US IRS changes FATCA IDES enrollment process for USWA, TFIs, vendors, third party preparers

The US IRS on May 8 announced, via a notice sent through its FATCA News and Information update service, that the FATCA IDES enrollment process for US withholding agents (USWA), territory financial institution (TFI), vendors, and third party preparers has changed.

The text of the email is as follows:

Certain entities, such as US withholding agents (USWA), territory financial institution (TFI), third party preparers, and commercial software vendors are not required to have a global intermediary identification number (GIIN). Entities that are not required to have a GIIN (non-GIIN filers) are required to obtain a FATCA Identification Number (FIN).

The FIN is a 19-character identifier that will be used in lieu of a GIIN to access IDES for FATCA reporting. A FIN is return information for section 6103 disclosure purposes because it was created by the IRS and identifies non-GIIN filers. In order to request a FIN, you must consent to IRS publication of the FIN on the published FFI List. Review the process on the IDES Resources page for more information.

An IDES IT Technical Forum to discuss the FIN process will be held and USWAs, TFIs, third party preparers, and commercial software vendors are invited to attend. Please send an email to LB&I FATCA IDES and include the name and email address of each participant, and the name of the organization.

Note: For reporting with respect to calendar year 2014, if you are filing on behalf of an entity with a deadline of March 31, 2015, the extended deadline is June 29, 2015 to submit the Form 8966 FATCA XML Schema. You must register for a FIN by May 20th, in order for the FIN to appear on the June Foreign Financial Institution (FFI) List and allow you to enroll in IDES ahead of the June 29th deadline.

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