NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Jan 2, 2012) - As the new year begins, Major Banks are bracing for new U.S. regulations aimed at reducing tax evasion, which could affect hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of deposits worldwide. "The policy objective is to have transparency so that governments can work together to avoid offshore tax evasion," says Manal Corwin, deputy assistant secretary for international tax affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department. The Bedford Report examines the outlook for companies in the Money Center Banking industry and provides equity research on Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: [ BAC ]) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: [ JPM ]). Access to the full company reports can be found at:

[ www.bedfordreport.com/BAC ]

[ www.bedfordreport.com/JPM ]

The new tax rules are part of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010, which applies to individuals and financial institutions as part of an effort to cut down offshore tax evasion. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, banks in the United States are fighting to eliminate a proposed regulation that would require them to report interest income earned by non-U.S. residents to the Internal Revenue Service, which could then pass the information to their home countries. The report from The Wall Street Journal claims that "banks in Florida, Texas and California say the effort could drain the coffers of banks that rely heavily on foreign deposits."

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Large banks could see their margins squeezed even more going forward as the U.S. Treasury Department plans to start charging banks a fee to cover the costs of the financial risk council it leads and a research office tasked with measuring threats to financial markets, Reuters reported last week.

Last Thursday the Treasury released the proposed rule which would apply to banks with more than $50 billion in total assets, starting in the middle of next year. According to Reuters, the Treasury is proposing charging these banks a flat rate that would be applied to an institution's total consolidated assets, and would be collected twice a year.

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