Overview
IRS Updates List of Countries With Which it Will Automatically Exchange Information Regarding Nonresident Alien Bank Deposit Interest: Today, the IRS issued Revenue Procedure 2015-50, which updates the list of countries with which Treasury and the IRS have determined that it is appropriate to automatically exchange information regarding information collected under Treas. Reg. § 1.6049-4(b)(6) and Treas. Reg. § 1.6049-8. The revenue procedure supplements Revenue Procedure 2014-64 by adding 16 countries (Brazil, Czech Republic, Estonia, Gibraltar, Hungary, Iceland, India, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, and Sweden) to the list of countries.
TIGTA Releases Report Regarding Information Requests: Today, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released its statutorily-mandated annual review of IRS responses to requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Privacy Act, and section 6103. TIGTA reviewed a sample of responses to FOIA and Privacy Act requests and determined that the IRS improperly withheld information in 12.3% of those cases. The report noted that, even where “the IRS properly released thousands of pages from these documents, taxpayer rights still may have been violated because some information was erroneously withheld.”