General information - deadlines, other market specifics - U.S.A. - CFCL (Vestima)

Withholding tax

By default, any US taxable interest/dividend payment is subject to a 30% FATCA tax rate. Should Clearstream Fund Centre’s direct client provide to Clearstream Fund Centre sufficient information/documentation to evidence that 30% FATCA should not be withheld, the rules of QI regime will apply, and tax exemption/reduced tax rate may be granted by Clearstream Fund Centre at source or via a refund request to Clearstream Fund Centre. Refund of withholding tax from the IRS is not available through Clearstream Fund Centre.

Please check the pages “relief at source” and “refund from Clearstream Fund Centre” for a full-service description.

Reporting

Clearstream Fund Centre does not assume primary NRA withholding responsibility nor Form 1099 reporting and backup withholding responsibility. As such, it will report US Source income paid to:

non-U.S. recipients on an IRS Form 1042-S by the IRS deadline on 15 March of the year following the year in which the income payment was made.

Through its custodian (Clearstream Banking Luxembourg) acting as primary QI assuming NRA withholding responsibility and 1099 reporting and backup withholding responsibility), U.S. specified recipients on an IRS Form 1099 by the IRS deadline on 31 January of the year following the year in which the income payment was made.

To facilitate Clearstream Fund Centre’s clients’ reconciliation processes, Clearstream Fund Centre clients are invited to check on a regular basis which income payments will be reported by Clearstream Fund Centre on CFS Portal (under “Tax” and “US tax query”).

As per the QI agreement requirements, it is essential that CFCL does not have undocumented clients. Therefore, clients are required to certify their accounts for US tax purposes when holding US taxable securities to ensure compliance and avoid any breach of the QI agreement.

Important deadline for Clearstream Fund Centre clients acting as final beneficial owners

By default, no 1042-S reporting is issued to Clearstream Fund Centre clients that have opened an account for their own assets, as the U.S. source income paid to such account is reported on the basis of pools to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Should the Clearstream Fund Centre client (acting for its own assets) want to receive a 1042-S for a specific calendar year, a written request should be sent to Clearstream Fund Centre within two full calendar years following the year in which the payment of US source FDAP income (not from a PTP distribution) for which the Form 1042-S is requested.

Such request should be sent via Swift MT599 free-format message or CFS Portal to the attention of Clearstream Fund Centre S.A., Tax Processing team and specify:

• The subject: 1042-S request for own assets account - calendar year N¹;
• The relevant account number(s) (please mention all own assets accounts for which the request is made on the same Swift);

If the request is sent after the above-mentioned deadline, the following statement should also be added on the Swift template: “as our request is sent after the deadline set by Clearstream Fund Centre S.A., we acknowledge that Clearstream Fund Centre S.A. may not be able to treat our request prior to the 1042-s reporting deadlines set by the IRS for calendar year [N]. As a result, [Clearstream Fund Centre S.A.] may debit our account or otherwise reclaim from us and we will pay Clearstream Fund Centre S.A. on demand any amount of penalties charged by the IRS and resulting from such late request of issuance of Form 1042-s in our name”.

Account segregation requirements

Clearstream Fund Centre clients must mandatorily segregate on dedicated accounts:

• U.S. source Fund Securities that are Clearstream Fund Centre clients’ own assets
• U.S. source Fund Securities that Clearstream Fund Centre clients hold on behalf of U.S. specified persons for which a 1099 reporting is required

Deadlines

In order to benefit from tax relief at source or refund from Clearstream Fund Centre on U.S. source interests or dividends payments, Clearstream Fund Centre clients will have to ensure that Clearstream Fund Centre receives the accurate documentation by the deadlines specified below.

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1. N being defined as the calendar for which the specific 1042-S reporting is requested.

2. Tax refunds are processed in the order received by Clearstream Fund Centre on a best effort basis. They will be paid when the reclaim amount has been received from its sub-custodian. Clearstream Fund Centre is not a withholding QI.

3. Clearstream Fund Centre may grant few additional days after the 31 December of the year in which the income was paid. Such extended deadline would be published to Clearstream Fund Centre clients in a dedicated announcement and will always be set in accordance with deadlines received from its sub-custodian.