How to fill FATCA and additional KYC for Mutual Funds Online or Offline through CAMS or Karvy or directly

Effective November 1, 2015, all new investors who wish to purchase units of mutual funds have to provide additional KYC related information required for Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)/CRS compliance. From January 1, 2016 even existing investors who wish to make fresh purchases, need to complete the additional KYC requirements. This article talks about What is FATCA ? How to do FATCA declaration Online? How to fill FATCA declaration offline? How to do it directly or through CAMS & Karvy.

What form has to be filled?

Supplementary KYC, FATCA, CRS self certification form needs to be filled by the investors to comply with the additional KYC requirement.

Who has to fill the Form?

Why does one have to fill Supplementary KYC, FATCA, CRS self certification form?

The Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) between India and US, signed in July 2015 as part of FATCA implementation, requires the Indian Financial Institutions to provide necessary information to Indian tax authorities, which will then be transmitted to the US automatically.

What is FATCA?

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) came into effect from September 30 2015 which has enabled automatic exchange of financial information between India and the US. The FATCA agreement enhances tax transparency and accountability in matters of financial reporting and payment of taxes which are legitimately due to various governments. The basic purpose of FATCA is to prevent US persons from using banks and other financial institutions outside the USA to park their wealth outside US to avoid US taxation on income generated from such wealth.

FATCA is an acronym for the United States (US) Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which was introduced by the US Government in October 2009, but became law as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act on March 18, 2010. FATCA is aimed at ensuring that US persons with financial assets outside of the US pay US tax. The new rules require foreign financial institutions (FFI’s) to provide the IRS(US Income Tax Department) with information on certain investments of U.S. persons invested in accounts outside of the U.S. and for certain non-U.S. entities to provide information about any U.S. owners.

Alike FATCA , Government has further committed to implement a Common Reporting Standard (CRS) as part of reciprocal exchange of information on financial accounts on an automatic basis with other countries/ non-sovereign territories. India would be obligated to get its financial institutions to share financial account information of accountholders who are tax residents in any of these countries. Likewise, India would also get similar information through financial institutions of such treaty countries.

Who all are covered under FATCA?
Those whom the United States government considers as a ‘US person’ will be covered under the act. The following fall under the US person category.