May 27, 2014

Thomson Reuters Expands Solution to Help Financial Institutions Comply With Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act

FATCA Grandfather Obligations solution now includes Material Modifications flags enabling clients to determine tax withholding status for changing debt instruments

NEW YORK/LONDON - Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced enhancements to its Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) Grandfathered Obligations (GO) solution to include material modifications flags. The new material modifications feature will help financial institutions, including custodian banks, better determine the FATCA eligibility of financial instruments when and if an underlying debt modification occurs and changes an instrument's GO status. The full solution will now also monitor material modifications that may remove or add an exemption for FATCA withholding.

The material modifications flag is generated daily and provides customers with a comprehensive overview of all the underlying material changes for millions of instruments in accordance with the FATCA and Thomson Reuters related methodology. Thomson Reuters, last May, launched its FATCA GO solution to identify and tag securities of US sourced dividends, interest and other fixed or determinable annual/ periodic income (FDAP income) and those that are exempt (Grandfathered) from FATCA withholding as of June 30, 2014.

"We developed our material modifications enhancement based on industry engagement and direct feedback from our global custodian clients who asked for full transparency and confidence in meeting FATCA GO withholding requirements," said Chris Perry, global managing director, Risk at Thomson Reuters. "This supports our broader vision to connect and enable the global financial community and builds on the growing portfolio of solutions that we already offer around FATCA, Solvency II, IFRS, Financial Transaction Tax & Dodd Frank."

Filtering nearly twelve million records within Thomson Reuters core databases to identify securities that will be affected by FATCA, the FATCA GO solution specifically provides a leading source of data on securities generating US income and those that meet the IRS requirements as Grandfathered Obligations.

"Our end to end FATCA solution is built on trusted technology and content used by the six leading global professional services firms and by 49 of the top 50 financial institutions, and we continually work with the industry and our customers to develop as the regulatory landscape evolves. As tax authorities in other countries consider similar legislation to FATCA, such as GATCA, we will extend our services to further help our clients meet their current and future regulatory requirements," added Perry.

Thomson Reuters FATCA GO solution and its subsequent material modifications enhancement are powered by Thomson Reuters DataScope suite of feed delivery platforms. 

Building on market leading technology Thomson Reuters for FATCA brings together products already trusted by the industry to resolve the issues surrounding regulatory compliance, tax documentation and tax reporting. Sophisticated software ensures seamless workflow and delivery. Deployed as a series of flexible modules, Thomson Reuters for FATCA helps firms comply with the regulation across the following areas:

  • Customer onboarding – classification and documentation
  • Transactional – reporting and withholding
  • Keeping up-to-date – up to date knowledge and ongoing training

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, intellectual property and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, go to http://thomsonreuters.com.