On November 19, 2012, the IRS announced that the US and Mexico have signed a bilateral agreement to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). This announcement comes just a couple days after the November 14, 2012 announcement that the US and Denmark signed a similar bilateral agreement to implement FATCA. With the addition of the standing treaty with The United Kingdom, there are now three countries with specific bilateral FATCA agreements. The US and Canadian tax treaty already includes information sharing, so it is not clear whether a specific FATCA agreement is being pursued between Canada and the US.
Expect to see more of these types of announcements in the near future. The IRS is pursuing these information sharing agreements with over 50 countries, and it appears more and more foreign countries are becoming comfortable with signing these agreements. US citizens living and banking abroad should pay close attention to this growing trend, and keep up-to-date on their level of compliance with the IRS.