The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") issued a final rule regarding the registration of municipal advisor. The final rule requires muni advisors that are banks to register with the SEC. The OCC stated that banks should analyze the application of the final rule to their operations. Banks meeting the "municipal advisor" definition must now file Form MA-T with the SEC, if they have not already done so, and are subject to a fiduciary duty standard with regard to any municipal entities they advise within the scope of the rule. Municipal advisors that register through Form MA-T under

The IRS announced on Friday, December 13, that as scheduled, the IRS FATCA registration website will formally open on January 1, 2014. The website became operative on August 19, 2013 in order for Foreign Financial Institutions ("FFIs") to create accounts and enter registration information. Information entered into the website prior to January 1 is not considered final, and each FFI must re-visit the site after January 1 to finalize its registration and sign its FFI agreement if registering as a participating FFI. The IRS also announced that it anticipated that the final FFI agreement will be

Quen Huynh, attorney advisor for the Treasury Office of International Tax Counsel, spoke at a global information reporting panel in Washington D.C., stating that the July 1, 2014 effective date for withholding and new account procedures will not be postponed. Ms. Huynh said that there will be "no consideration of an additional delay," although "there is some transitional relief with respect to existing accounts." She also noted that final regulations have provisions that give institutions two years to document preexisting accounts. When asked about relaxing withholding rules in jurisdictions

The Senate Finance Committee approved John Koskinen's nomination to be Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"), Sarah Bloom Raskin's nomination to be Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Department, and Rhonda Schnare Schmidtlein's nomination to be a member of the U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC"). All three were approved by voice vote. See: Press Release.

The National Futures Association ("NFA") submitted to the CFTC proposed amendments to two of NFA's Interpretive Notices entitled NFA Compliance Rule 2-10: The Allocation of Bunched Orders for Multiple Accounts and NFA Compliance Rule 2-10: The Allocation of Bunched Retail Forex Orders for Multiple Accounts. See: Text of Proposed Amendments.