If you have a personal Bank Account in the USA, you must act now.

It is no secret that many of us living in Latin America and the Caribbean have bank accounts in the U.S.

The fact is also that many of these accounts, for various reasons, are kept in a private and confidential manner.

Soon the American Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will collect all information of these accounts and share it with all the countries with which the U.S. has an information exchange treaty in place.

There are two new legislation in the USA regarding this:
1. FATCA:
Has been introduced to enhance the transparency regarding US taxpayer’s accounts in foreign financial institutions, for tax compliance reasons. This legislation requires that all foreign financial institutions report information on these accounts directly to the IRS. The introduction of FACTA led to an avalanche of criticism internationally, which led the U.S-government to introduce, the Treasury 2012 Final Regulation.

2. Treasury 2012 Final Regulation:
With introduction of this new legislation, US banks must now also report information on all foreign bank account holders. This implies that information of non-US accounts holders, will be send to the Revenue Department of their respective country.

“A Private Foundation is a legal entity which You can use to hold your properties, bank accounts and other assets and keep Your identity confidential.”

The reality is that nowadays one must take care and avoid that one’s private information would land in wrong hands and be used to his disadvantage.

We are living in a time where privacy and confidentiality have evolved from“good to have” to “must have.”

A Private Foundation could serve as an effective tool to deal with this emerging problem.