Swiss finally come on board with fatca

The Federal Authorities of the Swiss Confederation put out a statement on its website yesterday declaring that "Switzerland and the United States had amended the FATCA agreement in line with the new timetable for FATCA implementation by means of an exchange of notes."

The confederation added that from 1 July 2014  Swiss financial institutions would have to implement FATCA, in line with the new extended deadline FATCA, issued in July this year.

According to the Confederation, the agreement was approved and the implementing act adopted in a final vote of parliament on 27 September 2013.

Under FATCA, Swiss banks will be expected to provide information on all accounts they hold that belong to Americans, whether they are resident in the US or elsewhere.

The landmark decision by the Swiss to join FATCA follows news earlier this month that the Swiss House of Representatives voted in favour of allowing Swiss banks to comply with FATCA.

It also comes three months after Swiss lawmakers were asked to approve a draft law that would pave the way for the country’s banks to pass depositors’ information to US authorities, another step towards making FATCA compliance possible.

Switzerland’s evolution from a secretive Alpine tax haven to a more transparent international financial centre began in 2009, when Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, admitted to criminal wrong-doing by helping Americans to evade US taxes, and agreed to turn over more than 4,450 client names and pay a $780m fine.

Until that point, Switzerland’s strict, fiercely guarded banking secrecy rules had made it an attractive place to keep money that one did not wish others to know about.

Now its banks and financial institutions are having to find other reasons to attract investors, or at least, investors from countries like the US that have sought to learn more about money held there by their citizens.