Variations to the Cayman Islands AEOI regime for all Cayman Reporting Financial Institutions
The Cayman Islands Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) regime has been varied in the following ways:
FATCA and CRS reporting deadlines extended All Cayman Reporting Financial Institutions must file FATCA and CRS annual returns with the Cayman Islands government pursuant to the AEOI legislation. The annual filing has traditionally been made on the Tax Information Authority’s (TIA) AEOI portal, however the Department for International Tax Cooperation (DITC), under which the TIA falls, is developing a new portal to accommodate all forms of reporting. The new portal will be called the DITC portal and will not be available until June 2020. Consequently, the AEOI reporting deadline in 2020 for all Cayman Reporting Financial Institutions (for the 2019 financial year) has been extended to 18 September 2020. This extension is in addition to the recent amendments to the AEOI legislation that changed the annual AEOI reporting deadline to 31 July (from 31 May) each year. List of reportable jurisdictions expanded The list of reportable jurisdictions has been expanded to include: Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Nigeria, Oman and Peru. FATCA regime now includes the concept of an AP The FATCA regime now requires an AP to be appointed whose role is to liaise with the TIA when the PPOC is changing, in the same way as currently required under the CRS regulations. Entities now able to act as PPOC and AP In the recent amendments to the AEOI legislation Cayman Reporting Financial Institutions can now appoint a legal entity, rather than an individual, as the PPOC and AP. This will greatly reduce the administrative burden of having to file PPOC and AP changes each time an individual leaves the employment of the Cayman Islands Financial Institution or its service provider. The PPOC and AP must be different entities, unless the entity is licensed by CIMA. CIMA licensee may act as both the PPOC and AP The TIA will now allow an entity that is licensed by CIMA to act as both the PPOC and AP. With this change Harneys Fiduciary can act as both the PPOC and AP for your institution. A summary of all these changes together with the updated institutional user guide was published by the TIA on 17 March 2020 here on the TIA website. Harneys has an experienced AEOI team that can assist with any queries and now also act as both the PPOC and AP. Please reach out to your usual Harneys representative or visit www.harneys.com/Cayman. |
