Registrar and transfer (R&T) agents are reaching out to investors to comply with Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) guidelines.
AMFI has recently issued uniform guidelines for fund houses to follow FATCA guidelines, which came into effect from November 01. AMCs are now updating the additional information of existing investors with the help of distributors and R&Ts.
In the past three days, over 1 lakh investors have updated their records with CAMS, said the press release issued by CAMS.
CAMS and Karvy have facilitated investors to update their details online. Also, large distributors have been provided standardized format to electronically submit the declaration forms, the CAMS release said.
The new declaration form requires information like type of address (residence, business, registered office etc.), country of tax residence, tax identification number, Global Intermediary Identification Number (GIIN) and seeks investors consent for sharing the information with relevant tax authorities.
FATCA is an anti-tax evasion law under which fund houses are required to report information on US investors to US IRS (Internal Revenue Service) through CBDT. India has agreed ‘in substance’ to FATCA by signing an Intergovernmental Agreement Model 1 (IGA-1) with US with effect from July 9, 2015. Simply put, the legislation is meant to prevent wealthy US individuals from parking money overseas to avoid paying taxes.
Many AMCs had stopped accepting fresh investments from US investors due to stringent compliance requirement.
