[26720]
November 26, 2012
TO: ICI GLOBAL TAX COMMITTEE No. 18-12 RE: ICI GLOBAL SUBMISSION TO UK'S HMRC ON IMPLEMENTING THE UK/US FATCA
ICI Global filed the attached submission on the consultation document [1] published by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) on the UK-US intergovernmental agreement (“IGA”) to implement the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) legislation. IGAs, in our view, are the most efficient and least costly way to achieve FATCA’s goals.
HMRC’s consultation document is particularly important because the United Kingdom was the first country to sign an IGA with the United States. The decisions reached in the UK regarding how FATCA will be implemented under local law may inform other countries after they sign IGAs.
The ICI Global submission expresses strong support for HMRC’s consultative process for developing administrable rules to implement the IGA. Because we intend for this document to be valuable to other countries as they enter into IGAs with the US, our submission responds to HMRC’s questions by issue, rather than sequentially. In particular, the submission addresses: (1) the fund as an investment entity (in general and in an umbrella structure), (2) the fund’s investment manager as an investment entity and the relationship to the fund, (3) the fund’s distributors and their relationship to the fund, (4) reliance on third parties, (5) the need for a centralized compliance registration and reporting option, (6) the need for consistency across IGAs (uniform data formats and transmission protocols), (7) timing considerations, (8) corrections grace periods, minor errors and penalty relief; and (9) other compliance issues.
Keith Lawson
Senior Counsel - Tax Law
endnotes
[1]http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageExcise_RatesCodesTools&propertyType=document&id=HMCE_PROD1_032308