Fix The Tax Treaty!

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====== FATCA Implementation and Maintenance Costs ======

Few estimates have been made on the cost to Australian businesses to implement and maintain FATCA compliance systems.  

However, some estimates have been made.  From Wikipedia[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance_Act| article]] on FATCA:
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"Australia: The costs in Australia are estimated to be A$255 million for 
implementation, and A$22.7M for each year of maintenance. Over 10 years, 
this totals A$482.68M.[63] With 77,000 resident US citizens (54% of whom 
are of dual citizenship) and known population of 24,003,100, the estimated 
implementation cost is A$6,270 per residing U.S. citizen, A$11,590 per 
U.S.-person account, or A$20.20 per capita. The most representative developed 
country has 661 bank accounts per 1,000 adults, and Australia has 82.1% population 
above 15 years old (adults). This yields an estimated 41,700 US-citizen bank 
customers in Australia, or a FATCA implementation cost of A$37.30 per customer. 
As there are 3,668 Australian FFI’s are currently registered, the average 
estimated FATCA cost for each is A$132,000."
</file>

The underlying costs used in the Wikipedia quote above appear to be consistent with the implementation cost estimates contained in [[https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2014B00107/Explanatory%20Memorandum/Text|Australian Government FATCA Explanatory Memorandum]]


Byrnes and Munro, Texas A&M School of Law, recently published a study into  FATCA from a US perspective ((Byrnes, William and Munro, Robert J., **Background and Current Status of FATCA** (March 1, 2017). LexisNexis® Guide to FATCA & CRS Compliance (5th ed., 2017) . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2926119)) stating that 

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"The tax revenue projections, which were used to validate the passage of FATCA did not 
show FATCA raising any significant tax revenue annually.  In fact, except for the 
extraordinary penalties assessed, little additional tax has been collected.  In 
comparison to the annual on budget spending by the U.S. government, the actual 
amount of tax collected by FATCA is statistically insignificant."
</file>

[[byrnes_paper|Here]] is a detailed summary of this paper.

Professor Byrnes has written a blog post that concisely summarises the problems with FATCA. [[http://kluwertaxblog.com/2017/04/18/15527/|Is FATCA ‘Much Ado About Nothing’? Is FATCA’s Tax Revenue Going to Offset Its IRS and Industry Costs?]] William Byrnes (Texas A&M University Law)/April 18, 2017