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ACA developed a proposal for Same Country Exemption (SCE), which will alleviate the foreign financial bank lock-out problem for Americans living overseas. This proposal is supported by the National Taxpayer Advocate and also in Congresswoman Maloney’s bill, The Overseas Americans Financial Access Act.  SCE is not a replacement for Residence-based taxation (RBT).  It is a short-term solution to the current problem of foriegn financial access lockout.

ACA developed and presented to Congress, the IRS, and Treasury, in our 2015 letter, and 2016 letter, a proposal for a Same Country Exemption to alleviate the problem of “lock-out” whereby some Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) refuse to do business with Americans because of FATCA reporting requirements. Same Country Exemption would exclude the reporting of accounts owned by Americans abroad where the account is with a Foreign Financial Institution in the same country where the individual is a resident. This would alleviate the filing burden for FATCA on Americans as well as the identification and disclosure of these accounts by the Foreign Financial Institution. ACA submitted testimony to the House Subcommittee on Government Operations at its April 26th hearings ”Reviewing the Unintended Consequences of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)," summary provided here.  The GovernmentAccountability Office (GAO) Report on Workplace Retirement Accounts touched on FATCA and ACA's is footnoted in their report.  ACA was also footnoted in the Tulane Law School Academic Abstract on Offshore Tax Enforcement

ACA continues to advocate for SCE along side adoption of Residence-based taxation (RBT) recently writing again to the US Treasury on this issue: https://www.americansabroad.org/media/files/pages-page/bc8c9b98/aca-letter-to-treasury-regulatory-reforms-for-fatca-220811.pdf.  ACA regularly includes it appeal for application of SCE in all of its communications to Congress on the topic of RBT. 

For more information see:ACA's Position on FATCA and Why ACA Supports SCE.