Russia looks forward to signing an agreement with the United States that would bring it into the coverage range of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act or FATCA. Anton Siluanov, the Finance Minister of Russia, confirmed the news during a press conference that took place at a Vnesheconombank event in July. Minister Siluanov told the media that the government had plans to finalize the deal by the end of 2013.

A few reports that were launched earlier stated that American legislators had delayed FATCA until the first month of 2014.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act or FATCA is a law that addresses tax avoidance by U.S. citizens through foreign financial agencies. The main aim of this enactment is to ascertain that the IRS is able to identify and collect the required tax from all those American individuals who have financial assets outside the boundaries of the U.S. FATCA is applicable to any organization or entity that has U.S. clients or uses the assets in the U.S. to generate income.

It was in May that Siluanov confirmed Russia was interested in joining FATCA, and several meetings took place to discuss the particular arrangements. He laid much emphasis on the need to exchange information between the countries. The Finance Minister admitted that these steps should have been taken a long time ago, but nevertheless said that later was better than never.