May 10, 2016

The Obama administration recently revealed several areas of focus and efforts to limit loopholes that foreign individuals use to hide assets within the U.S. In his remarks, Obama shared that the Panama Papers helped to indicate steps forward the government is taking to have clearer responses to these kinds of issues, and the president is also asking Congress to formalize better legislation on the topic as well.

The Treasury Department is already taking two big steps related to this. First, they finalized what’s being referred to as the “customer due diligence rule”, mandating that financial institutions do their research to determine where a company is truly located and where the profits from the company are headed. The second step requires that some foreign-owned companies obtain a tax identification number from the IRS. 

The president requested four specific actions to be taken with regard to these issues over the course of the future, including:

• Clear legislation about “beneficial ownership” transparency so that companies would be required to submit these details
• Legislation to empower law enforcement with better tools to fight corruption
• Approve 8 pending tax treaties currently stalled in the Senate
• Evaluate and improve current legislation associated with reciprocal transparency

Questions about asset protection or things you need to know when establishing and managing a business in the U.S.? Get help from an experienced attorney.