The International Tax Authority of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) on June 5, 2024, hosted a webinar for investment entities subject to common reporting standard (CRS) reporting and obligations.
The webinar provided a comprehensive overview of the requirements for filing CRS reports and detailed the submission process via the BVIFARs portal. In addition, the webinar provided guidance with respect to deregistration of entities through the portal.
The deregistration guidelines are as follows:
- Virgin Islands financial institutions that no longer qualify as a financial institution, are no longer in existence (e.g., due to liquidation), or are no longer a resident of the Virgin Islands (e.g., relocated to another jurisdiction) can submit a deactivation notification via the BVIFARs portal, provided all reporting obligations for prior years have been fulfilled.
- However, financial institutions that have been struck off cannot deregister unless they no longer meet the definition of a financial institution, as they remain legally existent until they are statutorily dissolved.
- Deregistration requests may trigger compliance actions, especially if the financial institution previously filed reportable accounts. In such cases, the financial institution must provide information to the compliance unit before final deactivation approval. This is essential, as the ITA must notify the relevant jurisdictions that the financial institution will no longer file reportable accounts. Similarly, if a financial institution was misclassified, or it was never a financial institution, and had filed reportable accounts, the ITA must inform jurisdictions that no further filings will occur from the financial institution.
- Notably, financial institutions with reportable accounts must provide that all required information, such as taxpayer identification numbers (TINs), dates of birth, and account numbers, are accurately filed and reported up to the date of the deregistration application. Financial institutions with no reportable accounts must file nil reports up to the date of the deregistration application.
Read a June 2024 report prepared by the KPMG member firm in the British Virgin Islands