6 July, 2015
Singapore requirements to ensure the Singapore institutions are compliant with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) came into effect on 18 March 2015. These obligations came into effect pursuant to the following:
- Income Tax (International Tax Compliance Agreements) (United States of America) Regulations 2015; and
- Income Tax (International Tax Compliance Agreements) (United States of America) Order 2015.
Key takeaways are the deadlines for compliance, which are as follows:
- 31 May 2015: Reporting SGFIs must submit FATCA information to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (“IRAS”) relating to Reporting Year 2014. If the SGFI maintains no reportable accounts, a nil return is required.
- 30 June 2015: Reporting SGFIs must complete due diligence procedures for Pre-existing High Value Individual Accounts with a balance or value that exceeds USD 1m as of 30 June 2014.
- 30 June 2016: Reporting SGFIs must complete due diligence procedures for:
- Pre-existing Entity Accounts with a balance or value that exceeds USD 250k as of 30 June 2014; and
- all Pre-existing Individual Accounts with balance or value between USD 50k and USD 1m as of 30 June 2014.
The IRAS also finalised and issued its e-Tax Guide, “Compliance Requirements of the Singapore-US Intergovernmental Agreement on Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act“.
The Ministry of Finance (“MOF”), the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and IRAS had issued a consultation paper on these measures on 22 September 2014. A summary response to the feedback received has been jointly issued by IRAS and MOF. There have been very few changes made pursuant to the feedback gathered during the consultation. As the responses deal with the details of the operations of complying with the FATCA requirements and reporting to IRAS, they will not be discussed.
For further information, please contact:
Joy Tan, Partner, WongPartnership
joy.tan@wongpartnership.com
Elaine Chan, Partner, WongPartnership
elaine.chan@wongpartnership.com
