British Virgin Islands Government Launches FATCA & AEOI Portal with Vizor Software

Today, Vizor Ltd. announced that BVI went live with the Vizor AEOI solution for Tax Authorities. The British Virgin Islands Government (BVIG) has an Agreement with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to comply with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a United States Government (USG) tax-reporting initiative. BVIG has also signed a similar agreement with Government of the United Kingdom (UKG) and reporting under this Agreement starts in 2016. In addition, with the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters being extended to the BVI and the BVI adopting the Common Reporting Standards, in 2017 the BVIG will also exchange information with Tax Authorities in other jurisdictions. The intention is for BVIG to use the Vizor platform for the Exchange of Information under these Agreements.

These Agreements introduce a new reporting regime which requires BVI Financial Institutions to identify all relevant reportable accounts and report to the BVIG those relevant accounts. In turn the BVIG will transmit that information to the respective Governments. This new reporting regime is automatic and under these Agreements reporting is required on an annual basis.

The Vizor AEOI solution has also been implemented in other jurisdictions, including Kuwait, Bahamas and the Cayman Islands where more than one quarter of all global FATCA-registered financial institutions reside.

Feature Highlights of the Vizor AEOI solution:

• Financial Institution self-registration and account creation.
• Extensive validation of FATCA and CRS data, including validation against XML schema, validation against account information, GIIN validation, and many additional business rules such as those specified in the “FATCA XML version 1.1 User Guide”.
• Configuration options for running in “fully automated” mode so that little or no manual interaction with the system is required for the Tax Authority.
• Management reports for monitoring, tracking and reviewing information within the system.
• Support for changes to FATCA and CRS data schemas.
• Automated exchange of information with other jurisdictions such UK and other countries that have signed up to the OECD’s Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and its Common Reporting Standard from 2017.

“We are very pleased to be working with the BVIG,” remarked Conor Crowley, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Vizor Software, “and we are proud to have a role in the fulfilment of their mandate to fight against tax evasion and promote tax transparency.”

About the British Virgin Islands Government One of the world’s leading offshore financial centres, with one of the highest incomes per capita in the Caribbean the mission of BVIG is to provide strategic, economic and fiscal leadership that promotes the sustainable economic development of the Virgin Islands through Leadership, Integrity, and Service.

You can learn more the British Virgin Islands Government International Tax Authority on their website: http://www.bvi.gov.vg/ministry-finance-international-tax-authority