Many U.S. expatriate taxpayers are receiving “FATCA” letters from offshore banks around the world. The banks are sending the letters in anticipation of their I.R.S. FATCA reports of U.S. taxpayer offshore financial information. A FATCA letter is a letter from a Foreign Financial Institution (FFI) requesting certain information about a taxpayers’ U.S.A. tax filing status. The letter will most like have a W-9 or W-8 BEN form which the foreign bank will want back relatively quickly within a certain time limit. The foreign bank wants the signed filled in forms back confirming whether the letter recipient is a U.S. taxpayer and subject to FATCA reporting. Moreover, receipt of FATCA Letter means that the taxpayer has already been identified as a U.S. taxpayer by the FFI, and his or hers name and financial account information will be disclosed to the I.R.S. Chances are, if the account holder’s account is in certain countries, that this information has already been released to the I.R.S., as the first FATCA exchange of information took place in September of 2015.