The Impact of the Foreign Financial Accounts Reporting Acts on the Capital Flows from Tax Havens

The Foreign Financial Accounts Reporting was introduced for the purpose of preventing tax evasion and illegal acts through foreign financial accounts of Koreans. On December 27, 2010, it was newly established in “The Law for the Coordination of International Tax Affairs” and received its first report in June 2011, the following year. The system was further strengthened after three revisions. The first amendment was enforced from January 2012 after it took place on December 31, 2011. Thereafter, revisions and enforcement proceeded simultaneously in January 2013 and January 2014. This paper evaluates the performance of the system for four years from 2011 to 2014. In addition, we examined the effect of institutional implementation and changes on tax haven investors through empirical analysis using Korean stock market data. Assuming that Koreans disguised as foreigners participate in Korean stock trading through an anonymity of tax haven, this system will work to shrink the flow of capital from tax haven investors to other countries. Panel regression analysis using capital flows by country found that the transaction activity of tax havens decreased as compared to other countries after introducing and strengthening the acts.