On 2 April 2014, the US Treasury Department (Treasury) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that jurisdictions that have reached agreements in substance with the United States on the terms of intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) can be treated as having agreements in effect until the end of 2014.
In the same announcement, the IRS extended until 5 May the deadline for foreign financial institutions (FFIs) to register and ensure that they will be included on the 2 June 2014 IRS FFI list.
1. Expansion of IGAs Treated as Being in Effect to Include Agreements in Substance
To date, the United States has signed 26 IGAs. Today’s announcement provides that 19 additional jurisdictions will be treated as having IGAs in effect, bringing the total number of jurisdictions that are treated as having IGAs in effect to 45. This list is expected to continue to grow in the coming weeks as additional jurisdictions provide consent to having the status of their IGAs disclosed and additional agreements in substance are reached.
The list of jurisdictions having an IGA in effect (Link) will include jurisdictions that reach agreements in substance with the United States on the terms of an IGA prior to 1 July 2014 and consent to be included on the Treasury and IRS list, even if those agreements have not yet been signed. Those jurisdictions will be treated as having an IGA in effect from the date that the jurisdiction provides its consent (or 2 April 2014, whichever is later) until 31 December 2014, the date by which the IGA must be signed in order for this status to continue without interruption.
The 19 jurisdictions listed as having reached agreement in substance are: Australia, Austria (Model 2), Belgium, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, the Czech Republic, Gibraltar, Jamaica, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea and Romania.
2. New Dates for Registering to Ensure GIIN Inclusion on the first IRS FFI List
The Announcement stated that 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 finalised by 5 May 2014, rather than the current deadline of 25 April 2014. The IRS indicated that it can ensure registering FFIs that their GIINs will be included on the 1 July 2014 IRS FFI List if their registrations are finalised by 3 June 2014. While it is possible that registrations after each of the deadlines may be included in the list of the following month, the IRS cannot provide assurance that this will be the case.
3. IGAs with Luxembourg and Honduras released
The US Treasury has released the text of signed IGAs with Luxembourg and Honduras.
- Luxembourg (Model 1)
- Honduras (Model 1)
4. For additional information, please see
- US Treasury Announcement 2014-17
- US Treasury Press Release on Announcement 2014-17
- US Treasury list of jurisdictions treated as having an intergovernmental agreement in effect
- The PwC IGA Monitor
- The US Treasury FATCA Resource Center
Attachments
List of Juridictions with IGAs in effect
FATCA Announcement – IGA in substance
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