Advancing a US crackdown on tax evasion by Americans, the US Department of the Treasury said on Thursday that Switzerland and the US have signed a pact to make Swiss banks disclose more information about US account holders.
The agreement is the latest in a series designed to carry out the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, enacted in 2010.
The law requires foreign financial institutions to tell the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about Americans’ offshore accounts worth more than US$50,000.
FATCA was enacted after a Swiss banking scandal showed US taxpayers hid millions of dollars overseas.
The pact announced on Thursday, known as an intergovernmental agreement (IGA), needs to be ratified by the Swiss parliament. It does not need approval by the US Senate.
The deal has been close to completion since December last year.
FATCA imposes steep penalties beginning next year on financial institutions that do not comply with the law. Banks and other financial institutions failing to comply could be frozen out of US financial markets.
“We are pleased that Switzerland has signed a bilateral agreement with us, and we look forward to quickly concluding agreements based on this model with other jurisdictions,” US acting Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wolin said in a statement.
The Swiss Bankers Association said it welcomed the FATCA deal, but remains critical of the compliance and administrative burdens of the US law.
In signing the pact, Switzerland joins the UK, Denmark, Ireland and Mexico as countries that have finished FATCA IGAs with the US.
The US Treasury has pursued two different IGA models.
The Swiss deal is the first “model two” agreement signed. It will require Swiss financial institutions to provide US account holder information directly to the IRS.
The four other IGAs concluded so far are “model one” agreements, which allow financial institutions to comply with FATCA by channeling US account-holder information through their national tax authorities to the IRS.
Unlike some other pacts, the Swiss deal is not reciprocal, meaning the IRS will not provide Switzerland with information about Swiss citizens’ accounts in US banks.
The pact excludes Swiss social security, pension funds and some insurers from FATCA.
The US Treasury is working with more than 50 countries on deals, but negotiations have not progressed with key trading partners Canada and China.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”