FATCA

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is a U.S. law aimed at preventing tax avoidance by U.S. taxpayers through the use of offshore accounts. In force from July 1, 2014, requires all the financial institutions worldwide to identify, classify and report all their U.S. customers – individuals and entities – to the U.S. tax authority (“Internal Revenue Services – IRS”). The “FATCA” legislation imposes the application of a 30% withholding tax on all payments of U.S. source income (including interest, dividends, and U.S.-source insurance or reinsurance premium) to non - FATCA compliant counterparties.

To prove their “FATCA Compliance” status towards third parties in general (i.e. withholding agents), the entities worldwide are requested to submit appropriate IRS forms. In particular, the Form W-8BEN-E (Certificate of Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting purposes) is intended to be completed by a non-U.S. entity for certifying it is the non-U.S. beneficial owner of a payment of income for current withholding tax purposes, as well as for proving its FATCA status (under Chapter 4).

This section of the corporate website contains a list of W-8 BEN-E forms appropriately signed for all the relevant Group entities from a FATCA withholding and reporting perspective.