FATCA was signed into law in 2010 and codified in Sections 1471 through 1474 of the Internal Revenue Code. The law was enacted in order to reduce offshore tax evasion by US persons with undisclosed offshore accounts. There are two parts to FATCA – U S taxpayer reporting of foreign assets and income on Form 8938 and reporting by a Foreign Financial Institution or FFI of foreign bank and financial accounts to the IRS. It is the latter that is resulting in FFI’s sending out that dreaded letter to suspected US account holders requesting US taxpayer identification and information referred hereafter as the FATCA letter.