Government of Kuwait Select Vizor’s Solution for FATCA & AEOI

Today, Vizor Ltd. announced the Kuwaiti Ministry of Finance went live with the Vizor AEOI Solution for Tax Authorities. The new Vizor system helps gather FATCA returns from financial institutions (FIs) and facilitates the production of an extract for transmission to the IRS. The most notable feature of the solution is an online portal accessible by Kuwaiti FIs to register and report the required account data.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires Tax Authorities in countries with a signed Model 1 Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the US, to report information to the IRS.

Signed by Khalifa Hamada, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance on April 29th, 2015, the US-Kuwait IGA sees FATCA requirements brought into domestic law, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank & Capital Market Authority. Kuwaiti Financial Institutions are thus required to undertake certain due diligence and verification procedures to identify accounts held by US persons and report information on these accounts to the Ministry of Finance – Kuwait who will, in turn, report the information to the IRS.

Feature Highlights of the Vizor AEOI solution:

• Financial Institution self-registration and account creation.
• Extensive validation of FATCA 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” published by the IRS.
• Configuration options for running in “fully automated” mode; 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 the FATCA data schema as it changes over time.
• Automated exchange of information with the IRS.

“*We are pleased that the Ministry of Finance – State of Kuwait has selected Vizor,” remarked Conor Crowley, CEO of Vizor Software. “To date, more than a quarter of all financial institutions in Model 1 jurisdictions globally are submitting their FATCA reports through the Vizor for FATCA & AEOI solution.*”

About Ministry of Finance – State of Kuwait The Ministry of Finance is one of the new cabinets of the administrative system state, and is entrusted with the executive public administration and financial affairs in the State of Kuwait, overseeing the public treasury destinations, state property (public and private), international economic cooperation, monetary and investment. The Ministry also provides important public services for the hospitality, housing, and state employees, services integrated financial systems, storage systems, public procurement, and other systems for all financial sectors with the state. In addition, the Ministry prepares draft public budgets, final accounts of the state, and develops rules, implementation and follow-up regulatory oversight of state revenues, including tax revenue stamps, and expenditure.

For more information on The Ministry of Finance – State of Kuwait: http://www.mof.gov.kw/