France needs to renegotiate its tax treaty with the USA according to report from a cross-party group of senior politicians.
The call came after the parliamentary group looked into ways to protect people with dual citizenship. It believes that if negotiations on changes were to fail, France should unilaterally pull out from the international agreement.
Fatca was introduced by the US in 2010, and signed by France in 2013. It requires financial institutions around the world to report any assets held by American citizens to the US watchdog.
The French report, written by a deputy of president president Macron’s party and a member of the centre-right opposition, calls for limits on the application of the Fatca treaty to those above an unspecified income or wealth threshold, and greater alignment of French and American tax laws to avoid double taxation.
Pulling out is an option
“In the case of failure of these negotiations, we should envisage unilaterally pulling out of Fatca and restricting the transfer of information,” the report says, according to Bloomberg.
However, the report also agreed to lobby for an association called ‘Accidental Americans’, representing people who were born in the US or have American parents and, as a result, have been caught up in the tax treaty as some of them were not even aware of being American citizens.
Additionally, the two parties have called on French regulators to remind banks they cannot discriminate against clients on the basis of their nationality or for having links to the US.
According to the European Banking Federation, there are some 300,000 ‘accidental’ Americans in Europe that could be or have already been affected by Fatca.
The case has been brought to France’s top administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat, where it has been argued that Fatca clash with the country’s constitution.
But the court has yet to provide a decision on the matter.
