HMRC guidance on FATCA tax rules updated

From Accountancy Live -

"HMRC has updated the reporting requirements under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which may mean that some organisations or taxpayers no longer need to submit a return by the 31 May deadline."

Read more>>

New SWIFT Tool Makes Banks More Transparent

From PYMNTS.com

“As financial institutions face the growing list of Know Your Customer rules – aimed at combating money laundering – SWIFT just launched its latest tool to aid banks’ transparency and compliance efforts with the KYC regulations.

The financial messaging conglomerate’s CEO Gottfried Leibbrant announced Thursday (Dec. 11) that the SWIFT Know Your Customer Registry is now live to all correspondent banks.

The Registry is part of SWIFT’s work to strengthen compliance with the KYC regulations throughout the financial services industry. The venture allows banks to access the Registry’s data, which compiles information the banks need regarding compliance with the KYC and anti-money-laundering rules.”

read more>>

The Blacklist Debate: When is it OK to Meddle with Bitcoin’s Code?

From CoinDesk

“A row that broke out online this month has raised an important question about bitcoin: should people be allowed to code their own rules, and even opinions, into their own versions of the software that runs the network?

The debate kicked off among users of Gentoo – a variant of the Linux operating system that prides itself on being highly configurable to suit different user requirements – when a user reported an issue on the Gentoo bug forum on 5th October.

The version of bitcoind (the official reference client for interacting with the bitcoin network) distributed with Gentoo was blocking particular bitcoin addresses, said the report, meaning that transactions with them wouldn’t work.

The posting showed Gentoo output blocking a transaction with a SatoshiDice address, which had been blacklisted.”

read more>>