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Amazon releases secure cloud for government | Software, Interrupted – CNET News

August 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Cloud service provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) today announced AWS GovCloud, a new AWS Region designed to allow U.S. government agencies and contractors to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements.

Amazon’s move reflects the ongoing adoption of public cloud services by government entities, including the U.S. Treasury’s Recovery Accountability and Transparency board, which hosts Recovery.gov and Treasury.gov on AWS, as well as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which processes telemetry data and high-resolution images on an array of EC2 cluster compute instances.

via Amazon releases secure cloud for government | Software, Interrupted – CNET News.

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HIRE power: new reporting requirements and penalties for holders of offshore bank accounts | Lexology

March 30, 2010 By

Holders of offshore bank accounts, along with their accountants and tax advisors, should be aware of recently enacted changes in their reporting requirements. Under the HIRE Act signed by President Obama on March 18, individuals are required to include certain information with their tax returns beginning with the 2011 tax year. The newly required information reporting is in addition to the information already provided to the U.S. Treasury Department on the Form 90-22.1 (“FBAR”).

The scope of the new reporting requirement is greater than what is currently covered on the FBAR. Therefore, individuals who have never had an FBAR filing requirement may be subject to the reporting requirement, and individuals who are familiar with FBAR filing requirements may have to provide additional information. Taxpayers should be aware of the new information that is subject to reporting and the applicable penalties for failing to report the information.

Assets Subject to Reporting

Any of the following assets may be subject to reporting if the value of all of the specified assets held by the taxpayer is greater than $50,000:

Any financial account maintained by a foreign financial institution.

Unless regulations provide otherwise, this could include a bank account maintained with a U.S. branch of a foreign financial institution.

Investments with foreign private equity or hedge funds may need to be reported.

Stock or securities issued by a non-U.S. person.

Any financial instrument or contract held for investment that has an issuer or counterparty that is a non- U.S. person.

Interest rate and other swap agreements, futures and forward contracts, and other derivatives to which a foreign entity is a party could be subject to reporting, regardless of whether the instrument is considered to be a “foreign” instrument.

via Lexology – HIRE power: new reporting requirements and penalties for holders of offshore bank accounts.

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Feds Want More Corporate Data | Law.com

January 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The U.S. Treasury and Justice departments want to require states to collect more information about the owners of corporations and limited liability companies to help crack down on domestic shell companies that launder money and help finance terrorists.

That effort is putting law enforcement officials at loggerheads with state treasurers, the business community and the American Bar Association.

Besides imposing new duties on the states, legislation introduced in the Senate also could bring lawyers and others who are compensated for helping to form corporations and LLCs under federal anti-money laundering requirements as well as potential criminal penalties for providing false information. About 2 million corporations and LLCs are formed each year in this country, according to various official estimates, and the states generally do not obtain the names of the people who will control or benefit from those companies.

“States that offer corporations to individuals without insisting on information on beneficial ownership undermine the efforts of law enforcement to prevent crime, recover stolen assets and collect tax,” said former Senate investigator and financial crime expert Jack Blum, a Washington, D.C., solo practitioner who has testified in support of legislation. “We grant corporations the privilege of limited liability and, in return, the state tells the people exactly what the corporation is doing. Secrecy is not and never has been the real purpose of corporations.”

via Law.com – Feds Want More Corporate Data.

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U.S. says Credit Suisse schemed to evade sanctions | Reuters

December 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

U.S. and Manhattan prosecutors detailed on Wednesday a “decades-long scheme” by Credit Suisse to hide thousands of transactions on behalf of clients in Iran, Sudan, Libya and other nations, and said the Swiss bank had agreed to pay $538 million in fines.

More than $1.6 billion was moved through the U.S. financial system through the transactions, prosecutors said.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau told a news conference that other banks were being investigated for similar transactions.

“There will be other prosecutions,” he said. “Not only of financial institutions, which carry the money, but also of the suppliers.”

In Zurich, a source who declined to be identified, said nine banks were involved and that four had settled, including Lloyds TSB Group of Britain and Credit Suisse.

While the majority of the transactions involved Iran, other transactions violated U.S. sanctions against Sudan, Libya, Myanmar, Cuba, and the former Liberian regime of Charles Taylor, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

The department called the settlement the “most significant” in the history of its Office of Foreign Assets Control and said the penalty could have been “substantially higher” had the bank not cooperated with the government over the past two years and agreed to take remedial action.

via U.S. says Credit Suisse schemed to evade sanctions | Reuters.

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