Baku, Azerbaijan, July 18
By Emin Aliyev - Trend:
Some 31 commercial banks of Azerbaijan have already joined the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) system, via which the Azerbaijani tax authorities will provide information on U.S. citizens' accounts, the IRS told Trend on July 18.
Earlier, Azerbaijan and the IRS agreed to conclude an intergovernmental agreement on the Azerbaijani banks' compliance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
Starting from July 1, 2014 the banks of all countries should join the system of the IRS.
FATCA imposes a 30 percent withholding tax on payments of U.S. source income made to non-U.S. financial institutions unless they enter into an agreement with the IRS and disclose information about their U.S. account holders.
A similar collection is planned to be deducted from revenues of the sale of securities and even transit payments starting from 2017.
The following banks have been registered with the IRS as of late June: Bank Respublika, VTB Bank (Azerbaijan), AGBank, Bank BTB, Rabitabank, Bank of Azerbaijan, Unibank, YapiKredi Bank Azərbaycan, Bank Silk Way, AccessBank, Bank Standard, Ekspressbank, DekaBank, NBC Bank, AFB Bank, Azərbaycan Senaye Banki, as well as the Baku branch of the National Bank of Iran (Bank Melli Iran) and YapiKredi Invest LLC.
Earlier, the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), Bank Technique, Zaminbank, Bank Avrasiya, Azer Turk Bank, Muganbank, Caucasian Development Bank, Kapital Bank, Pasha Bank, Gunay Bank, DemirBank, Xalq Bank, Turan Bank, Nikoil Bank and AtaBank were registered with the IRS.
The Baku office of Baker Tilly (British auditing and consulting company), as well as, the IBA and Pasha Bank subsidiaries in Georgia - the 'International Bank of Azerbaijan-Georgia' and 'Pasha Bank Georgia' were also registered with the Internal Revenue Service.
Azerbaijan was included on the IRS list of cooperating countries in May, 2014, and the deadline for Azerbaijani financial institutions' registration in the U.S. tax authority's system was extended until December 31, 2014.
The finalization of the Azerbaijani-U.S. intergovernmental agreement, completion of all necessary domestic procedures and the agreement's signing will take place before late 2014.
An additional document regulating the practical organization of information exchange, ensuring privacy and covering other issues is expected to be signed before late September 2015.
Edited by CN
