There are, I’m pleased to see, further indications that the campaign to repeal FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, is gaining serious, top-level momentum.

The U.S. government is aiming to rollout this highly controversial, and in my opinion – and in the opinion of a growing number of individuals, organisations and institutions – toxic piece of legislation on July 1 of this year.

However, Reuters news agency has reported that The Republican Party is now likely to approve a resolution on Friday that will seek FATCA to be definitively repealed.

Whilst not naming its sources, the article says that party members on the panel of the Republican National Committee (RNC) will vote on the issue this week and will “likely approve the resolution.”

The article went on: “’Republicans are eager to use FATCA as a campaign and fundraising issue against Democrats ahead of the congressional mid-term elections in November,’ RNC members said.”

Solomon Yue, an RNC official from Oregon who is leading the party’s FATCA repeal effort is quoted as saying: “I see FATCA just like Obamacare…It will attract American overseas donors.”

The move follows a heroic stand against FATCA last year by Senator Rand Paul a Kentucky Republican and possible 2016 presidential candidate frontrunner for his party.  It was a move I publicly championed.

It seems that there’s a groundswell of anti-FATCA feeling in Washington – which to my mind can only be a good thing as it has a host of serious unintended consequencesand it will do little, if anything at all, to fight tax evasion, which is – purportedly – its primary aim.

So, will the Republicans triumph in the battle to repeal FATCA, if that is what they intend to do after the vote for the resolution?  I am not sure, maybe not.

But, one thing’s for sure: the political pressure on this important issue is something that the Obama administration could well do without – especially after the shutdown of the federal government late last year – and it will, I suspect and hope, further delay FATCA’s roll out.

Nigel Green deVere Group

Blog written 24th Jan