The objective of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is to enhance tax compliance among US citizens through a comprehensive set of regulations. This legislation mandates foreign financial institutions to determine if their clients are “US persons” and provide the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with information on their financial accounts. Non-compliance with these regulations may lead to substantial penalties.
The Common Reporting Standard (CRS), akin to FATCA, also aims to counter offshore tax evasion and upkeep the transparency of the global tax system. Financial institutions operating in participating jurisdictions are obligated to identify the tax residencies of their clients and disclose financial accounts held by foreign tax residents to the local tax authorities. These authorities then exchange this information with the relevant jurisdictions’ tax authorities.
The time for yearly FATCA and CRS reporting is either near or already underway in some jurisdictions. Here are the deadlines for several of these.
Challenges
One of the major challenges faced by firms is the analysis and interpretation of the requirements, which consist of over 300 pages of guidelines to read. Additionally, completing more than 65 fields per record and dealing with complicated multilevel XML files can also pose a significant barrier. Moreover, managing different jurisdictions, each with its own unique set of intricacies, can be quite complex.
Risks
In terms of risks, incorrect completion of CRS and FATCA reporting, as well as failing to meet the reporting deadline and its many requirements, can result in penalties, reputational damage, and legal consequences. Investing a costly number of resources to file the relevant submissions, which may burden your budget and disrupt your daily operations, is another risk. Lastly, making incorrect or false submissions can result in withholding penalties for specific payments.
How can MAP FinTech assist you?
Given the complexity of FATCA and CRS reporting, the challenges in keeping up with the regulatory updates, and the penalties in case of non-compliance, it is reasonable to get ready early.
MAP FinTech can fully support your business’ regulatory reporting needs. We receive reportable information, construct the CRS and FATCA annual reports, and, for most countries, submit them to the relevant competent authority as prescribed by the relevant provisions of both CRS and FATCA.
ΜΑΡ FinTech’s CRS and FATCA Reporting Services provide a user-friendly approach to receiving, validating, transforming and submitting the relevant information required under CRS/FATCA reporting and due diligence rules.
These services are delivered via our powerful and award-winning Polaris platform, together with the rest of its reporting offerings and our team of experts’ impeccable support services.
ΜΑΡ FinTech’s CRS/FATCA – Key Features
- Cost-efficient integrated reporting solutions provided under a single platform.
- Highly automated and scalable solution that can report for as many accounts as you have.
- Flexible in the way it receives data, either via standard templates or raw data.
- Multiple reporting health checks for both content and schema and automatic filtering of erroneous entries.
- Automatic conversion of data to XML and separation of files based on tax residency.
- Submissions to various tax authorities worldwide.
- On-going communication with regulators to ensure the system reports reflect regulatory updates and changes.