51 FATCA Agreements And Growing!

Written by tbeecher | Posted in FATCA

On Friday, April 18, 2014, we posted “FATCA Picking Up Momentum And U.S. Gives Foreign Banks More Time to Register”, where we discussed the Internal Revenue Service’s Announcement 2014-17 which provides that countries that have FATCA agreements “in substance” with the United States will be seen as complying with the law, even if the agreements are not finalized by December 31, 2014.

This announcement increased to 48 from 26 the number of countries that have “intergovernmental agreements” (IGAs) with the United States, which allow a country’s financial institutions to comply with FATCA via their domestic regulators. This would include Brazil, South Korea and South Africa, among other countries, who are in the process of negotiating IGA with the US.

Before the announcement, many foreign businesses were unsure how to comply with FATCA by July 1, 2014 if their home countries had not yet signed IGA deals with the United States. Countries left off the list were China, Hong Kong, Russia and Singapore.

Since then, the Bahamas, India and the Slavic Republic have executed FATCA agreements, bring the total to 51 Countries with US FATCA Agreements!

30 nations with agreements:

With 21 nations treated as having an agreement, that are “in the process”:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
British Virgin Islands
Croatia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Jamaica
Kosovo
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
New Zealand
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Romania

New Dates for Registering to Ensure GIIN Inclusion on the IRS FFI List
As described in Notice 2013-43, FFIs resident in, or organized under the laws of, a jurisdiction that is treated as having an IGA in effect, which, pursuant to this announcement includes jurisdictions listed on the Treasury and IRS websites as having reached agreements in substance on IGAs before July 1, 2014, should register on the FATCA registration website as a registered deemed-compliant FFI (which would include all reporting Model 1 FFIs) or a participating FFI (which would include all reporting Model 2 FFIs), as applicable. Importantly, withholding agents are still not required to obtain the GIINs of FFIs that are treated as reporting Model 1 FFIs before January 1, 2015.

Based on the IRS experience with the registration system and GIIN generation process to date, the IRS now believes that it can ensure registering FFIs that their GIINs will be included on the June 2 IRS FFI List if their registrations are finalized by May 5, 2014 (GMT -5), rather than April 25, 2014, as originally announced. Further, the IRS believes it can ensure registering FFIs that their GIINs will be included on the July 1 IRS FFI List if their registrations are finalized by June 3, 2014 (GMT -5). FFIs that finalize their registrations after May 5 or June 3 may still be included on the June 2 or July 1 IRS FFI List, respectively; however, the IRS cannot provide assurance that this will be the case. The IRS will continue processing registrations in the order received; however, processing times may increase as the May 5 and June 3 dates approach.

Finally, Treasury and the IRS remind all withholding agents that, in accordance with Reg. §1.1471-3(e)(3), a withholding agent that receives a Form W-8 from a payee with a GIIN that does not yet appear on the published IRS FFI List has 90 days to verify that the GIIN appears on the list before the withholding agent will be treated as having reason to know that the chapter 4 status of the payee is unreliable or incorrect. In addition, a withholding agent that receives a Form W-8 from a payee indicating that the payee has applied for a GIIN has 90 days to obtain the GIIN from the payee and verify it against the IRS FFI List before the withholding agent will be treated as having reason to know that the chapter 4 status of the payee is unreliable or incorrect.

Do You Have Unreported Foreign Income?

In accordance with Circular 230 Disclosure