From pwc

In brief

The Cayman Islands Department for International Tax Cooperation on March 23, 2015 launched its Automatic Exchange of Information Portal (Portal) enabling reporting Cayman financial institutions (Reporting FIs) to satisfy their notification and reporting obligations under regulations (Regulations) issued by the Cayman Islands Tax Information Authority (Tax Authority) which implement under Cayman law the intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) signed with the United Kingdom and the United States. The US-Cayman IGA sets out the terms under which the provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (US FATCA) will be implemented. The UK-Cayman IGA sets out the terms under which the agreements between the United Kingdom and its Crown Dependencies (CDs) and Overseas Territories (OTs), collectively UK CDOT, will be implemented in the Cayman Islands.

Under the terms of the UK-Cayman and US-Cayman IGAs and the Regulations, Reporting FIs will provide the required information to the Tax Authority which will then forward the relevant data to either the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

The Regulations require Reporting FIs to notify the Tax Authority if they have reporting obligations under US FATCA and/or UK CDOT. With respect to US FATCA, Reporting FIs have until April 30, 2015 to file their notification with an initial reporting deadline of May 31, 2015. With respect to UK CDOT, Reporting FIs have until April 30, 2016 to file their notification with an initial reporting deadline of May
31, 2016.

The Portal will also enable Reporting FIs to comply with the future reporting requirements of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Common Reporting Standard (CRS) beginning in 2017. CRS establishes a global methodology for the sharing among tax authorities of information relating to financial assets. For more information on CRS, see our Insight: Final OECD standard for automatic exchange of tax information signals compliance challenges as o ffshore asset transparency increases.

Observation: The Tax Authority has spent approximately $1.5 million developing the Portal to receive, collect, and transmit this information and the link is now accessible. However, a recent communication from the Cayman Islands advised that stakeholders that are having difficulty with the site may need to either change certain settings or use an updated version of their web browser.

For a full version of this story download the pwc link at: http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/tax-accounting-services/newsletters/global-information-reporting-withholding/assets/pwc-cayman-islands-launches-fatca-notification-reporting-portal.pdf

See iNews Cayman related story published March 22 2015 “Cayman AEOI Portal almost open [ or open] –UPDATED” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/cayman-aeoi-portal-almost-open-or-open/