Fenergo Unveils Automated Tax Forms for FATCA Compliance
Fenergo, a software firm specializing in client onboarding, has launched a "FATCA self-certification" package to automate the collection of tax forms from U.S. persons living overseas.
Under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, to be effective early next year, foreign financial institutions -- including banks -- must fork over information to ether the Internal Revenue Service or their local tax authority on possible US persons and their US sourced income. If they don't they will be subject to a maximum withholding tax of 30 percent on all US sourced income and payments. Customers of the foreign financial firms will be guided through a step by step filing process which requires that every field be completed before the form can be submitted to the financial firm.
The Fenergo "self-certification software" will validate the information on the form in real-time against the IRS' predefined rule sets to reduce invalid submissions. It will automatically verify the IRS identification number to ensure it exists and is correct before allowing the form to be submitted. It also generates a PDF version of the completed W8 and W9 forms which is then attached to the customer's records.
The information collected by the software can be extracted and populated into a client database automatically applying the appropriate client classification in accordance with FATCA. In addition the software automatically schedules the review of submitted data every three years to ensure continued FATCA compliance when detecting a change in the customer's account.
Written by Chris Kentouris, Editor-in-chief (Chris can be reached through Chris.Kentouris@hotmail.com)
