EU/US : ANTI-TAX DATA-SHARING BILL INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS.

A new front is opening up in the transatlantic spat over the bid to force banks to automatically transmit depositors' financial records to tax authorities. Furious over new reciprocal data-sharing accords that the US Treasury has concluded with countries, Congressman Bill Posey (Republican, Florida) has introduced a bill to ban such bilateral pacts. Five EU countries - Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark - plus Norway and Switzerland have signed these agreements in recent months. They oblige banks to transmit customers' data to the tax authorities where that bank is based on condition that the governments then share the data with one other. Without these pacts, a 2010 US law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), would force the European banks to transmit the data directly to the US Treasury.

In a letter sent to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, on 1 July(1), Posey lambasts the Treasury for imposing the burden on US banks of collecting data on...