Yesterday, an article in The Wall Street Journal by Ben DiPietro reported that Senator Rand Paul is holding up “FATCA treaties” in the Senate. If only it were so, but this is simply untrue. There are no such FATCA treaties. The treaties in question are separate tax agreements that have nothing specifically to do with FATCA. As we’ve covered repeatedly, the Senate will have no say regarding the intergovernmental agreements, which Treasury considers to be mere executive agreements and is negotiating with foreign governments in an attempt to circumvent the inherent faults written into FATCA.
Not surprisingly, far left anti-tax competition radicals at Global Financial Integrity jumped all over the false story, proving they don’t even understand the horrible laws they are advocating.
Treasury has granted itself all the authority it needs to independently negotiate and finalize agreements with foreign governments, the Senate’s oversight responsibility be damned. That’s one of many reasons why CF&P is calling on Congress to put forth a legislative remedy.
Edit: Confusion over this issue seems to be even greater than I thought. Let’s consider some basic logic. The IGA with Switzerland was signed February of this year. The three treaties being held by Senator Paul, on the other hand, have been blocked since at least January 2012. In fact, two of the three treaties are with countries – Luxembourg and Hungary – that have not even signed IGA’s.
Anti-tax competition forces are seizing upon an error-riddled story to advance their radical agenda. Don’t be fooled.
