Global Qualified Intermediary
GQI is an electronic tax information and reporting system designed specifically to meet the current IRS requirements for 1042S and 1099 reporting.
GQI will also be enhanced to fulfil compliance with the FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) regulations that are evolving at this present time.
The new legislation requires entities to enter an agreement with the IRS and become Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) (similar to a QI). The definition of FFIs is very broad and can be categorized as:-
Custodians, Banks, Brokers and similar as before under QI regs. In addition now Pension Funds and similar , Charities, Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds, Collective Investment Vehicles, Family investment vehicles and funds, securitization vehicles, insurance companies and similar entities.
These FFIs must identify all ultimate beneficial owners (however many strata levels are in place) to separate those that are US or non US persons.
US persons are defined as:-
- Foreign entities that are US owned or with an interest directly or indirectly (usually 10% or more but can be any percentage to down to 0% for a foreign investment entity at the IRS’s discretion) in a non US entity
- Individual with dual nationality, green card or visa holders
- Individuals satisfying the substantial presence test ( usually US residency a minimum 6 months in any year )
- Passport holders with a US place of birth (not US passport holders)
We will ensure that this page is regularly updated to ensure that our current clients and/or prospective clients are kept abreast of any developments.
GQI comprises a client/server suite of applications and process management tools which can be linked to mainframe host systems or used standalone. It offers a document management system directly linked to client tax profiles, a centralised repository of data to ensure correct tax treatment and a withholding calculation and pooling system to facilitate straight through automation of the process.
GQI comprises three different applications: GQI Scanner to quickly and effectively scan and store customer, client and counter-party documentation; GQI Capture to associate scanned documentation with clients and capture data from scanned images to allow the main application to profile the tax status of clients; and GQI Production which is the main processing application, containing income event import, withholding pooling, messaging and management information reporting functions.
There is also an optional satellite application, GNQI, which GQI licensees can distribute to their NQI counterparties to provide a simple but effective tool to collate, store and send information to the QI counterparty.
For further information, please contact Stephen Everard by email at severard@goalgroup.com, or Saghar Bigwood at sbigwood@goalgroup.com. Alternatively, contact Goal Group on +44 (0) 20 8760 7130
