Corporate Counsel: FATCA for Unsuspected Businesses and Their Counsel
Joshua Ehrenfeld, a Nashville-based attorney and member of Burr & Forman's Corporate and Tax Practice, authored an article titled, "FATCA for Unsuspected Businesses and Their Counsel," published on June 26, 2014 by Corporate Counsel. The article discusses the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the complicated tax legislation set to take effect on July 1.
Ehrenfeld writes, "FATCA forces many foreign recipients of U.S.-sourced payments to ferret out noncompliant U.S. taxpayers. In essence, it requires foreign entities to inform the U.S. government about the cross-border activities of U.S. businesses and citizens. It turns out many of them weren't properly reporting their offshore activities, so Congress outsources the compliance. To ensure cooperation, FATCA threatens a 30 percent withholding penalty on certain payments to noncompliant foreign entities.
Corporate Counsel subscribers can view the full article here.