The Cayman Islands FATCA Working Group has produced the first draft of the Guidance Notes on the International Tax Compliance Requirements of the Intergovernmental Agreements between the Cayman Islands and the United States of America and the United Kingdom. 

These guidance notes are being circulated today by the Ministry of Financial Services, Commerce and Environment, for industry feedback. 

These guidance notes are to provide practical assistance to industry in interpreting the US and UK FATCA agreements. Together with draft primary legislation published on 20 April 2014 as a green bill, and draft regulations that will be circulated for consultation shortly, the guidance notes are a key component of Cayman’s automatic exchange of information (AEOI) regime for the implementation of the US and UK agreements. 

The FATCA Working Group also has established an IT subgroup to focus on the technical modalities of AEOI for tax purposes. These modalities will follow the published IRS schema and, when complete, the OECD schema for the common reporting standard (CRS). 

The Ministry is seeking feedback on these guidance notes from the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs, and the US Department of the Treasury. Industry also is invited to provide feedback by Friday, 6 June, to nangel.kwong@gov.ky in the Ministry’s Department of Financial Services Policy and  Legislation