Germany - Obtaining a U.S. TIN during account opening may be disproportionate

On December 22, 2022, the German Federal Central Tax Office (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern (BZSt)) released the FATCA Newsletter 02/2022 (“the newsletter”).

The newsletter provides a summary of IRS Notice 2023-11. The IRS notice was released on December 30, 2022, providing temporary relief procedures for foreign financial institutions (FFIs) required to obtain and report U.S. taxpayer identification numbers (TINs).

The newsletter clarifies, that financial institutions, in line with Annex 1, Article III New Accounts, paragraph A of the IGA agreement, are not required to identify accounts as FATCA reportable financial accounts unless the account balance exceeds $50,000 at the end of any calendar year or other appropriate reporting period.

BZSt in the newsletter stipulated, that it is therefore disproportionate to require account holders that are U.S Persons to provide the US TIN as a prerequisite for opening an account in case such an account is not subject to FATCA due diligence requirements.

In these cases, the failure to provide a US TIN shall not lead to the refusal of a basic account, since otherwise there could also be a violation of Article 16 (Right of access to a payment account with basic features) of the Payment Accounts Directive (PAD).

The newsletter can be found under the following link https://bit.ly/3CE5N7w (in German)