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Russia, US representatives in Paris to discuss details of agreement on FATCA

PARIS, January 27, /ITAR-TASS/. Representatives of Russia and the United States meet in Paris on Monday to discuss details of an agreement on bilateral interaction in implementing the provisions of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

The Act stiffens tax compliance demands on foreign financial institutions and other financial intermediaries that receive a certain kind of incomes from sources in the USA. A sort of sanction in the form of a 30 percent tax is applied to persons and companies that do not disclose information on the actual American owners of fiscal accounts.

According to Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov, the preparation of a draft agreement on FATCA has been completed by the Russian side. "Our representative (director of the Finance Ministry department for taxation and customs-and-tariffs policy) Ilya Trunin will travel to Paris on Monday for the talks and hold final negotiations already on the strength of our proposals, which have been fixed with the Central Bank and the Foreign Ministry, on the text of the agreement," the Minister said.

He added that the delegation goes to Paris with an already formed position of the Russian side and that "it remains to fix several aspects with the American counterparts".

At the end of November 2013, Siluanov said that the Finance Ministry would carry on talks on accession to FATCA at the beginning of 2014, "for the final conclusion of the agreement has been postponed until the end of the first six months of next year".

In order to make uninterrupted foreign-economic and non-commercial settlements in US dollars, Russian banks must get the status of an FFI -- a credit-lending institution participating in FATCA.