Late Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a bill that would repeal part of a law aimed at fighting offshore tax evasion.
The law, called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, was passed in 2010 and is supposed to go into effect on January 1, 2014. It requires foreign financial institutions to report information about Americans with accounts worth more than $50,000 to the IRS. Firms that don’t comply will be fined.
Tax policy watch dogs say the FATCA is essential to rooting out tax cheats. “The increased bilateral exchange of taxpayer information that…[is] crucial to cleaning up the worldwide shadow financial system,” Heather Lowe, director of government affairs for the advocacy organization Global Financial Integrity told Accounting Today earlier this month. “[F]oreign financial institutions should not harbor the illicit assets of U.S. tax evaders.”
But Paul’s bill to weaken the law was immediately hailed as “heroic” by the biggest independent financial advisory firm in the world.
MORE: Rand Paul Wants to Loosen Laws on Offshore Tax Evasion | Mother Jones.