Vatican to aid U.S. on tax cheats
Holy See to share info on accounts held by Americans
The continuing U.S. crackdown on suspected offshore tax evasion by wealthy Americans could be getting some spiritual assistance.
The Vatican on Wednesday became the latest world state agreeing to share information about foreign financial accounts whose U.S. owners may have ignored IRS reporting requirements.
U.S. and Vatican representatives signed an agreement formalizing the Holy See’s compliance with a 2010 law aimed at requiring foreign financial institutions to give federal tax officials information about Americans holding undisclosed foreign accounts.
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, said the first intergovernmental pact between the U.S. and the Vatican holds key importance.
“As Pope Francis frequently reminds us, evading just taxes is stealing both from the State and from the poor,” Gallagher said in a statement issued with the signing. “Every person has in fact the duty to contribute, in charity and justice, to assisting the public institutions dedicated to bettering the conditions of human life.”
Kenneth Hackett, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, said access to financial account information by the world’s states and nations “is critically important to the full and fair enforcement of U.S. domestic tax laws.”
A 2008 report by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the U.S. annually loses an estimated $100 billion as banks in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and elsewhere help wealthy Americans duck the IRS.
The Vatican bank, formally known as the Institute of Religious Works, has long been criticized by Italian officials for a lack of transparency and failure to comply with international standards to combat suspected tax evasion and money laundering.
Pope Benedict XVI launched bank changes in 2010 amid a fraud investigation.His successor, Pope Francis, named a commission to examine the bank’s activities in 2013.