Isle of Man: FATCA Update
Two important dates have now passed in relation to Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA“) – 30 June 2014 when Financial Institutions were required to capture details of their existing customers for remediation purposes and 1 July 2014 when Financial Institutions were required to have procedures in place which would enable them to identify US or UK indicia at new business take on.
To coincide with these dates, the Isle of Man government brought into force the implementing Regulations which now, along with the inter-governmental agreements, mandate that Financial Institutions on the Isle of Man comply with their FATCA obligations. The implementing Regulations are specifically The International Tax Compliance (United States of America) Regulations 2014 and The International Tax Compliance (United Kingdom) Regulations 2014.
Various countries around the world have also been progressing with their FATCA compliance frameworks. In the Americas, Cayman has published its implementing Regulations and Canada’s implementing legislation has received Royal Assent. In the Asia Pacific region, New Zealand has entered into an IGA with the US and Australia’s implementing legislation has received Royal Assent. In Europe, Bulgaria has reached an ‘in substance’ IGA with the US, the UK has updated its FATCA regulatory guidance, Russia has issued implementing legislation as well as guidance from the Central Bank and Ireland has issued final regulations.
As we heard at our Global Tax Enforcement Conference, the US sees FATCA as another tool in its information gathering arsenal and our US lawyer colleagues were keen to impress the importance of compliance and the likelihood that information exchange will lead to a marked increase in the number of Tax Information Exchange Agreement requests.
