The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, known as Fatca, continues to baffle firms across the globe, as compliance professionals admit there are major gaps in their readiness for the regulation set to be implemented by June 2013.

Fatca encompasses the US Internal Revenue Service's rules designed to recoup some of the money it loses every year through tax evasion. The regulations require that all financial institutions classify their account holders as either US or non-US based, and firms around the world will have to identify US account holders and report on them.