tina Turner in 2013, who had been living in Switzerland for over 15 years29, and of course Boris Johnson in 2016, as mentioned above.
And remember, we're only talking about Americans with more than $2 million in assets, or paying more than $190,000 in taxes per year. The number of Americans who have given up and who don't fit these criteria is unknown, and probably much higher.
Anyway, again, sorry Mr. Robert Stack, you got that one wrong too. This is becoming somewhat of a habit at this point.
Myth No. 5: Some claim that FATCA will generate a backlash from foreign governments who view this as an overreach of U.S. law.
"FACT: FATCA has received considerable international support because most foreign governments recognize how effective FATCA, and in particular our intergovernmental approach, will be in detecting and combatting tax evaders."
Of course, it wasn't enough to get FATCA passed in the United States: for it to work, they also had to negotiate with governments to ensure that their local legislation allowed banks to send information to the US government.
The oldest known negotiating technique is, of course, the carrot and the stick, and of course the US government used it: the stick was the threat of fines with the 30% withholding tax, and the carrot... the promise of reciprocity, i.e. to share information on the US accounts of their citizens with the various governments.
Did the US keep its promise? I've already shared some above, but here's what a report from the US Congressional Research Service says30 :
"The European Union has criticized the lack of reciprocity on the part of the United States under FATCA. According to some views, the US's failure to share information under FATCA makes it one of the world's leading opaque jurisdictions."
And, quite simply, the EU is not an exception, but just an application of the same rule: no country in the world receives as much information as it does from the USA31.
So you can see that the implementation of FATCA has indeed caused friction with many governments, and it doesn't stop there.
Indeed, Boris Johnson was what is known as an "Accidental American". That is, someone who acquired American citizenship just because he was born there, but who has no specific relationship with the USA apart from that fact (Boris's parents returned to Britain just after he was born, and Boris never lived in Uncle Sam's country).
As it happens, his case was far from isolated: although it's difficult to know exactly how many there are, the Association of Accidental Americans estimates that "there are more than 300,000 accidental Americans in Europe and many more in border countries like Mexico or Canada32."
The Congressional Research Service report (again) says:
"The European Union Parliament has stated that FATCA liability is not justified for these individuals."
Moreover, a report by the EU Parliament considers that FATCA, by causing many European banks to refuse to open accounts, and to close existing accounts, including for a "significant number of European citizens who are also accidental Americans", causes "discrimination" that is incompatible with European domestic law, and even that "FATCA is also in violation of the principle of non-discrimination based on nationality33".
What's more, the same report questions FATCA's compatibility with the GDPR and other data protection regulations, points out that there's a real asymmetry in information exchanges, with the US receiving a lot without sending much in return, and in the end calls FATCA "a punitive tool that causes collateral damage".
In addition, another report by the French National Assembly34 states: “FATCA quickly showed, however, that it was not part of a 'give and take' logic, but rather tended to transform foreign tax authorities [...] into de facto collection agencies for American compulsory levies, with no equivalent return on the part of the IRS. Even after the adoption of the OECD multilateral instrument, the United States, with its own information-gathering system, did not cooperate.”
So we can clearly see that, yes, FATCA is creating negative reactions from foreign governments, to the point that committees are being set up, and reports published.
There have even been judgments handed down declaring FATCA incompatible with the GDPR35.
Myth No. 7: Some claim that FATCA aims to use foreign banks as an extension of the IRS.
"FACT: Individuals making this claim have confused reporting responsibilities with actual enforcement. "
In addition to the cases of account refusals in the EU shared above, in a 2019 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that U.S. citizens living abroad have faced a decline in access to financial services, with many banks deciding it was too risky to have U.S. citizens as customers.
If banks are turning away customers, it's because they don't think the game is worth the candle - and so they're doing the IRS's job not only for free, but even at financial risk - as we'll see just below.
The European Parliament report cited above also states: "The cost to banks of sending information about Americans means that they prefer not to have American customers at all. Banks working with US clients generally prefer to deal with very wealthy individuals. The penalties imposed by FATCA are onerous, the declarations are sometimes too complex and banks often have to call in tax specialists, all of which adds up to significant costs."
In conclusion
Sorry, Mr. Stack.
In any case, we can see that if nation-states try to impose heavy and stifling regulations, making a FAQ that contains so many errors that one can legitimately wonder if it wasn't shameless propaganda from the start is totally within their reach.
Does FATCA do anything for the United States?
And what have been the results of FATCA? A report on its effectiveness from 2010 to 2021 has been written by the very serious Inspector General of the Treasury for the tax authorities36, and there are some interesting points that stand out:
Contrary to what some people think, FATCA is profitable: it cost the United States $574 million between 2010 and 2020, and brought in $1.5 billion from 2014 to 2018 alone37.
BUT, and it's a big but, *only* by the 30% withholding on U.S. dollar remittances from the U.S., which applies to non-compliant foreign financial institutions.
This amount has increased each year from 2015 to 2018, without the report specifying whether this is because the number of non-compliant foreign banks has increased, or because the IRS has been stricter in applying this withholding...
The money earned directly by applying fines and penalties to taxpayers amounts to just 14 million. Yes, 14 million, or 0.014 billion, that's not a typo, for a cost, let me remind you, of 574 million.
The money earned indirectly by making taxpayers more law-abiding could not be estimated.
According to Barry Johnson, Acting Chief of the IRS Office of Research, Applied Analysis and Statistics, "there are $3.7 trillion in offshore assets, $2 trillion of which are located in countries known to be used by taxpayers for tax evasion purposes".
It would therefore appear that FATCA has done little to ensure that these funds are repatriated, either because they were held in these accounts legally, or because FATCA is having difficulty actually recovering these funds. It's probably a mixture of both.
And the funniest thing: from 2016 to 2019 inclusive, the percentage of forms with correct Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) sent by banks to the IRS (the US tax authorities) is only 44%!
48% have incorrect TINs, and 7% have blank TINs.
This represents 56% of accounts sent to the IRS WITHOUT a correct TIN, making it very difficult for the IRS to associate an account with a taxpayer.
This level of "error" clearly shows a form of passive resistance: people have to make mistakes on purpose, and banks have to make mistakes on purpose by not checking very much. It's very interesting that there should be such civil disobedience, and the level found is similar to the estimated degree of resistance by US citizens to the confiscation of gold in the 1930s38.
The cost of giving up
We saw earlier that the number of wealthy Americans renouncing their citizenship skyrocketed after the introduction of FATCA.
How much is this costing the American economy, both directly (through lost direct taxes) and indirectly (through lost value creation and jobs)?
It's hard to say, but we can try to make an estimate.
David Lesperance, a Canadian attorney who specializes in helping Americans quit and has been doing so for more than 30 years, says:
"Given current estate tax exemptions, the waiver as a [tax optimization] strategy only makes financial sense for individuals with wealth in excess of $25 million. Consequently, those on the list can logically be considered "super-taxpayers". These are the IRS's proverbial goose that lays the golden egg ... the richest 0.1%. To replace the lost tax revenue of just one of these super-taxpayers, several hundred new average taxpayers are needed39"
And indeed, an analysis of the distribution of federal tax contributions in the United States shows that the top 1% of income earners pay 42.3% of total taxes40.
In fact, the top 1% pay more taxes than the poorest 90% (because the top 10% pay 73.7% of the total).
We can therefore estimate that the direct and indirect cost of all these wealthy Americans giving up is very significant for the American economy, even if those with assets in excess of 2 million are subject to an exit tax, and a significant number of these Americans were already living abroad.
But if it weren't for FATCA and taxation on nationality, these Americans going abroad might have returned one day, and in any case would have remained Americans, continuing to spread American culture and a certain love of the country that contributes to its "soft power"...
Love of country is certainly somewhat shaken once they feel forced to renounce their nationality.
Of course, the USA is a country of emigration, and also attracts many millionaires who settle here every year. But the latest figures show a decline in the number of net millionaires emigrating, dropping in 2022 to just 1,500 net arrivals, compared with between 6,400 and 10,800 between 2013 and 2019, due in part to fewer choosing to move to the USA, but also to the growing number of millionaires leaving41.
And, in any case, even if the number of millionaires moving to the U.S. continued to rise exponentially, this significant increase in departing millionaires would still come at a huge cost to American society.
The cost in "soft power”
What's more, the ever-increasing tax paid by more and more banks must be generating a great deal of resentment, and must clearly be prompting more and more of them to diversify their investments and channel fewer flows through the US: it clearly remains to be seen whether the US is really the winner in this story, I'm willing to bet it isn't.
And that's not counting the potential resentment of non-American customers, which can also represent a big loss of "soft power" for the USA: many people have lost some respect for the USA as the "land of the free".
I remember the first time a (European) bank asked me to fill out a form declaring that I was neither a US citizen nor a US tax resident, in order to open an account. I thought to myself: “What the hell are you doing, the United States? Are you going to track me everywhere I go, even though I'm not an American citizen and I don't do any business with you?”
I have a lot of respect for certain aspects of American culture, but this has really diminished (a bit) my respect for the country as a whole, and I can bet I'm not the only one who's felt that way.
And I can tell you that this is the case for many of my entrepreneurial friends. One of them told me “Everyone abroad I know who is a HNWI loves America, but won't touch American citizenship with a ten foot pole.”
It may be hyperbole, but there's an important truth here: opportunity cost is hard to measure, but it's there. There's no doubt that I would have given much more serious consideration to living in the United States, rather than in London or Dubai, if it weren't for this citizenship tax that I find, it has to be said, absolutely revolting.
I have the impression of seeing a system similar to the feudal system, which locks a person into a system from which it is very difficult to escape, just as the serfs had to ask their lord's permission to leave his fiefdom.
This, at the very least, is an undue restriction imposed by the American government on those who wish to vote with their feet, which is a fundamental freedom. Imagine if the Soviet Union had set up a similar system to try and catch up with the many people who were fleeing it?
Imagine if such a system had been put in place in Voltaire's time, when he was in exile: what would have prevented the king from enacting a 100% tax on the income of all dissidents taking refuge abroad? Or - let's be reasonable - 75%, instead of, say, 30% for people who don't criticize the government?
Clearly, the image of the United States has not been enhanced by all this.
This loss of soft power is very difficult to quantify, but it also adds to the cost of the whole system, and I think the US loses far more than it gains by implementing this FATCA.
This just goes to show how difficult it is for nation-states to coordinate with each other, and to force private entities located in other territories to cooperate with them, even when you have the power of the United States, and represent 15% of the world's GDP.
This shows you just how much the Internet weakens them, by making it very easy for us to create things that are very hard for them to undo.
In a future article, I'll show you that many countries are tempted to follow the example of the USA, but we'll see that for almost all of them it's a sweet dream, which we'll see through the example of France, whose National Assembly has studied in detail the possibility of introducing a citizenship law .
(special thanks to David Lesperance for his feedback and additions !)
Like Canada, Mexico or Brazil: if you're going to have children, giving birth in one of these countries automatically confers local nationality on them, in addition to any nationality transmitted by blood.
There are a number of subtle exceptions to this principle, but I'll spare you the details.
Note that this doesn't mean he'll have to pay tax twice on the same income: the U.S. has two mechanisms to avoid this, the most important of which is that expatriates can deduct from any U.S. tax due any tax already paid in another country on the same income.
Like a PEA in France, for example
Non-U.S. state-sponsored savings programs are deemed foreign trusts that trigger the Internal Revenue Code's passive foreign investment company ("PFIC") rules and corresponding reporting obligations) - "Reasons for Citizenship-Based Taxation?" Montano Cabezas, 2016
At the time of writing, only Eritrea, a small African country, has a similar system, which it is struggling to enforce. However, it has a reputation for getting expatriates to pay this tax by threatening to torture their families back home.
"Reasons for Citizenship-Based Taxation?" Montano Cabezas, 2016
Ditto
In the 1920s, an American congressman exclaimed: "The old notion that the American who goes abroad to do business must have something wrong with him..."
"Is FATCA chasing a leprechaun and his pot of gold?", William Byrnes, 2015
Joint Committee on Taxation, JCS-6-10, "Estimated Revenue Effects of the Revenue Provisions Contained in an Amendment to the Senate Amendment to the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 2847"
"IRS Commissioner Rettig says he supports 'reciprocal FATCA'", Helen Burggraf, 2022
"FATCA 11 Years Later - US Still the Tax Haven?", Virginia La Torre Jeker, 2021
"Analysis: Critics say new law makes them tax agents", Lynnley Browning, 2011
Since then, strangely enough, the article has disappeared. Fortunately, it is possible to see it as it was published in 2013 via the Wayback Machine
"The cost of complying with FATCA - similar initiatives to follow?", Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, 2013
"The Long Arm of the U.S. Tax Law: Participation Rates and Costs related to Mandated Information Sharing", Andrew Belnap, Jacob Thornock, Braden Williams, 2019
"'Us Person' Status: Financial Restrictions For American Expatriates In France", Invest Astuces, 2019, 2019
"INSIGHT: First It Was FATCA, Now MiFID II Has U.S. Investors in Europe Facing Nightmares", Jonathan Lachowitz, Bloomberg, 2019
"The Tax Implications of Opening a Foreign Bank Account", Sean Ross, Investopedia, 2021
"FATCA's dragnet tax compliance has high costs", Adam Michel, Gis Report, 2019
"Breaking FATCA News - Now US Banks Are Closing Expats' Accounts Too", Bright Tax, 2018
"Implementation of FATCA Causes Headaches for Expats", US Tax International, 2013
Amount for 2023. This amount is updated annually in line with inflation.
After years of pressure from Accidental Americans, the U.S. government finally reduced the waiver fee to $450 in early 2023.
"More Americans Are Renouncing Their Citizenship", Jo Craven McGinty, The Wall Street Journal, 2020
"The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)", Congressional Research Service, 2022
"IRS Commissioner Rettig says he supports 'reciprocal FATCA'", Helen Burggraf, 2022
In an email they sent me in response to my questions
Temporary report PE740.659, January 2023
"Rapport d'information relative à l'impôt universel", Dominique David, Assemblé Nationale, 2019
“Ooh-Là-Là: Did Belgium Just Cancel FATCA?”, Robert Goulder, Tax Notes, 2023
Unfortunately, there are no more recent figures in the report.
“Confiscation, Gold as Contraband 1933-1975”, Kenneth R. Ferguson
"Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2023 Update", Erica York, Tax Foundation
"The Henley & Partners USA Wealth Report: America's Millionaires Are on the Move, Hubbis, 2023
Great read. And good to know about Boris Johnson. A very well researched and perfectly used introduction into this topic of FATCA.
This is excellent, Olivier. As someone affected by FACTA, and who has been following the commentary on it for approx. 10 years, your breadth & depth of knowledge on the subject is incredible, especially for someone not affected or connected to it.
I look forward to reading more of your posts, both related & unrelated (for I am also an IT professional).