The Reuters report, which cites unnamed party members who have been calling for the act’s repeal, says “a panel [is] slated to vote at the Republican National Committee's (RNC) winter meetings in Washington” and will “likely” approve the resolution on Friday.
As reported here last year, one of the Republican Party’s most outspoken senators, Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is also a member of the so-called Tea Party movement and a known libertarian, introduced a bill in Congress to repeal "anti-privacy" provisions of the controversial Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in May. Paul argued that FATCA "infringes upon basic constitutional rights", in addition to being a poor tool for combating tax evasion.
According to Reuters, if the RNC adopts the anti-FATCA resolution, it would “reflect the party's political priorities for the time being” but it wouldn’t change the party's presidential campaign platform.
Reuters quotes observers who said the resolution might be aimed at attracting voters to the Republican ticket, particularly expatriates, many of whose lives have been made significantly more difficult in recent years by FATCA. Although the law doesn't fully come into force until July, a growing number of financial institutions have stopped accepting Americans as clients, and have been asking those American clients they already have to leave.
Many experts who have been having to prepare for FATCA, such as wealth managers with expatriate clients, say it is almost inconceivable that the act could be repealed at this stage, even though another delay to full implementation could be possible.
"A delay, yes, a U-turn, no," said one wealth adviser who looks after expatriate Americans.
"FATCA is coming, and while many people hate it, and no one really loves it, it is a fact of life. The train has already left the station."
FATCA was signed into law in 2010 by president Obama in the wake of the global financial crisis and a scandal involving a Swiss bank that was found to have numerous significant and undeclared American bank accounts. It requires most foreign banks and investment funds to report to the Internal Revenue Service information about any accounts that they have that belong to Americans, whether the Americans are resident in the US or elsewhere, that are worth $50,000 or more.
