Today the IRS published a reminder to foreign financial institutions and their compliance officers that certifications required by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) are due no later than December 15, 2018. This is the first compliance certification deadline under the FATCA reporting regime, which became fully effective as of July 1, 2014. Institutions that fail to comply with this certification deadline will be deemed non-compliant for FATCA purposes and may face revocation of their FATCA status and removal from the FFI list. The full text of the IRS’s reminder follows:
The FATCA Certification Deadline is Approaching – Please Complete Your Certifications by December 15, 2018
For the certification period ending December 31, 2017, FATCA certifications are due no later than December 15, 2018. However, for trustees of trustee-documented trusts and sponsoring entities, the deadline is March 31, 2019.
If an entity that is required to certify does not submit its certifications by the due date, the entity will not be in compliance with its obligations under FATCA. The consequences of being non-compliant may include the revocation of an entity’s FATCA status and, ultimately, the entity’s GIIN being removed from the FFI list.
Ensure that your registration information is current or update as needed for:
– Your FATCA Classification, and
– The Name and Email address of your Responsible Officer (RO) and Point of Contact (POC)
The Responsible Officer or Point of Contact must log into their account and ensure that the entity’s FATCA classification reflected is accurate. Please review and confirm the entity’s FATCA classification, even if you do not have a certification requirement.
In addition, your FATCA registration must always be updated with the current name and email address of your RO and POC as soon as there is a change.
The RO and POC information provides the IRS with the name and contact information of persons with whom they will communicate for reasons including but not limited to certifications, general inquiries and other FATCA compliance purposes. You are responsible for ensuring that you can receive email and message notifications from the IRS. The IRS will send notices to your registration system message board for the reasons noted above and to give you a notification of potential actions to be taken on your account. Your RO will also receive an email notification when the IRS has sent a notice to your message board. It is your responsibility to make sure that you receive and review any messages sent to your message board and to ensure that your RO’s email address is accurate.
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