Insights
FATCA & CRS for Private Funds: Precision Matters
Understand how FATCA and CRS classification decisions affect compliance for private funds. Learn when entities may need to register, when nil filings arise, and how precision can reduce unnecessary administrative burden while maintaining defensibility. Overview In...
Why FATCA & CRS Obligations Are Missed
It’s Usually Not the Rules — It’s the Questions That Weren’t Asked. The problem (we see this a lot): Funds often work with service providers and counterparties expecting them to “handle FATCA and CRS”, and reasonably assume compliance will be completed correctly. Most...
US Retreat from Beneficial Ownership Reporting: Implications
Global tax evasion is estimated to cost governments approximately $500 billion annually in lost revenue—funds that could otherwise support public services or reduce tax burdens for compliant taxpayers. A key enabler of this loss is the use of complex cross-border...
US Beneficial Owner Reporting: Reporting Companies
ALERT [Updated March 26, 2025]: All entities created in the United States — including those previously known as “domestic reporting companies” — and their beneficial owners are now exempt from the requirement to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to FinCEN....
US Beneficial Owner Reporting: US CTA
ALERT [Updated March 26, 2025]: All entities created in the United States — including those previously known as “domestic reporting companies” — and their beneficial owners are now exempt from the requirement to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to FinCEN....
US Beneficial Owner Reporting: Who, What, When and How
ALERT [Updated March 26, 2025]: All entities created in the United States — including those previously known as “domestic reporting companies” — and their beneficial owners are now exempt from the requirement to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to FinCEN....
FATCA & CRS Classifications for Private Equity
Note: when we use the term "private equity" we use this as a synonym for private market funds of all types. It appears this term is still more familiar to the general audience, and it is easier to abbreviate ("PE") when writing blogs and articles. Contrary...
US Withholding: US Source Rules
Not all payments received from US payers are subject to US withholding. Withholding is generally determined based on US sourcing rules as well as whether any exceptions apply. Regardless of whether withholding applies, the recipient will still need to provide a US...
Emprise Case Study: Managing US Income Withholding
Our Client is a private equity fund manager with €1 billion AUM, a small back office, and a few US investments. They came to Optax because they needed to provide complete and valid documentation to the US payor. Other than collecting US forms as a part of their...
What Is The Purpose Of US Withholding Tax?
In our last post we identified that a valid US tax form is required to reduce or eliminate withholding tax on certain payments of US source income made to fund investors, but why is there US withholding tax? If a non-US person (including individuals and...
Why Are US Tax Forms Necessary For Private Equity?
The private equity tax compliance process is a challenge, especially when there are US investors or US investments; funds with both are in for quite a show. These funds are often required to prepare K-1s, PFIC statements, and file innumerable other paper documents...
Emprise Case Study: Structure Charts for AML/KYC
Our Client is a private equity fund manager with €800 million AUM. The CFO needed a quick way to provide a PDFs of a new structures to meet bank AML/KYC requirements. With only a few people in the back office and a large legal entity structure, I was drowning in...
Coming Soon: New Form W-9
The IRS released a new draft Form W-9 with an intended release date of October. The form includes a new line 3b which must be completed by flow-through entities that have direct or indirect foreign partners, owners, or beneficiaries. This amendment is intended to help...
FATCA & CRS Compliance: All About the Data
Tax authorities have become technologically sophisticated (see our previous article How global tax authorities are embracing technology and how tax teams can learn from them) and combined with the growing need to refill the diminishing coffers of the state, this...
The US as a Tax Haven and the Election’s Impact: US Politics & Global Tax Transparency
Tax information disclosure and the proliferation of global tax information exchange agreements have re-shaped the global investment landscape. By transforming behaviours of financial institutions in many countries from those focused on secrecy to those focused...
Quarantine Q&A: Practical FATCA/CRS Questions Answered
For years I have been jealous of other people’s job titles, not necessarily the jobs themselves, just their titles. It is not that many people really judge what one does as a profession, but most at least like to have a basic knowledge so they can overlay...
How global tax authorities are embracing technology and how tax teams can learn from them
In September the OECD released the eighth edition of its annual Tax Administration Series (“TAS”) report. Building on findings from the 2017 and 2018 TAS reports and The Changing Tax Compliance Environment and the Role of Audit report (OECD,...
Lighten the Load: Managing Data for AEOI Compliance
This article was published in Tax Adviser magazine in December 2016. Key Points What is the issue? Managing and analysing the large volumes of data required by CRS is a challenging task for many FIs. What does it mean to me? As traditional tools used...