Form 8957 – FATCA Registration Process (DRAFT for public review and comment)
A DRAFT of the FATCA registration form for financial institutions is available by clicking on the following link: Draft Form
Registration Process: The draft form is released here for public review and comment and should not be printed and submitted by a financial institution in an attempt to register for FATCA. FATCA registration can be accomplished most efficiently and effectively through an electronic online process that will avoid the need to print, complete, and mail paper forms. The online registration portal will be available in July 2013. The questions that will be presented in the online process will look very similar to the questions shown on the draft form released here, but they will be presented differently to make electronic completion of the process as simple as possible. Financial institutions registering through the online process will receive notice of registration acceptance and obtain the Global Intermediary Identification Number (GIIN) needed to demonstrate FATCA compliance on an expedited basis.
Paper alternative: The IRS will also accept registrations that are made on paper forms. Financial institutions should not, however, use the DRAFT form released here to submit a paper registration. A final paper registration form that can be used for registration will be made available in July 2013. Financial institutions, however, are strongly encouraged to use the online registration process after it becomes available in July 2013. Paper registration forms will not be processed until October 2013 and financial institutions may experience a delay in receiving notice of registration acceptance and obtaining the GIIN needed to demonstrate FATCA compliance.
Page Last Reviewed or Updated: 05-Apr-2013
I guess corporations really are people, based on the engineering of these forms.
From IRS today:
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/International-Businesses/IRS-FFI-List-Schema-and-Test-Files
FFI List Schema and Test Files
Under FATCA, withholding agents must withhold tax on certain payments to foreign financial institutions (FFIs) that do not agree to report certain information to the IRS about their U.S. accounts or accounts of certain foreign entities with substantial U.S. owners.
An FFI may agree to report certain information about its account holders by registering to be FATCA compliant. An FFI that has registered to be FATCA compliant and that has been issued a global intermediary identification number (GIIN) will appear on a published FFI List. Withholding agents may rely on an FFI’s claim of FATCA status based on checking the payee’s GIIN against the published FFI List. This list is scheduled to be published monthly beginning December 2013.
Additional information on FATCA registration and GIIN composition will be provided soon.
If you plan to download the full FFI list, these tools will help you prepare. Note: The published list will contain significantly more records than the test files.
To download files, follow the download process for your browser. For most browsers the best option is to right click and either download or save the file to your computer.
FFI List Schema and Test File (XML)
The FFI List schema contains information about the FFI List that will be published. The XML test file contains dummy data records to illustrate the format and data that will be included in the FFI List.
FATCA-FFILIST-1.0.XSD (6KB) | FFIListEXAMPLE.XML (4KB)
FFI List Test File (CSV)
The CSV test file contains example dummy data to illustrate the format and data that will be included in the FFI List.
FFIListEXAMPLE.CSV (1KB)