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Under pressure from European banks in particular, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has issued clarification with respect to a FATCA requirement that “foreign financial institutions” be obliged to provide the so-called Tax Information Numbers of their American clients from January, 2020 onward, which tax experts say means that banks now won’t have to close the accounts of their TIN-lacking “accidental American” clients at the end of this year.

The new guidance is contained in a new question added 10 days ago to the IRS’s FATCA FAQs page, according to John Richardson, a Toronto-based lawyer who is active in American expat matters.

It confirms comments issued in September by Dutch finance minister Menno Snel, who, as reported, said he based his statements on information he’d received “in recent weeks” from his “American counterparts about their enforcement of FATCA”.

The IRS has not yet issued a statement formally announcing the new guidance with respect to FATCA and the TIN requirement, but tax experts spotted it and have been sharing the news of it on social media, Richardson and other tax experts said today.

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