UK FATCA & CRS Deadline Update

The United Kingdom’s tax authority (HMRC) issued an update today regarding the deadline for CRS and FATCA Y2019 reporting. The normal annual deadline for both FATCA and CRS is May 31. HMRC did not change this deadline but expressed its understanding that financial institutions may not be able to file timely because of the pandemic. Accordingly, HMRC stated:

“any financial institution that files a return late because of Covid 19 difficulties will have a reasonable excuse (and so will not be liable to any penalties for that delay) provided the report is made without unreasonable delay after they are resolved.”

I recommend that you not consider this to be an open-ended extension. If you are able to move forward with reporting preparation you should continue doing so.

If the bottleneck is your third-party reporting service, you should prepare as much as possible internally because once your service provider is back on track, all of its clients will be expecting to be first in the queue.

For assistance, please contact me via my contact page or at elizabeth@elizabethmcmorrowlaw.com.