March 18, 2022: FATCA turns 12

Twelve years after President Obama signed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act into law – buried inside a domestic jobs bill known as the HIRE Act  – legal and political challenges targeting certain of its key provisions are continuing to progress, albeit slowly, in various "hot spots" around the world.

And yet, one more year on, and Washington lawmakers have still done nothing to mitigate the difficulties that U.S. expats struggle with, as a result of FATCA, in spite of these expats' increasingly-exasperated calls, as well as yet more calls for change on the part of the U.S. from growing numbers of foreign government officials, especially in Europe.   

  • News

Now 'Jenny' (Webster) takes her FATCA data-sharing case to UK's High Court

Lawyers for a U.S.-born, UK resident woman who has become well-known in certain American expat circles for her ongoing challenge about the way the UK has allowed her personal financial data to be shared with the U.S. authorities, under FATCA –  today filed a claim on her behalf in the UK's High Court, arguing that the breaches of her data protection rights had caused her "personal damage and distress."

  • News

Mishcon latest: Files GDPR complaint with Luxembourg data protection agency

Mishcon de Reya, the London-based law firm that has been a hard-to-miss presence in European data protection matters over the past year, on Tuesday said it had filed "a lengthy GDPR complaint in two languages (English and French) with the Luxembourg National Data Protection Commission," as it sought to "bring together the concerns raised by the European data protection community and relevant European judgements."

  • News

23-page EU Council 'working paper' on AEOI regs emerges, prompting concerns

A "Working Paper" issued by the European Council on Sept. 11, four days before the European Data Protection Board was due to meet to discuss how the EU should best prepare to participate in the worldwide move towards ever-greater automatic exchange of information, is being seen by some observers as an indication of the willingness of EU governments to take measures behind the scenes aimed at quietly ensuring a consistent pan-EU data protection message that also fits in with their "Realpolitik" objectives – including avoiding a public, political showdown with the U.S. over FATCA.

  • Tax

EU Court of Justice 'Schrems II' ruling seen as potential game-changer for FATCA challenges in Europe

Lawyers and campaigners against the American tax evasion law known as FATCA say that last week's European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruling, which struck down the main mechanism used by the EU to protect the personal data of EU citizens when it's transferred to the U.S., represents a potential "game changer" – and could force Europe's courts to revisit the way FATCA compels Europe's banks and financial institutions to pass information on their U.S. citizen and Green Card-holding account-holders to the U.S. 

  • News

Judicial appeal 'considered' against ICO's FATCA decision, on grounds of insufficiently-examined evidence

The U.S. born, UK-resident woman whose crowd-funded complaint over data protection violations she alleged had resulted from the way HMRC had forwarded her personal information to the U.S. was recently not upheld by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), is actively considering lodging a judicial review – but says that her legal advisers have told her she'll need to secure "£75,000 within the next 10 days" if she is to do so.

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Opinion

Essential Financial Acronyms for Americans Living Abroad

Essential Financial Acronyms for Americans Living Abroad

The American Expat Financial News Journal’s “Essential Financial Acronyms for Americans Living Abroad” is designed to help our fellow Yanks in Expatland to navigate the international seas of the financial...

May-05-2022