In March 2016 the global version of the United States' Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), known as the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), came into effect in Namibia. Both FATCA and CRS affect individuals, entities and financial institutions globally.

CRS is the global standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information and extends to all accounts held by foreigners or non-residents and not only those of US citizens, which is what FATCA deals with.

These regulations aim to combat tax evasion and require financial institutions (such as Nedbank) to collect and report certain information required under FATCA and CRS on financial accounts to the Namibian Revenue Service (NRS).

Financial institutions must collect information and report to NRS on clients (both individuals and entities):

• that are US citizens or tax residents;
• that have tax obligations outside the Republic of Namibia; or
  
• that have US or other foreign details recorded on our systems.
  

These details include the following:

• Citizenship;
• Physical/Residential address;
  
• Place of birth;
  
• Postal address;
  
• Controlling persons and relationship to the company;
  
• Power of attorney;
  
• Phone numbers; and
  
• Care-of address

The abovementioned indicators as well as the following information will be reported to NRS:

• Financial accounts, for example bank accounts or stock broking accounts;
• Balances and payments into or out of the accounts;
  
• Type of income received;
  
• Nature or classification of the company; and
  
• Tax residencies and tax identification numbers.
  

NRS will then share the information with other relevant global tax authorities, which in turn share reciprocal information with NRS on Namibian tax residents who hold financial accounts outside Namibia. This could result in additional investigations by NRS.

If you do not have another citizenship or nationality resulting in tax obligations outside Namibia, FATCA and CRS will have a minimal impact on you, other than that you must provide additional information to financial institutions such as Nedbank.

It is imperative that clients are fully aware of their tax obligations to ensure compliance with these obligations.

It is therefore important to contact your tax advisor if you have any questions or uncertainties about your tax obligations. 

Nedbank may contact you in due course to obtain or update the tax-related information we have on record for you.

Penalties and interest can be imposed by NRS on both the financial institution for not reporting all the affected clients to NRS and on the individual for not providing all the requested information to the financial institution.