FATCA Regulations on Cross Border Financing - IPBA 2012

FFIs and Identification of U.S. Accounts‣ Under <strong>FATCA</strong>, a participating FFI must determine whether existing individualaccounts are U.S. accounts, non-U.S. accounts or recalcitrant accounts.‣ Interim guidance from the IRS provides procedures for FFIs to identify U.S.accounts among their existing individual accounts and also imposes a newrequirement that FFIs to certify that they have completed the identification oftheir existing accounts.‣ The guidance attempts to distinguish between higher-risk and lower-risk accountsfor purposes of identification, with a more thorough review of the former, as wellas a continuing obligation to perform in-depth reviews of information relating toaccounts that become higher-risk accounts.gsblaw.com 17