US IRS provides details on FATCA IDES, Forms W-8 and W-9

The US IRS on December 11 added new information on its website on the FATCA International Data Exchange Service (IDES). The IRS describes the IDES enrollment process, lists compatible web browsers, lists IRS approved certificate authorities, provides information about compatible compression tools, gives an overview of IDES data transmission and file preparation, and provides a list of FATCA schema files and samples.

Also, FAQs dated  November 26 were released on IDES technical issues such as data transmission, data encryption and security, and system design.

The Service also posed new FATCA FAQs on Forms W-8 and W-9.

For the updated information on the IDES system,  see:

• Enrollment process

• Supported browsers

• Digital certificates

• Compression tools

• IDES data transmission and file preparation

• FATCA XML schema files

For the updated FAQs, see:

• FATCA FAQs — IDES technical issues

• FATCA FAQs — Forms W-8 and W-9