U.S.A.: QI agreement renewal and FATCA compliance

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has recently published a News Bulletin confirming that all Qualified Intermediaries (QIs) who need to renew their QI agreements during the period between January 2012 and June 2012 are, as previously announced in their Notice 2011-53¹, automatically granted a postponement.

Notice 2011-53 provided that:

• The QI agreements of all QIs who qualify as foreign financial investors (FFIs) that expire on 31 December 2012 will automatically be extended until 31 December 2013; and
  
• Any QI that enters into an FFI agreement on or before 31 December 2013 will be considered to have renewed its QI agreement.

The IRS foresees the implementation of an online registration portal through which all QIs, Withholding Foreign Partnerships and Withholding Foreign Trusts will be required to register in order to receive a participating FFI (PFFI) agreement to be QI and FATCA² compliant.

This online portal should be opened no later than 1 January 2013.

The above information is not intended to be exhaustive. We will continue to monitor the IRS and commentator publications and will provide customers with further relevant information in due course.

Further information

For further information, please contact the Clearstream Banking Tax Help Desk on:

or Clearstream Banking Customer Service or your Relationship Officer.

1. For Notice 2011-53, see the IRS website (pdf).
2. FATCA: Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.