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FATCA compliance services

Reducing the complexity and cost of FATCA compliance

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is an important development in U.S efforts to reduce offshore tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers who hold some or all of their investments in foreign accounts.

FATCA will require financial institutions outside of the U.S. to report information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers or held by foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest.

The challenge

Complex FATCA requirements will be phased in over several years, starting on January 2014. The requirements will apply to all financial institutions globally. The regulations will impact “U.S. persons” residing outside the U.S., non-financial foreign entities with substantial ownership held by a “U.S. person” (e.g., privately held corporations, partnerships and trusts), as well as foreign financial institutions (including counterparties) holding accounts with another financial institution.

Participating Foreign Financial Institutions (PFFIs) will have an obligation to conduct due diligence on new and existing accounts to establish the “U.S. person ” status of individuals and entities For each person or entity so identified, the PFFI will be obligated to provide annual reporting to the IRS or to their local tax authority.

Complying with FATCA’s due diligence, remediation, withholding and reporting requirements poses many challenges related to the following:

  • Future-proofing operating models in line with the evolution of global tax compliance regulations
  • Accommodating multi-jurisdictional solutions to ensure regulatory compliance across the global operations
  • Data aggregation, search and analytics
  • Account due diligence, classification and remediation
  • Ability to identify income sources
  • Ability to link income to the source
  • Ability to capture withholdable and reportable payments

An end-to-end compliance approach is needed with support from trusted partners with deep and proven compliance, risk and technology know-how.

What we offer

CGI offers high-quality, end-to-end FATCA services designed to facilitate on time, on budget compliance, as well as provide the flexibility and scalability to meet evolving regulatory requirements. We advocate a scalable, modular approach to compliance, which addresses the requirements in a practical, phased-in manner and ensures seamless integration with existing IT architectures. We help to facilitate auditability and governance at every stage of the process.

Our FATCA services include the following:

FATCA consulting and program leadership

  • Program governance, assurance and delivery management
  • Operating model impact assessment and design
  • Alignment with existing KYC / AML process
  • Future-proof for both IRS and other similar International regulations

FATCA data management services for due diligence

  • Accelerated data profiling and cleansing tools
  • FATCA-related data capture and secure FATCA data storage facility
  • Data dictionary and rules based on FATCA and IGA regulations.
  • Data analytics to identify and pre-classify “U.S. accounts” across multiple internal/external structured and unstructured data sources
  • Specialized agile dashboard reporting

FATCA remediation and case management

  • Onboarding, BPM and case management platform
  • Automation of due diligence and remediation process across multiple channels, reducing time and cost to compliance
  • Customer experience enhancement

FATCA withholding and reporting

  • Automated scrutiny of payments to identify “withholdable” US source payments
  • Automated reporting to the IRS or tax authorities in FATCA-partner IGA countries in accordance with prescribed formats
  • Account holder reporting and internal MIS reporting

Why CGI?

CGI has more than 25 years of regulatory compliance expertise within the financial services sector, including specialized FATCA compliance know-how and solutions. We have been working with clients on FATCA projects since 2011. We’ve built a FATCA-specific data storage facility, along with FACTA intellectual property that can be adapted to multi-jurisdictional FATCA requirements. In addition, we offer deep knowledge of the operational impact of FACTA and how to best prepare for it.

CGI’s FATCA expertise and experience, combined with our global capabilities in managed services and global strategic partnerships, address our clients’ end-to-end FATCA compliance needs, while delivering flexibility, quality and cost-effectiveness. We’re helping clients to reduce the cost of compliance with strategic solutions that reduce the regulatory burden and create competitive advantage.