The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is U.S. legislation enacted by US Congress to prevent offshore tax abuses by U.S. persons.

The FATCA rules are wide-ranging and force global financial institutions, investment entities, as well as national banks and other financial organizations to report details on their U.S. clients directly. FATCA arrived at a time when financial institutions already faced a range of significant economic and regulatory challenges, testing many banks capability and capacity to deliver. The FATCA requirements introduce a series of business and systems requirements that are simple in concept, but maybe difficult and costly to operationalize. The aim for financial institutions is to meet the new compliance burden at a cost that is proportionate to the compliance risk faced.

Some of the areas that differentiate KPMG’s approach to FATCA include:

Global network of FATCA experts
Confidence in working with market-leading experts on FATCA
Real investment to deliver results for clients
Established FATCA methodology to reduce time and costs

Tomás Machado

Partner, Head of Tax

KPMG in The Bahamas

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Due to the complexity and impact of FATCA, KPMG has combined the expertise and knowledge base of professionals from around the global network of member firms, including KPMG in the US's, Washington National tax practice. We have formed a Global Advisory Board of experts of experienced senior representatives from various disciplines including Forensic, Performance and Technology, and Tax practices. This group of senior leaders meets regularly to share best practices, tackle strategic issues and develop and refine solutions for clients.

Our FATCA global team includes former IRS professionals, who previously worked on FATCA and are the leading voices on this legislation in the market. As the leading provider of Qualified Intermediary audits, we have hands on understanding of withholding, reporting and customer remediation that will form the backbone of FATCA compliance.

With a good understanding of the impact and complexity of FATCA, KPMG has invested significant resources to developing the necessary tools and services to help clients get in shape for FATCA. For example, we have developed a robust training program to ensure consistently high comprehension of this legislation across our multi-disciplinary teams. We have trained over 150 professionals across the KPMG network through our FATCA Academy and have the ability to tailor our training sessions to meet the needs of our clients.

Using the experience gained from assisting other major financial institutions on FATCA, we have developed a leading methodology that increases efficiency, reduces implementation time and cuts the cost of compliance of our clients significantly. We have won industry awards for our ability to flex our models to meet the unique needs of our clients at technical and operational levels.