RFP – Project Management – Tax Information Reporting System

The Ministry of Finance wishes to implement a comprehensive integrated application to manage both the United States of America’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Common Reporting Standard for Automatic Exchange of Information (CRS- AEoI).

In order to achieve FATCA compliance, the Commonwealth of The 8ahamas entered into a Model 2 Inter Governmental Agreement (IGA) with the USA. Through the ISA and enabling legislation, Foreign Financial Institutions (FFI’s) incorporated in The Bahamas are required to report specified information with respect to US account holders to the Competent Authority (CA) in a standardized electronic format established by the IRS. The Competent Authority then transmits that information to the IRS.

Following the establishment of US FATCA, the OECD created a standard for automatic exchange of financial account information in tax matters to establish a global standard for the automatic exchange of information. The scale of CR5 is much greater than FATCA and it extends to any customer who is tax resident in a “reportable jurisdiction”. The Common Transmission System (CTS) platform was created to facilitate the exchange of tax information between Competent Authorities (CAs) around the world, securely and efficiently. Bahamas registered financial institutions (FIs) will submit specified information in the required format to the Bahamas CA which will in turn connect to the crs to exchange that information in a secure way with the relevant CA through the CTS.

The goals and objectives of the engagement include:

  1. Managing the Tax Information Reporting System Project to ensure that The Bahamas meets its
    reporting obligations under FATCA and CRS in a timely, secure and efficient manner;
  2. Managing stakeholder communication to ensure engagement of stakeholders and appropriate
    communication flow;
  3. Preparing internal and external stakeholders for operational changes to take place;
  4. Participation in roll-out activities associated with the launch of the reporting system;
  5. Advising the CA on FATCA and CRS legislation and guidance notes as they relate to reporting
    requirements.

Click here to download the full RFP document.