FATCA and The End of Swiss Bank Secrecy | Chicago International Tax Lawyer & Attorney
Hello and welcome to Sherayzen Law Office 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, Illinois in the United States and I’m actually in Grant Park, the park where Obama gave his famous speech. It is interesting because it was precisely under the Obama administration that FATCA was passed into law. So, this park has a very special significance for me as an international tax attorney because it was precisely FATCA the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, that completely changed the entire landscape of international tax compliance.
Why? Well, because FATCA provided that third party verification that the IRS needed to find out about people who were non-compliant with their FBARs as well as foreign income reporting. It was FATCA that forced foreign banks to affectively report on their US owners of foreign bank accounts. It was FATCA that gave the teeth that the IRS needed together with the US Department of Justice to enforce US international tax laws concerning foreign income and foreign account reporting in Switzerland. In fact, we can say that FATCA was the principle reason why there wasn’t Swiss bank tax compliance in 2013 and also ended Swiss Bank Secrecy as we know it.
In a future blog, I will continue talking about US international tax issues that concern Chicago and the people who live here.
Thank you for watching, until the next time.
