Reporting financial institutions are obliged to check their financial account data for the tax residency of account holders or controlling persons in a reporting country according to defined criteria.

• If a financial institution has information in the existing customer data that indicates a possible US tax liability of a customer, the financial institution is obliged to initiate a corresponding report to the Federal Central Tax Office. Possible indications may be
  • US citizenship
  • a US address
  • a US telephone number
• By obtaining a self-certification, the financial institution wishes to give customers the opportunity to either confirm or refute the indication and to provide meaningful evidence of the country in which they are resident for tax purposes.
• The financial account data determined in accordance with the due diligence obligations must be transmitted annually in electronic form to the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt) by the financial institution subject to the reporting obligation.
• Prior to the first transmission, the reporting financial institution must register with the IRS and the data sender (financial institution or contracted service provider) must register with the BZSt for the FATCA specialist procedure.
• The reports are submitted via the BZSt online portal (BOP) or the mass data interface (ELMA). This requires a certificate issued by the BZSt (BOP and ELMA) or a certificate issued by the Elster procedure (only possible with BOP). The exact procedure is described in manuals and videos on the BZSt website.
• The data reported and transmitted by the financial institutions to the BZSt is forwarded by the BZSt to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
• For each transmission, the reporting financial institution or the reporting service provider receives technical feedback on the processing results of the BZSt and the IRS. If data has been rejected, the errors must be corrected and the data resubmitted.