FAQs

No, the Tax Information Authority (TIA) is not a tax administration or revenue agency because the Cayman Islands does not have direct taxes. The TIA’s function is to collect information on tax matters and exchange that information with other Competent Authorities pursuant to relevant international agreements.

For information on imports/exports and tariffs, visit Cayman Islands Customs & Border Control.

For information on Tourist Accommodation Taxes (TAT), visit Cayman Islands Department of Tourism.

No, CIMA is the Cayman Islands financial services regulator and is also responsible for the Cayman Islands Currency Board. For more information about CIMA, please visit their website at www.cima.ky.

No, these are issued by the Cabinet Office. Tel: (345) 244-2208 or (345) 244-2210.

No.

No, if the FI holds the TIN and date of birth within its records they must be included within the XML.

As per the Tax Information Authority (International Tax Compliance) (Common Reporting Standard) Regulations (2021 Revision) the TIN and date of birth are required to be reported for all individuals who are Reportable Persons, i.e. both for Account Holders and Controlling Persons.

Note: FIs must include a valid date of birth in the CRS Return for each individual account holder and controlling person who is a Reportable Person.  This is the correct interpretation / application of the CRS XML schema DoB element being labelled as “(Optional) Mandatory” because FIs are always expected to keep a record of such information. The XML submission will not validate if the TIN or date of birth element is present but contains no data, is ‘empty’ e.g. <BirthDate></BirthDate>

Reporting is submitted via the DITC Portal. If you are a new user, you will need to submit a Notification to register the Financial Institution.

Notifications are submitted via the DITC Portal.

No, this is a one-off process.

When the DITC Portal is open you can submit reporting for all available years listed on the XML Upload page.

At this time we are not accepting deactivation requests via the DITC Portal. The deactivation functionality will be made available in Q4 of 2021.

The Principal Point of Contact (PPoC) can do this via the DITC Portal.

Testing is not permitted within the DITC Portal.

If you are a current user, log in to the DITC Portal to determine whether you have been granted access. If not, contact the DITC at CaymanAEOIPortal@gov.ky

Review the error issued by the partner jurisdiction on the DITC Portal. You can also contact the DITC regarding a specific error once you are logged in.

You should first ascertain who the new users should be by:

1. contacting the Directors; and/or
2. contacting the registered office.

If no response is received, email the DITC at CaymanAEOIPortal@gov.ky and include the following information:

• your reason for resigning;
• the steps you have taken to find the new users, and;
• contact details for the Directors you hold

No, an Excluded Account is not a Financial Account under the CRS and should not be calculated in determining the total value of the FIs Financial Accounts.

Yes, this question requires the total value and as such, negative balances should be included when calculating the aggregate total of the FIs Financial Accounts.  For all other questions on the CRS Compliance Form, a negative balance should be reported as zero in line with the CRS Regulations.

No, this question is asking about the total value of the FI’s financial accounts, Financial Account is as defined in the CRS Regulations. The answer should be the total value of the reportable (under CRS) and non-reportable financial accounts. Where the FI is an investment fund, this will typically be the net asset value however, where the FI is not an investment fund it is unlikely the answer to this question is the net asset value.

No, the balance as at the end of the relevant reporting period should be reported.

This should be disclosed as a Financial Account where the Account Holder and all controlling persons are not Reportable Jurisdiction Persons.

This is a reportable account for CRS (i.e. do not include in Non-Reportable).

Yes.

The DITC expects only a small number of FI’s to meet this requirement. In such circumstances, the FI should answer section 3 as follows:

1.    3.2 select “other”
2.    3.3 Free Text Box provide an explanation as confirmation of the fact that the FI does not conduct RFB
3.    3.4 select ‘Cayman Islands’
4.    3.5 select ‘Yes’

The service provider who is primarily responsible for determining whether a Financial Account is reportable or non-reportable for CRS should be reported in Section 3.

The annual deadline for the CRS Compliance Form is 15 September.

The FI would be in breach of Part 2 of the CRS Regulations if it fails to submit the CRS Compliance Form by the deadline and an administrative penalty will be automatically issued by the Authority.

The PPoC or any Secondary Users assigned to the FI will be the only persons able to submit the CRS Compliance Form via the DITC Portal.

All FIs with reporting obligations are required to complete the CRS Compliance Form on an annual basis.

Yes, TDT’s are required to complete the CRS Compliance Form.

The CRS Compliance Form is submitted via the DITC Portal by the PPoC or a Secondary User of the FI.

The Tax Information Authority (International Tax Compliance) (Common Reporting Standard) (Amendment) Regulations, 2020 amendment of Regulation 9(1) provides the legal basis for the Authority to collect the CRS Compliance Form annually.

Yes, the CRS Compliance Form can be submitted using a bulk upload CSV file. For an overview of all sections and data points refer to the CRS Guidelines, for technical assistance please refer to our User Guide.

Please ensure you have read and agreed with the declaration first before clicking Submit.

Please troubleshoot the following: Check that the FI has CRS reporting obligations and/or if you have copied and pasted the FI numbers into the CSV, instead type them into the cell.

Scroll to the bottom of the screen. Where there is an error click the red exclamation mark and the error will be shown for each FI.

Fix the first error listed for each FI and then re-upload the file – this may automatically resolve some/all of the other errors listed.

Refer to section 5.F. of the CRS Guidelines for guidance on the form, refer to the DITC Portal User Guide for technical assistance with submitting the Form via the Portal.

A joint account should be treated as one Financial Account for the purpose of answering question 2.1. Only if the joint account is a Non-Reportable account in relation to all joint Account Holders, it should be treated as a Non-Reportable Account. If the joint account is a Non-Reportable account for more than one reason, it should be reported once for each reason in the Compliance Form. For example, where a joint account has two Account Holders, one resident in the British Virgin Islands and one being a US Person (both not qualifying as Reportable Jurisdiction Persons), the response to question 2.5 in the Compliance Form must be “Both”, and the joint account must be reported both under question 2.5.1 and 2.5.2.

This account should be treated as one Financial Account for the purpose of answering question 2.1. Where an account is a Non-Reportable account for more than one reason, it should be reported once for each reason in the Compliance Form. For example, where the Account Holder and all Controlling Persons are either resident in The Bahamas or a US Person (i.e. not qualifying as Reportable Jurisdiction Persons), the response to question 2.5 in the Compliance Form must be “Both”, and the account must be reported once under both question 2.5.1 and 2.5.2.

Such accounts would not be considered Non-Reportable accounts for the purposes of the CRS Compliance Form. Please note that these accounts should be included in the total value of the FI’s Financial Accounts for the reporting period (question 2.1).

When completing section 2, the same rules as outlined in the CRS Regulations apply. The balance as at the end of the relevant reporting period should be reported.

Where the FI does not have a calendar year end, the question on audited financial statements applies to the financial year ending in the calendar year on which you are reporting (i.e. Financial Year end is July, when completing the CRS Compliance Form for 2019, the question is – have the Financial Statements for the year ending July 2019 been subject to an audit).

Question 4.6 does not apply to undocumented accounts.

Section 2 of the CRS Compliance Form provides an option to confirm that the existence, number or value of Non-Reportable Accounts is unknown. Please note where this option is selected, it is likely the FI will be subject to follow up from the Authority.

Section 2 provides the option to choose any currency. The Authority recommends that the currency used to complete the CRS Compliance Form is the same as that used in the CRS Report. Where multiple currencies are used in the CRS Report, FIs should use the currency most frequently used. It is not currently anticipated that the CRS Compliance Form will accommodate multiple currencies.

At this time we are not accepting deactivation requests via the DITC Portal. The deactivation functionality will be made available in Q4 of 2021.

Reporting is submitted via the DITC Portal. If you are a new user, you will need to submit a Notification to register the Financial Institution.

Notifications are submitted via the DITC Portal.

No, this is a one-off process.

When the DITC Portal is open you can submit reporting for all available years listed on the XML Upload page.

The Principal Point of Contact (PPoC) can do this via the DITC Portal.

Testing is not permitted within the DITC Portal.

If you are a current user, log in to the DITC Portal to determine whether you have been granted access. If not, contact the DITC at CaymanAEOIPortal@gov.ky

Review the error issued by the IRS on the DITC Portal. You can also contact the DITC regarding a specific error once you are logged in.

You should first ascertain who the new users should be by:

1. contacting the Directors; and/or
2. contacting the registered office.

If no response is received, email the DITC at CaymanAEOIPortal@gov.ky and include the following information:

• your reason for resigning;
• the steps you have taken to find the new users, and;
• contact details for the Directors you hold

A Reporting Entity is the MNE Groups’ reporting member, typically the Ultimate Parent Entity (UPE) or the Surrogate Parent Entity (SPE).

The Primary Contact should amend the Authorisation Letter, login to the DITC Portal and upload the Letter accordingly. The Primary Contact should also email the DITC Portal Team a copy of the Authorisation Letter advising of the change. The DITC Portal Team will review the Letter, update the DITC Portal and issue new login credentials.

A Reporting Entity (UPE or SPE) must be resident in the Islands in order to make a CbC Report for its MNE Group via the DITC Portal.

CbCR only applies to MNE Groups with annual consolidated group revenue of not less than a specified threshold amount in the preceding fiscal year. The Cayman Islands has specified the threshold as US$850 million, but other jurisdictions may specify the threshold in Euros (€750 million). Further information can be found in the CbCR Guidance Notes.

The deadline for Reporting in respect of any subsequent Fiscal Year is within 12 months of the end of that relevant Fiscal Year.

When the DITC Portal is open you may submit your report.

The deadline for Notification, or to update an existing Notification in respect of any subsequent Fiscal Year, is before the end of that relevant Fiscal Year.

No, this is a one-off process.

Testing is not permitted within the DITC Portal.

The CbC Report provides a breakdown of the amount of revenue, profits, taxes and other indicators of economic activities for each tax jurisdiction in which the MNE Group does business. See the CbC XML Schema – User Guide for further details.

The Primary Contact should email the DITC Portal Team and provide details of the new UPE / SPE.

The Primary Contact should login to the DITC Portal and upload an amended Authorisation Letter and CE CSV file.

The DITC offers a template for the Authorisation Letter and Constituent Entity CSV file. At this time the DITC does not offer a sample XML file for reporting. Users should refer to the CbC XML Schema – User Guide for guidance on creating their XML.

The Primary Contact can request to reset their password on the homepage of the DITC Portal.