Vizor Software’s Solution for FATCA & AEOI Selected by Government of Kuwait
Ministry of Finance – State of Kuwait recently “went live” with the Vizor Software for FATCA & AEOI solution to meet its FATCA obligations under the terms of its Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the United States of America’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Today, Vizor Ltd. announced the Kuwaiti Ministry of Finance went live with the Vizor for FATCA & AEOI Solution for Tax Authorities. The new Vizor system helps gather FATCA returns from financial institutions (FIs) and facilitates the production of an extract for transmission to the IRS. The most notable feature of the solution is an online portal accessible by Kuwaiti FIs to register and report the required account data.
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires Tax Authorities in countries with a signed Model 1 Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the US, to report information to the IRS.
Signed by Khalifa Hamada, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance on April 29th, 2015, the US-Kuwait IGA sees FATCA requirements brought into domestic law, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank & Capital Market Authority. Kuwaiti Financial Institutions are thus required to undertake certain due diligence and verification procedures to identify accounts held by US persons and report information on these accounts to the Ministry of Finance – Kuwait who will, in turn, report the information to the IRS.
Feature Highlights of the Vizor for FATCA & AEOI solution:
- Financial Institution self-registration and account creation.
- Extensive validation of FATCA data, including validation against XML schema, validation against account information, GIIN validation, and many additional business rules such as those specified in the “FATCA XML version 1.1 User Guide” published by the IRS.
- Configuration options for running in “fully automated” mode; little or no manual interaction with the system is required for the Tax Authority.
- Management reports for monitoring, tracking and reviewing information within the system.
Support for the FATCA data schema as it changes over time. - Automated exchange of information with the IRS.
“We are pleased that the Ministry of Finance – State of Kuwait has selected Vizor,” remarked Conor Crowley, Joint CEO of Vizor Software. “To date, more than a quarter of all financial institutions in Model 1 jurisdictions globally are submitting their FATCA reports through the Vizor for FATCA & AEOI solution.”
