WASHINGTON, April 11 (RIA Novosti/PRIME) – Russia is concerned with the lack of progress on the preparation of an intergovernmental agreement under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as the legislation deadline approaches, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Friday.
Siluanov told journalists following a meeting with US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that the most pressing discussion points during the meeting concerned the prospects of signing an agreement on FATCA.
Siluanov also stressed that reaching an agreement on this issue is in the interests of both countries. The minister informed Lew that Russia is preparing amendments to legislation to allow for the reciprocal exchange of information.
In early April, Siluanov said that talks between Russia and the US on FATCA stalled, with no visible progress toward signing the agreement.
The Russian Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday that the Finance Ministry has prepared amendments to allow banks not only to provide feedback on the Russian accounts and transactions of American taxpayers directly to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), but also to close accounts of those who evade the disclosure of this information.
FATCA, designed to reduce US offshore tax losses, will come into force in Russia on July 1. Under the law, financial institutions worldwide will be required to report details of accounts and transactions of their US taxpayer clients to the IRS and act as fiscal agents for the US, with the right to close accounts of non-compliant customers.
In the absence of the intergovernmental agreement, banks will have to provide this information to the IRS on their own or face tax penalties in the US.
