IRS announces extension to QI certification deadlines IRS announces extension to QI certification deadlines

Important deadlines are approaching for Swiss banks to comply with their QI and FATCA obligations. Read on to find out more about these deadlines and recent extensions.

On 8 April 2021, the IRS updated FAQ 10 concerning the due dates for Responsible Officers to submit their QI periodic certifications.

The updated FAQ confirms that limited extensions of time will be granted to submit the QI Responsible Officer certifications, depending on which year was selected for the Periodic Review. The deadline extensions are summarised below:

The extensions of time above are automatic (i.e. no election/application is required in order to apply the extended deadline).

The deadline extensions will be very much welcomed by QIs. QIs that have not yet finalised their Periodic Review will need to ensure that the project is managed and organised effectively in the coming months in order to ensure that the Responsible Officer will be ready to make the certifications by the extended deadline.

QIs should be aware that IRS FAQ 9 continues to state that Responsible Officers must log-on to the QI Portal and select their review year (either 2018, 2019, or 2020), no later than 1 July 2021. No extensions to this deadline have been announced. QIs that wish to apply for a waiver of the periodic review requirement must select 2018 as review year.

QIs should take note of this requirement and ensure that action is taken in a timely manner, especially since this task can easily be overlooked and can be confused as being a task to complete at the same time as the actual certification.

QIs that have applied for the automatic 30 day extension to the Form 1042-S filing deadline are reminded that such extended deadline falls on 14 April 2021 (and not 15 April 2021).

As it stands today, the IRS has unfortunately not (yet) made any announcements regarding possible deadline extensions for the FATCA Responsible Officer certifications. The certification deadline currently stands at 1 July 2021.

Given that the IRS has now announced an extension to the QI certification deadline, we would expect the IRS to announce a similar extension to the FATCA certification deadline shortly (anything else would be surprising). However, absent any announcement from the IRS to the contrary, the FATCA Responsible Officers of Swiss Financial Institutions (and FIs in other Model 2 IGA countries, or countries without IGA) should endeavour to be in a position to make the necessary FATCA certifications by 1 July 2021.