The Governments of Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey simultaneously announced their intention to negotiate partnership agreements with the United States of America to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

FATCA is US legislation which aims to combat tax evasion by US persons holding accounts and other financial products or assets abroad. FATCA imposes obligations on certain US taxpayers holding financial assets outside the USA and requires foreign financial institutions (FFIs) to report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) certain information about accounts held for US persons.

Discussions have taken place at official level between the Crown Dependencies jointly and the USA and formal negotiations will now take place with the intention of concluding intergovernmental agreements rapidly. Once signed, they will be subject to ratification by each of the Island parliaments and implementation of the agreements will be through the domestic legislative procedures relevant to each of the three jurisdictions.

These agreements will follow the model intergovernmental agreement published by the US Government on 26 July 2012 and will be similar in form to the agreement between the United Kingdom and the USA signed on 12 September 2012.

For more information go to www.whereyoucan.im/FATCA.

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