The U.S. government's effort to crack down on taxpayers who try to avoid paying up by using overseas accounts is now focused on deals to share tax information with foreign governments, Reuters reports. The U.S. last week concluded the first such agreement, with the U.K.

The 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires foreign financial institutions to provide the U.S. with data on any U.S. citizens' accounts that contain $50,000 or more. But the law met with protests from financial institutions and foreign governments. Now the U.S. is concentrating on reaching agreements with individual governments to have the governments gather such information from financial institutions and pass it on to the U.S.

Reuters reports that the U.S. is currently negotiating such agreements with "at least 40 countries."