Does anyone know what FATCA is?

[robtm]

What does FATCA mean?

It is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) it is making it presence felt in the lives of people who own foreign financial accounts. It is an International Governmental Agreement (IGA) between countries to fork over your name, social security number, foreign bank name, bank account number, your balances, and what interest you have received.  It is the governmental law and they are putting pressure on your foreign bank for this information.  If your foreign financial accounts are small in value they are still looking for you.  If you are holding a FATCA letter, then you are better off disclosing what you have to the USA rather than trying to hide.  The degree of threat in these FATCA letters you received varies.  Some tell you that we are giving your information to IRS, while others sound nice and sweet, but say it nicely that we are turning over your information to our government and in return they are going to pass along your information to the USA government.  Some letters say we require you to verify whether or not you are compliant with disclosing your account with the US government and others simple inform the recipient that their information will be accessed and passed along to the US government.

[BillM223]

The IRS says, "The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which was passed as part of the HIRE Act, generally requires that foreign financial Institutions and certain other non-financial foreign entities report on the foreign assets held by their U.S. account holders or be subject to withholding on withholdable payments."

People often refer to FATCA in this way - "The HIRE Act also contained legislation requiring U.S. persons to report, depending on the value, their foreign financial accounts and foreign assets."

See this page for FATCA FAQs.