UAE to start sharing bank info with IRS

Financial institutions in the UAE will start sharing extensive data of account holders with a US nationality from July 1st with the Internal Revenue Services (IRS), or the American tax collecting authority.

On May 23rd the UAE Central Bank has officially signed the agreement stating that all Foreign Financial Institutions (FFI) in the UAE will answer to the request of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) to share information about any account, assets, or transactions that are linked to the US with the IRS.

According to the list that counts all foreign institutions that have complied with the agreement, there are at this point 136 institutions that will share the data, with names such as National Health Insurance Company Daman, State Bank of India and Union National Bank included.

“The UAE had already consented to being included on this list of participating countries, but they have now signed the agreement. This means that from July 1st, all financial institutions in the UAE must comply with the act or they will be subjected to a 30 per cent tax withdrawal,” explained Virginia La Torre-Jeker, a Dubai-based American tax specialist.

In her latest blog post See if your bank is FATCA-compliant (http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2014/06/03/see-if-your-bank-is-fatca-compliant) she refers to the Search and Download Tool (http://apps.irs.gov/app/fatcaFfiList/flu.jsf), where individuals can look up whether their financial institution is on the list.

“You can search by country or by name of the institution, she explains. “When it says branch, it refers to a foreign branch located in the UAE- link