Riga, June 27, 2014 – U.S. Ambassador to Latvia Mark Pekala and Latvian Minister of Finance Andris Vilks signed an intergovernmental agreement to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) to promote transparency between the two nations on tax matters. These agreements underscore growing international cooperation to end tax evasion everywhere.
The United States and Latvia have a longstanding and close relationship. That friendship extends to mutual assistance in tax matters and includes a desire to improve international tax compliance. FATCA is rapidly becoming the global standard in the effort to curtail offshore tax evasion. The United States enacted FATCA in 2010 to combat offshore tax evasion by encouraging transparency and obtaining information on accounts held by U.S. taxpayers in other countries.
