A Foreign Financial Institution includes non-U.S. Financial Institutions that accept deposits, hold financial assets for others, is engaged in investing and reinvesting or trading in securities for others, as well as insurance companies that issue contracts with an investment component. This includes entities such as Banks, Funds, Insurance Companies, Trusts, Private Equity Companies, and Special Purpose Entities.

The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis signed a Model 1B Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the United States Government on August 31, 2015. The Agreement requires the Financial Institutions with the Federation, registered with the US IRS for FATCA purposes, to submit such information to a Competent Authority. The Competent Authority would therefore be responsible for submitting such information to the US IRS. The IGA and Annexes are available on this website.

The Competent Authority for St. Kitts and Nevis is the Financial Secretary. The Competent Authority designate is the Comptroller of Inland Revenue.

All FATCA related inquiries should be submitted to the Competent Authority Designate at (869) 465-8485 or via email at www.fatca@sknird.com.

FATCA requires reporting by an FFI to the IRS, any off-shore asset or account held by a U.S. person with a value or balance exceeding US$50,000.00. FATCA also requires the reporting of accounts held by foreign entities with a value or balance exceeding US$250,000, where a U.S. taxpayer holds substantial ownership interest that is greater than 10% in such entity.

A Foreign Financial Institution includes non-U.S. Financial Institutions that accept deposits, hold financial assets for others, is engaged in investing and reinvesting or trading in securities for others, as well as insurance companies that issue contracts with an investment component. This includes entities such as Banks, Funds, Insurance Companies, Trusts, Private Equity Companies, and Special Purpose Entities.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has developed a series of codes that can be used to populate the TIN field of the FATCA XML Schema to assist them with understanding the circumstance under which a TIN has not been obtained by FIs. These relate to 2020 FATCA data and future years.

• 222222222 – Preexisting individual account with only U.S. indicia being a U.S. place of birth.
• 333333333 – New individual account that (1) has indicia of a U.S. place of birth, and (2) either:
  • (a) has a change in circumstances causing the self-certification originally obtained at account opening to be incorrect or unreliable, and a new self-certification has not been obtained, or
  • (b) was below the threshold for documenting and reporting the account at the time of account opening and subsequently exceeded the threshold, and a self-certification has not been obtained.
• 444444444 – Preexisting individual and entity account that (1) has U.S, indicia other than a U.S. place of birth, and (2) either:
  • (a) has a change in circumstances, causing the self-certification or other documentation originally obtained to be incorrect or unreliable, and a new self-certification or other documentation has not been obtained, or
  • (b) was below the threshold for documenting and reporting the account at the time of account opening and subsequently exceeded the threshold, and a self-certification or other documentation has not been obtained.
• 555555555 – New individual and entity account that has a U.S, indicia other than a U.S. place of birth, and (2) either:
  • (a) has a change in circumstances causing the self-certification or other documentation originally obtained to be incorrect or unreliable, and a new self-certification or other documentation has not been obtained, or
  • (b) was below the threshold for documenting and reporting the account at the time of account opening and subsequently exceeded the threshold, and a self-certification or other documentation has not been obtained.
• 666666666 – Preexisting entity account with account balance exceeding $1,000,000 held by a passive NFFE with respect to which no self-certifications have not been obtained, and no U.S. indicia have been identified in relation to its controlling persons.
• 777777777 – For pre-existing accounts where there is no TIN available and the account has been dormant or inactive, but remains above the reporting threshold, also known as a “dormant account”. For reference, the U.S. defines “dormant account” in U.S. Treasury Regulations §1.1471-4(d)(6)(ii).

Please note that the use of these codes is not mandatory and does not mean that an FI will not be at risk for being found significantly non-compliant due to a failure to report each required U.S. TIN. The IRS system will still generate an error notification to indicate the entry is invalid when one of the above codes is used. Moreover, entering nine As or 0s will no longer suppress the error notification beginning with the 2020 calendar year data. The error notification will provide 120 days to correct the issues.

Financial Institutions can enrol with the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Competent Authority anytime beginning February 22, 2016, however the deadline to enrol with the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Competent Authority to submit the 2014 FATCA data is February 29, 2016.

No. There is no requirement for Financial Institutions to submit a Nil Report and as such, Financial Institutions are not required to enrol with the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Competent Authority if there is nothing to report. However, the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Competent Authority will accept a Nil Report, so Financial Institutions wishing to submit a Nil Report will have to enrol to do so.

For the 2014 FATCA data, the submission deadline is March 11, 2016. For subsequent years the submission deadline is August 29th.

Each Financial Institution can have up to four (4) users; a primary user and three (3) secondary users. The primary user will be responsible to create and manage the secondary users.

Yes. Financial Institutions must register with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and obtain its GIIN before its enrolment is approved, as the GIIN is a mandatory field on the Enrolment Form

Yes. Sponsoring Entities are required to enrol with the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Competent Authority, in order to submit information to the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS Competent Authority on behalf of their Sponsored Entities.

No. The Sponsoring Entity can be located within or outside of ST. KITTS AND NEVIS. In the circumstances where the Sponsoring Entity is located outside of ST. KITTS AND NEVIS, the Sponsoring Entity will be allowed to use a non-ST. KITTS AND NEVIS address on the enrolment application.

Yes. Sponsoring Entities must register with the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and obtain a GIIN before they enrol with the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Competent Authority.

No. Sponsored Entities do not have to enrol with the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Competent Authority. However, Sponsoring Entities are to note that the enrolment application must be made in the name of the Sponsoring Entity and not in the name of the Sponsored Entity and the GIIN provided should be that of the Sponsoring Entity.

Yes. The ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Portal has the capability to accept multiple accounts in a single upload, whether directly from a Financial Institution or from Sponsoring Entities.

No. Financial Institutions will only be able to submit information electronically, via the ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Portal to satisfy their obligations under the US FATCA Agreement.

ST. KITTS AND NEVIS FATCA Portal will only accept filings in an XML format, as this is the acceptable format stipulated by the US XML FATCA Schema. Alternatively, Financial Institutions can use the manual entry form to enter their data into the system. The system will convert the manual data to the required XML format before submission to the IRS.