Chicago Illinois International Tax Lawyer: Link Between FATCA and IRS Offshore Voluntary Disclosure

Hello and welcome to Sherayzen Video Blog. My name is Eugene Sherayzen and I’m an international tax attorney and owner of Sherayzen Law Office, Ltd.

Today, I’m continuing my series of blogs from Chicago. I’m in Grand Park in downtown Chicago. As I mentioned in a previous blog, this park has a very special meaning for me because it was precisely here where Obama made his speech and it was precisely under the Obama administration when FATCA the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the most influencial piece of legislation, in US international tax law history was passed into law.

Once of the most important things we should note about FATCA is the link between FATCA and the popularity of the various IRS voluntary disclosure programs, including OVDP, the 2009 OVDP that was put into place while FATCA was still under discussion, the 2011 OVDI, the offshore voluntary disclosure initiative – a highly successful offshore voluntary disclosure program and it was precisely highly successful because of FATCA. It was FATCA that was a major impetus for US owners of foreign accounts to bring themselves into full compliance with US international tax laws and of course the 2012 OVDP with its modification of 2014 OVDP as well as the 2014 Streamlined compliance programs: the Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures and Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures.

All of these voluntary disclosure programs are directly linked to FATCA. Without FATCA, they would never have been as successful as they were and US international tax rules would not have had such a big impact as they do today.

In the next blog, I will talk more about US international tax issues concerning Chicago and (the) people who live here.

Thank you for watching, until the next time.