Maitland

The Early Adopters Group

Other Early Adopters: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, the UK’s Crown Dependencies of Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey; and the UK’s Overseas Territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, and the Turks & Caicos Islands.

which will enable them to extract from the mass of information supplied to them, information relevant to the tax affairs of individual taxpayers whose returns they are checking or investigating.

Taxpayers will be reviewing their affairs before these new reporting rules become applicable. Some, who have held their own views about the confidentiality of their international arrangements, secure in the belief that their decisions are unlikely to be reviewed by their home tax authorities, may find their planning viewed in an unsympathetic light. The rule about tax planning, that you should act as if your arrangements were going to be audited by the tax authorities, bites with renewed vigour when you discover that in fact your planning is extremely

likely to be disclosed to and reviewed by tax authorities.

Impact on the international financial community The cost of FATCA to the international financial community has been, and continues to be considerable. The cost will be passed on to clients of the industry. This alone will make the international and offshore financial services industry more expensive and less competitive.

In addition, the loss to the international financial community of the benefits of discretion vis-a-vis the home tax authorities of its clients may well have an effect on the willingness of taxpayers to use the services of offshore financial centres. True

offshore financial centres should focus on other ways in which they add value to their clients, providing a tax neutral international platform which will facilitate international investment and trade. Nonetheless, it is interesting to consider whether the result will be a real reduction in the use of offshore financial centres. Time will tell.

Contact: Tel: +44 1624 630 024 Email: anthony.markham@maitlandgroup.com Web: www.maitlandgroup.com

23