FATCA and Common Reporting Standards (CRS) Guidance

This document covers an introduction to FATCA, the intergovernmental agreement between the UAE and the United States and general guidance on the application of FATCA to ADGM regulated entities.

Please note: The ADGM portal URL as mentioned on page 55 of the Guidance Notes, is currently unavailable. Once the URL is available, the guidance notes will be updated accordingly.

The UAE will commence the reporting of information for tax purposes, pursuant to the OECD’s Common Reporting Standards (CRS), in 2018. This follows the UAE Cabinet’s recent decision for the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to co-ordinate with various government authorities and financial services regulators (including the ADGM Registration Authority and the ADGM FSRA) in order for financial institutions to collect information when implementing the UAE CRS obligations.

To facilitate these reporting requirements, the MoF intends to be a signatory to the Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Related Matters (MAC) and the Administrative Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA). At the same time the MoF will require the relevant government authorities to issue regulations for financial institutions for the collection and reporting of this information.

To meet the 2018 timeline, all financial institutions are required to commence collection of relevant information from 1 January 2017, or if they commence operations after that date, from the date of commencement.

The MoF has provided guidance notes and draft regulations on CRS to assist all financial institutions to better understand the collection and reporting obligations.

The UAE joined the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in 2010.

This document is a new requirement from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), received via the UAE Ministry of Finance, that is applicable for Reporting Periods 2017-2019.