Just when we think the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) can’t get any more intrusive, breach of account security attempts has reared its ugly head.
The IRS has been getting reports from a number of countries around the world that suspicious “phishing” scams are being used in an effort to secure account holder and financial account information. To be clear, the IRS doesn’t require the foreign financial institutions (FFI’s) to hand over specific account holder identity information or account information over the phone or by fax or mail. It also doesn’t ask for FATCA registration passwords or other confidential account access information—but the scam artists do.
If you have accounts at FFIs, review your account statements carefully to check for any unauthorized activity. All you can hope for is that the FFI folks where your assets are held are on their toes and recognize a scam when it occurs. If not, reporting your assets to the IRS will be the least of your worries.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2014 at 6:24 am and is filed under Asset Protection, Businesses, Individual Tax, Individuals, International Tax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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