SK Sur Chowdhury, deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank; Rashed Maqsood, Citi country officer; Syed Md Aminul Karim, income tax policy member of the NBR, and Karyn Kenny, resident legal advisor for US Embassy in Bangladesh, pose with the participants of a day-long workshop on Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of the USA, in the capital recently. Photo: Citi

Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank SK Sur Chowdhury urged the country's scheduled banks and financial institutions to study the implications of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) of the USA to avoid the effects of the act.
He spoke at a day-long workshop on FATCA for representatives of the banking sector, organised by the Citibank NA Bangladesh recently, the bank said in a statement yesterday.
The workshop aimed at creating awareness on the FATCA and to familiarise participants with the new law, which all banks are required to comply with before June, 2014.
The American act affects both US-based and other financial institutions, and its broad scope effectively impacts nearly all parties that make or receive cross border payments, said Syed Md Aminul Karim, income tax policy member of the National Board of Revenue.
The existing double taxation agreement with the USA needs to be re-examined further and a broad agreement between the two governments needs to be reached prior to implementation of the FATCA, Karim said.
Enacted in 2010 in the United States, FATCA requires a foreign financial institution to report to the US Internal Revenue Service about accounts held by the US taxpayers or by foreign entities in which US taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest.
Rashed Maqsood, managing director and Citi country officer for Bangladesh; Helal Ahmed Chowdhury, vice chairman of the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh; and Karyn Kenny, resident legal adviser of the US embassy in Dhaka, were also present.
David Weisner, US tax counsel for Asia Pacific at the Citigroup, conducted the technical session of the workshop.