A local social media agency asked me to develop an infographic explaining what The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, otherwise known as FATCA is. Although this piece wasn’t used as the project was dropped, I feel this piece works well.

 

FATCA is a United States statute that requires US citizens, including those who live outside the US, to report their financial accounts held outside of the US to the IRS. Foreign financial institutions are also required to report to the IRS regarding their US clients.

 

The idea of the infographic would be to inform people, especially US citizens, about FATCA, what it is, and what the consequences would be if they didn’t adhere to the legislation, regarding their financial accounts.

 

After talking to the client, it was decided that the design should use fictional people from American pop culture that could be affected by FATCA, and to incorporate them into the infographic. My first thought was to use Captain Kirk from the long-running US TV series ‘Star Trek’, as he was an American citizen who wasn’t living in the USA due to him being in outer space – “boldly going where no man has gone before” – and would therefore be affected by the legislation. The idea behind this then developed further into using more Star Trek references throughout the infographic. This idea allowed me to illustrate various characters from the original series of Star Trek, and these included Captain Kirk, Spock and Scotty.