FATCA FFI List Resources and Support Information Webpage and FFI List FAQs are Now Available
Posted by William Byrnes on December 23, 2013
On December 19, the IRS released FATCA News Issue Number 2013-16 wherein it announced the FATCA FFI List Resources and Support Information Webpage and the FATCA FFI List Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) have been posted to the FATCA Website.
The IRS’ new FATCA FFI List Resources and Support Information includes the following information:
An FFI may agree to report certain information about its account holders by registering to be FATCA compliant. An FFI that has registered and that has been issued a global intermediary identification number (GIIN) will appear on a published FFI List. The FFI List can be downloaded in its entirety or searched for specific information (FI name, GIIN or country). Search results can also be downloaded. Withholding agents may rely on an FFI’s claim of FATCA status based on checking the payee’s GIIN against the published FFI List. This FFI list search and download tool is scheduled to be available beginning June 2014, and will be updated monthly.
Additional information on FATCA registration is available in the FATCA Registration Overview. More details about the GIIN are available in the GIIN Composition document.
FFI list Search and Download Capabilities
Beginning in June 2014, a search tool, partial list download, and a full downloadable list will be available on IRS.gov to the public. No login or password will be required to search or download the list. The data will be refreshed on the 1st of the month and will only include FIs and branches approved 5 business days prior to the first of the month. The date of the last update to the information will be displayed on the page. Previous months lists will not be available on IRS.gov.
The FFI List search and download tool can be used for looking up individual or groups of FIs and their branches to determine if they are on the list of FATCA compliant FIs. To use the search feature, at least one of the following search fields must be filled in: GIIN, Financial Institution Name, or Country. The results will be displayed on the screen and can be exported in CSV, XML or PDF formats. Search tips will be available on this site.
A complete list of all FATCA compliant FIs and branches will also be available for download in CSV and XML formats. If you plan to import this file into your own database, additional information including the schema, is available on the FFI List Schema and Test Files page.
The IRS FFI List FAQs is available at http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/IRS-FFI-List-FAQs
FATCA Compliance Program and Manual
Fifty contributing authors from the professional and financial industry produced LexisNexis® Guide to FATCA Compliance (2nd Edition). The second edition has been expanded from 25 to 34 chapters, with 600 pages of regulatory and compliance analysis.
The previous 25 chapters have been substantially updated, including many more practical examples to assist a compliance officer contextualize the regulations, IGA provisions, and national rules enacted pursuant to an IGA. The nine new chapters include by example an in-depth analysis of the categorization of trusts pursuant to the Regulations and IGAs, operational specificity of the mechanisms of information capture, management and exchange by firms and between countries, insights as to the application of FATCA and the IGAs within new BRIC and European country chapters. Chapter 7 has been drafted for a financial institution’s compliance officer, Chapter 9 for the trust department compliance officer, and Chapter 10 for the insurance firm’s compliance officer. Chapter 7 provides a new section analyzing the compliance risks with the IRS’ recently released draft FFI agreement.
The LexisNexis® Guide to FATCA Compliance (2nd Edition) comprises 34 Chapters grouped in three parts: compliance program (Chapters 1–4), analysis of FATCA regulations (Chapters 5–16) and analysis of FATCA’s application for certain trading partners of the U.S. (Chapters 17–34), including intergovernmental agreements as well as the OECD’s TRACE initiative for global automatic information exchange protocols and systems.
William Byrnes' Tax, Wealth, and Risk Intelligence 
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