What is FATCA and how does it affect me?

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires New Zealand Financial Institutions (like ASB) to collect and share the account information of US persons, US entities and New Zealand entities controlled by US persons with the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department (IRD). The IRD will then pass this information on to the United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

ASB has a regulatory requirement to comply with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

FATCA is United States legislation that aims to reduce tax evasion of US citizens, tax residents and entities that have bank accounts outside of the US.

New Zealand’s involvement with FATCA
FATCA is enabled in New Zealand through the Double Tax Agreements Order 2014 and the Intergovernmental Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding between New Zealand and the United States.

This could affect you
If you receive a letter or email from us relating to FATCA please contact us – even if you think FATCA doesn’t apply to you. We may be required to collect additional information from customers in order to determine their correct FATCA status.

The questions ASB (and other financial institutions) might ask you
To make this as easy for you as possible we can collect this information over the phone. In order to ensure the information we have for your account is correct and meets legal and regulatory requirements, we might ask you:

For Individual Customers:
For your Country(s) of Citizenship
For your Country(s) of Foreign Tax Residence (Countries outside of New Zealand you have an obligation to complete a tax return)
For your Taxpayer Identification Number

For Entity Customers:
The country in which your entity was set up
Whether your entity is a Financial Institution
How your entity generates its income
The Country(s) of Citizenship and Country(s) of Foreign Tax Residence for any controlling individuals linked to your entity

What information is forwarded on to the New Zealand IRD?
Name
Address
Date of birth
Taxpayer Identification Number
Account numbers
Account balances
Interest payments

We will only forward information onto the IRD if it is established that our customer is a US person, a US entity, a certain type of New Zealand entity controlled by US persons, or if a customer does not respond in full to our request for information in relation to FATCA.

What happens if you don’t respond to a financial institution’s FATCA request?
If we do not receive a response from you, we are required to report your non-response, your identity and reportable balance to the New Zealand IRD, who will in turn pass this information to the IRS.

If you have questions about FATCA you can also give our Customer Verification Services team a call on 0800 111 373 (or +64 9 337 4564 if calling from overseas) or via email on CustomerVerificationServices@asb.co.nz.

If you receive a FATCA request from us then please respond.
If you are unsure about your US tax obligations we recommend you visit the Inland Revenue‘s website or seek professional advice from an independent tax advisor.

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