The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is just the latest manifestation of a long tradition of international cooperation for law enforcement and tax collection purposes, specifically contained in various tax information exchange agreements that the U.S. has signed with a multitude of other countries.
FATCA imposes a 30 percent withholding requirement on payments from the U.S. to any foreign financial institution, or FFI, that has not registered with the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to follow certain procedures for detecting and reporting accounts held by U.S. taxpayers.
