Countries around the globe are making major movements towards FATCA compliance from Spain to Iceland to Anguilla. Check out this week’s recap from our compliance and research team of experts: Anguilla Releases Tax Information Exchange (International Co-Operation) Act of 2015 Anguilla has released the Tax Information Exchange (International Co-Operation) Act of 2015. The Act gives effect to agreements entered into by the Government of Anguilla for the exchange of information for tax purposes. The term “agreements” covers agreements like CRS and FATCA Reporting. The Act also covers the implementation of the Act, lays out the principal functions of the competent authority under the ACT, and lays out the procedure for receiving and declining a request for information under these agreements. The Act also allows for the competent authority to obtain specified information if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a notice under section 6 will not be complied with as well as the power to search and seize premises, documents, and information. Slovenia Releases 2016 Edition of Current Reporting Changes Under FATCA Slovenia has released the ‘2016 Edition of Current Reporting Changes Under FATCA’. This edition, the first of its kind, covers several topics:
- Determining the value of elements, unique code, reports, and their changes in an XML document
- The rule for determining the value of the taxpayer’s identification number when it is not available
- Obligatory registration of sponsored entities for the purposes of FATCA reporting in 2016
Iceland Publishes 2016 Reporting Date Iceland has published its 2016 Reporting Date and 2015 FATCA information is due on May 31, 2016. South Africa Releases Clarification Document for Reporting South Africa has released a Clarification Document for their reporting schema. The purpose of the document is to clarify the application of certain data fields and to effect minor changes required. Here is a quick summary of the clarifications:
- Reporting on payments from a Reporting FI to an account held by an NPFI. It is now possible to aggregate payments or separate them out by type of payment.
- Clarification of Definition of Financial Fields 130-133. Specifically this is for “Payment Amount Dividends,” “Payment Amount Interest,” “Payment Amount Gross Proceeds/Redemption,” and “Payment Amount Other.”
- Reporting of Sponsored Entities (since IRS has not made available GIIN numbers for sponsored entities, explanation of how the sponsoring should report them).
- In appendix F & G, VAT has been replaced with AEOI.
- The use of “XX – Other” has been removed from Appendix B (this was a code available for reporting a country that was not listed in the ISO3166 standard). The IRS schema no longer allows for the code to be used.
Cayman Islands and Jamaica Sign Competent Authority Arrangement (CAA) The Cayman Islands and Jamaica have recently signed a Competent Authority Arrangement with the United States. The agreements’ purpose is to set out how each country will administer the FATCA reporting scheme, including the timing of the exchange, how the exchange will take place, and confidentiality requirements, amongst others. The Arrangements are contemplated in the IGA. To read the Cayman Arrangement, please click here. To read the Jamaican Arrangement, please click here. Spain Releases New XML Guide Spain has released version 2.0 of Presentación del modelo 290 mediante servicio Web basado en mensajes XML. The Presentación provides information on how to properly format XML reporting. Spain had previously releases version 1.1. The Presentación note the following changes: In section 5, more information has been given for corrections, and, in section 8, the examples that are given there have been updated to include the new version of DocRefId. Belgium Releases FATCA Law Belgium has published “Law Regulating The Disclosure of Information Relating to Financial Accounts,” which gives legal effect to the reporting requirements under FATCA. The law also affects CRS and the EU DAC. For FATCA purposes, the law establishes the June 30 deadline, which had previously been reported in Belgian publications. The law also has provisions concerning penalties for failure to comply with the FATCA obligations. Sign up for the Sovos blog and our monthly newsletter to get these and other important updates concerning FATCA, CDOT, and CRS.
