Overview
OECD Identifies Potentially Abusive Residence and Citizenship by Investment Schemes: The OECD has released an analysis of over 100 residence and citizenship by investment (CBI/RBI) schemes, often referred to as golden passports or visas. The analysis identifies certain CBI/RBI schemes that potentially pose a high-risk to the integrity of the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS), including those currently operated by Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Colombia, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Montserrat, Panama, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Arab Emirates, and Vanuatu.
The OECD also published guidance intended to enable financial institutions to identify and prevent cases of CRS avoidance through the use of such schemes. The guidance states that, in making the determination whether a financial institution has reason to know that a self-certification or documentary evidence under CRS is incorrect or unreliable, it should take into account all relevant information available to the financial institution, including the results of the OECD’s CBI/RBI risk analysis.
IRS Releases 2017 Tax Year Statistics Document: The IRS released 2017 Statistics of Income Program Documentation: Data Items by Forms and Schedules (Document 6991) which contains the federal tax forms, schedules, and information documents that the Statistics of Income Division of the IRS has selected for its tax year programs.
Miscellaneous Guidance Released:
Revenue Procedure 2018-54 provides guidance for taxpayers that hold investments in one or more segregated asset accounts on which variable contracts (as defined in section 817) are based. The guidance allows taxpayers to elect to treat certain mortgage-backed securities as having deemed issuers for purposes of the diversification requirements of section 817(h).
Revenue Ruling 2018-28 provides various prescribed rates for federal income tax purposes including the applicable federal interest rates, the adjusted applicable federal interest rates, the adjusted federal long-term rate, and the adjusted federal long-term tax-exempt rate. These rates are determined as prescribed by section 1274.
Revenue Procedure 2014-49 and Revenue Procedure 2014-50 provide temporary relief to allow owners and operators of low-income housing projects to provide temporary emergency housing to individuals who are displaced by a major disaster from their principal residences, regardless of income.