By Abena Rockcliffe Salvos were fired Thursday evening during a sitting of the National Assembly that went beyond theMinister within the Ministry of Finance, Jaipaul Sharmamidnight hour. At that sitting, the House,Cheap Jerseys China, without the voting support of the Opposition,Cheap NFL Jerseys Online, passed the Financial Institutions (Amendment) Bill.This Bill gives the Guyana Revenue Authority the lawful go ahead to access all suspicious bank accounts. In addition, it paves the way for a relationship with the USA that allows Guyana to know the financial standing of all Guyanese citizens with bank accounts in the USA.Reciprocally, the GRA will be required to send bank statements of all American citizens residing in Guyana and even Guyanese who may have ties to the USA,NFL Jerseys 2018, even by marriage.The explanatory memorandum of the Bill indicates that the Bill seeks to amend Section 63 of the Financial Institutions Act in order to permit disclosure of customer? information? by a financial institution,China Jerseys Authentic, the Revenue Authority,Wholesale NFL Jerseys Online, where a? law so requires or where the Revenue Authority makes a lawful request? or demand for information.The Bill was taken to the National Assembly by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan.He spoke extensively on the importance of the Bill and refused to accept further amendments that were proposed by the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) opposition.The Opposition, which had to endure accusations of dirty hands and thievery during that debate, said that it is not against the Bill. It claimed that it would have supported the Bill once it included the further amendments that were being proposed.Former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall was the one who put forward the PPP’s amendments.He proposed only two amendments. One was that the GRA give 21 days’ notice to all persons whose bank accounts it wishes to check for investigative purposes. The other was that there is a clause to attach $100,000 fine and jail time of not less than a year as a penalty for the information being used for purposes other than which is intended.Jordan rejected the amendments. He said there was no need for the penalty clause since Guyana already has adequate laws to secure against misuse of such financial information.The Opposition put forward other arguments to the effect that citizens will go back to the days of “mattress banks” if they know that their financial information will be up for scrutiny.Nandlall was one who said that farmers have been complaining to him about the implications of the Bill.Minister within the Ministry of Finance, Jaipaul Sharma,Authentic China Jerseys, said that one of the main reasons Government sought to pass this amendment was to comply with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).FATCA is a United States federal law requiring United States persons (including those living outside the U.S.) to have yearly reported themselves and their non-U.S. financial accounts to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN).It requires all foreign financial institutions (FFI’s) to search their records for suspected U.S. persons and to report their assets and identities to the US Treasury.Now that the amendment has been passed, Guyana just has to sign on to develop a relation with the USA on the basis of FATCA.? America will then send information to Guyana on a yearly basis and Guyana will do the same.Sharma later said that once GRA is given the information from the United States, the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU) will be able to access such information for investigative purposes.He added that the PPP opposition is “jittery” as a result of this.? Sharma said that the PPP knows that SARU will then be able to access information about the USA accounts of its cohorts, something that is hard to do otherwise.The Minister also said that the PPP is engaging in scaremongering. He pointed to Nandlall’s example of the farmers who expressed fear to him. Sharma said that Nandlall could have easily told farmers that it is not a case where GRA will be requesting banking information of all Guyanese or everyone residing in Guyana. “It will only be individuals under investigation.”