7.1 FATCA reporting of US TINs
The information required to be reported by a Reportable Financial Institution (RFI) includes the US taxpayer identification number (TIN) of each specified US person that is an account holder and, in the case of a non-US entity with one or more specified U.S. persons who are controlling persons, the US TIN of each controlling person. Notwithstanding this reporting requirement, before 2017, an RFI was not required to report a US TIN for a Pre-existing Account if the US TIN was not in the reporting RFI’s records.
The IRS has advised by Notice 2017-46 (PDF, 57.3KB)Opens in a new window that it will not consider an RFI as being in significant non-compliance with the obligations under the FATCA Agreement solely because of a failure to obtain and report each required US TIN, provided that the RFI:
- obtains and reports the date of birth of each account holder and controlling person whose US TIN is not reported
- requests annually from each account holder any missing required US TIN, and
- before reporting information that relates to calendar year 2017 (to the ATO), searches electronically searchable data maintained by the RFI for any missing US TINs.
An RFI that has been unable to collect a US TIN for a US reportable account must, for 2018 calendar year reports due to be lodged by 31 July 2019, use 9 capital As (AAAAAAAAA) to populate the US TIN data element. Nine zeros is no longer acceptable for that year or later years.
US TINs will be mandatory for individuals and Controlling Persons when reporting on the 2020 and subsequent years.