Tax transparency rules for foreign accounts and multinationals now stretch across more than 150 jurisdictions, which means governments routinely receive data about their residents’ offshore accounts and about how large companies allocate profits worldwide.1OECD. Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters For an individual, the reporting can be triggered by foreign accounts worth as little as $10,000. For a multinational group, the thresholds run into the hundreds of millions of euros and pull in detailed country-level breakdowns of profits, taxes, and employees. The regimes overlap, and filing under one does not excuse you from filing under another.
If You Are a US Individual With Foreign Accounts
Two separate US filings can apply to the same offshore money, and the penalties for missing either one are steep enough to matter even to small account holders.
FBAR: The $10,000 Threshold
Any US person with a financial interest in or signature authority over foreign financial accounts must file an FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) when the combined value of those accounts exceeds $10,000 at any point during the calendar year.2FinCEN.gov. Report Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts The $10,000 is aggregate across all foreign accounts, not per account. Filing goes through FinCEN’s BSA E-Filing System, separately from your tax return, with an April 15 deadline and an automatic extension to October 15.
A non-willful violation carries a penalty of up to $10,000 per account per year. A willful violation jumps to the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the account balance at the time of the violation.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 5321 – Civil Penalties Courts have upheld willful penalties that consumed the entire balance of the account.
FATCA Form 8938: Higher Thresholds, Broader Scope
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act adds a second reporting layer. Form 8938 covers foreign financial accounts and also foreign stocks, partnership interests, and other financial assets held outside of accounts. The filing thresholds depend on your filing status and where you live:
- Single filer living in the US: foreign financial assets over $50,000 on the last day of the year, or over $75,000 at any time during the year.
- Married filing jointly, living in the US: over $100,000 on the last day, or over $150,000 at any time.
- Single filer living abroad: over $200,000 on the last day, or over $300,000 at any time.
- Married filing jointly, living abroad: over $400,000 on the last day, or over $600,000 at any time.4Internal Revenue Service. Do I Need to File Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets
Form 8938 is filed with your annual tax return. The initial penalty for failure to file is $10,000. If the failure continues 90 days after the IRS sends a notice, another $10,000 accrues for every 30-day period, up to an additional $50,000.5GovInfo. 26 USC 6038D
Many taxpayers owe both an FBAR and a Form 8938 on the same accounts. The two go to different agencies and serve different purposes. One does not substitute for the other.
How Foreign Banks Report You to the IRS
FATCA also operates on the institutions themselves. Foreign financial institutions must identify accounts held by US taxpayers and report them to the IRS, either directly or through their own government. Institutions that refuse face a 30% withholding tax on certain US-source payments. Treasury has signed intergovernmental agreements with dozens of countries under two models: one where the foreign institution reports to its own government (which forwards to the IRS), and one where it reports straight to the IRS.6U.S. Department of the Treasury. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act One practical consequence is that many smaller foreign banks now refuse American clients rather than take on the compliance burden.
How Everyone Else’s Data Gets Shared: The Common Reporting Standard
Outside the US, the equivalent regime is the Common Reporting Standard. Under CRS, financial institutions in participating jurisdictions identify accounts held by foreign tax residents and pass the details to their local tax authority, which then forwards the information to the account holder’s home country. The institutions covered include banks, brokerages, investment funds such as hedge funds and private equity vehicles, and insurance companies offering cash-value policies.7OECD. CRS-Related Frequently Asked Questions
The reported data covers the account holder’s name, address, tax identification number, and date of birth, plus the year-end balance, gross interest and dividends, other income from account assets, and gross proceeds from sales of financial assets.7OECD. CRS-Related Frequently Asked Questions That is enough for a home tax authority to check whether foreign income made it onto a return.
Some account types are excluded as low-risk, including government pension funds, broad-participation retirement funds where no single beneficiary holds more than 5% of the assets, certain term life insurance contracts, estate accounts, escrow accounts, and low-value electronic money products with a 90-day rolling average balance under $10,000.8OECD. International Standards for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters The United States does not participate in CRS; it runs FATCA instead.
If You Run or Advise a Multinational: Country-by-Country Reporting
Any multinational group with annual consolidated revenue of at least EUR 750 million must file a country-by-country report showing how its income, profits, taxes, and economic activity break down across every jurisdiction where it operates.9Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Country-by-Country Reporting for Tax Purposes In the United States the threshold is set at $850 million in annual revenue, and the filing is made on IRS Form 8975.10Federal Register. Country-by-Country Reporting
For each jurisdiction, the report shows revenue from related-party and third-party transactions, pre-tax profit or loss, income tax paid on a cash basis, accrued tax, stated capital, accumulated earnings, number of full-time employees, and tangible assets other than cash. The idea is straightforward: tax authorities can see whether profits are landing in the same places as employees and operations, or being routed to low-tax jurisdictions with little real activity. Reports go to the parent company’s home tax authority and are shared with other participating countries through exchange agreements.
Public Country-by-Country Reporting in the EU
Most country-by-country reports stay between companies and tax authorities. EU Directive 2021/2101 changed that for companies active in Europe. Multinationals with consolidated revenue above EUR 750 million doing business in the EU must publicly disclose, for each EU member state and for jurisdictions on the EU’s non-cooperative list, how much tax they pay and where.11European Commission. Public Country-by-Country Reporting The rule reaches companies headquartered outside Europe if they have significant EU operations.
The published information includes net turnover, number of full-time employees, pre-tax profit or loss, income tax accrued for the year, income tax actually paid, accumulated earnings, and a description of the nature of activities in each jurisdiction.12EUR-Lex. Directive (EU) 2021/2101 of the European Parliament and of the Council For financial years beginning on or after June 22, 2024, the first public reports become available in 2026.
The United States has no comparable federal public tax disclosure mandate. SEC climate-related disclosure rules proposed in 2024 did not cover tax specifically, and the Commission has since proposed rescinding those rules.13U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Proposes Rescission of Climate-Related Disclosure Rules Any public tax reporting by US companies is currently voluntary.
The 15% Global Minimum Tax (Pillar Two)
The OECD’s Pillar Two framework, known as the GloBE Rules, ensures large multinationals pay an effective tax rate of at least 15% on income arising in every jurisdiction where they operate.14OECD. Global Anti-Base Erosion Model Rules (Pillar Two) It applies to groups with annual revenue of at least EUR 750 million.15OECD. Minimum Tax Implementation Handbook (Pillar Two)
Two interlocking rules do the work. The Income Inclusion Rule lets the parent company’s home jurisdiction impose a “top-up tax” when a subsidiary is taxed below 15% in another country. The Undertaxed Profits Rule is the backstop: if the parent’s jurisdiction does not apply the top-up, other jurisdictions where the group operates can deny deductions or make equivalent adjustments to collect the shortfall.15OECD. Minimum Tax Implementation Handbook (Pillar Two) A transitional safe harbor delays the Undertaxed Profits Rule until 2026 for parent jurisdictions with a corporate tax rate of at least 20%. Parking profits in a zero-tax jurisdiction no longer eliminates group tax liability, because some other country in the structure can collect the difference. Pillar Two also creates its own reporting layer through the GloBE Information Return.
Beneficial Ownership: Who Actually Owns the Company
Transparency rules also target the people behind corporate structures. Beneficial ownership registries identify the individuals who ultimately own or control legal entities. Under most frameworks, a beneficial owner is any individual who directly or indirectly owns 25% or more of a company’s equity, or who exercises significant control over management. Registries typically collect the individual’s full legal name, date of birth, residential address, and the nature of the interest.16FFIEC BSA/AML InfoBase. Beneficial Ownership Requirements for Legal Entity Customers The EU requires such registries across member states.
The US position shifted in 2025. The Corporate Transparency Act, enacted in 2021, originally required most small US companies to report beneficial owners to FinCEN. In March 2025, FinCEN issued an interim final rule eliminating the reporting requirement for entities created in the United States. Under the current rule, only entities formed under the law of a foreign country and registered to do business in a US state or tribal jurisdiction must file beneficial ownership reports. Foreign reporting companies registered before the rule’s publication date had 30 days to file; those registering afterward have 30 days from receiving notice that their registration is effective.17FinCEN.gov. FinCEN Removes Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements for US Companies and US Persons Prior filings by domestic companies stand, but you are no longer required to update them.
Crypto Accounts Are Being Pulled In Too
CRS was built for traditional financial accounts, and cryptocurrency largely fell outside it. The OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework closes that gap. CARF requires crypto-asset service providers — exchanges, wallet providers, and brokers — to collect user identifying information and report transaction data to tax authorities, which then exchange it internationally using the same infrastructure that supports CRS.18OECD. International Standards for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters Implementation timelines vary by jurisdiction, so when your local exchange begins reporting depends on where it operates and where your country stands in the adoption process.
What This Means in Practice
The combined effect of FATCA, CRS, country-by-country reporting, Pillar Two, beneficial ownership registries, and CARF is that very few places remain where financial activity is genuinely invisible to tax authorities. For an individual with foreign accounts, the practical question is whether you have filed the FBAR and, if applicable, Form 8938 for accounts your government already has data on. For a company at or above the EUR 750 million threshold, it is whether your country-by-country reports, Pillar Two calculations, and any EU public disclosures are being prepared on the same underlying numbers. Filing one form does not clear the others, and the penalty structures make late correction expensive.