FATCA List – May 1, 2015

The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is celebrating five years on the statute books at the end of the month – and has changed the face of tax reporting worldwide.

President Barak Obama backed FATCA as part of the HIRE Act 2010 with the aim of clamping down on offshore tax avoidance by US taxpayers.

After a shaky start, FATCA was slowly ramped up to cover 112 countries – with 101 already fully signed up to the act and another 11 having agreements in principle in place pending putting pen to paper on the final treaty.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) FATCA portal now has 162,610 financial institutions from 227 countries registered, up 2,600 from 160,010 a month ago.

List analysis

The database is clearly split –

• Only two countries have more than 10,000 financial institutions registered – The Cayman Islands and UK. Between them, the two countries have 52,649 registrations, which make up just over a third of the total database.

• Next, 29 nations have more than 1,000 registrations, totalling 84,914 financial institutions, which accounts for 52% of the list.

• Another 55 nations have between 100 and 999 registrations, totalling 21,195 financial institutions or 13% of the list.

• The next slice of the list is 55 countries with between 10 and 99 financial institutions totalling 3,686 financial institutions or 2% of the database.

• Lastly, 46 countries have less than 10 financial institutions, adding up to 166 registrations or 0.1% of the FATCA List.

The next FATCA list is due for publication by the IRS on June 1, 2015.