What's wrong with the US Fatca tax law
Business Times - 23 Aug 2011
What's wrong with the US Fatca tax law
Apart from violating financial privacy laws, the new rules will prove costly for FFIs
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
IN RESPONSE to protests from American businesses, the federal government decided to repeal earlier this year a complex and intrusive tax scheme aka '1090' that would have required companies to collect tax identification numbers for any of their suppliers whenever they did more than US$600 of business - that included, for example, out-of-town hotels the company's salesman were staying in - and then send the required paperwork to the Income Revenue Service (IRS).
Demonstrating some common sense, officials and lawmakers in Washington decided to eliminate the '1090' after arriving at the conclusion that the tax rule amounted to the kind of bureaucratic and financial nightmare that would impose unnecessary burdens on American businesses at a time when the