About the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA):
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was passed as part of the HIRE Act and generally requires that foreign financial Institutions and certain other non-financial foreign entities report on the foreign assets held by their U.S. account holders or be subject to withholding on withholdable payments. The HIRE Act also contained legislation requiring U.S. persons to report, depending on the value, their foreign financial accounts and foreign assets.
FATCA Compliance:
Optimum Invest SAL (OI) is registered as a Participating Foreign Financial Institution (PFFI) and has obtained a Global Intermediary Identification Number (GIIN) with the IRS.
For the purpose of observing and maintaining full compliance, OI has developed policies and procedures to ensure compliance with FATCA customer identification, reporting and withholding requirements.
Periodic trainings are provided to individuals engaged in client facing, reporting and control activities for the purpose of keeping them abreast of the latest FATCA related matters and developments and raise their awareness regarding updated reporting and control requirements.
About the Common Reporting Standard (CRS):
The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) was developed in response to the G20 request and approved by the OECD Council on 15 July 2014, calls on jurisdictions to obtain information from their financial institutions and automatically exchange that information with other jurisdictions on an annual basis. It sets out the financial account information to be exchanged, the financial institutions required to report, the different types of accounts and taxpayers covered, as well as common due diligence procedures to be followed by financial institutions.
CRS Compliance:
Lebanese Law # 55 “Automatic exchange of information†enacted on 27/10/2016 and the OECD Standard for Automatic exchange of information in tax matters, also known as the Common Reporting Standards or CRS require financial institutions to collect and report certain financial and non-financial information of an account holder depending on their tax residency.
For the purpose of observing and maintaining full compliance, OI has developed policies and procedures to ensure compliance with CRS customer identification and reporting requirements.
Periodic trainings are provided to individuals engaged in client facing, reporting and control activities for the purpose of keeping them abreast of the latest CRS related matters and developments and raise their awareness regarding updated reporting and control requirements.
