IRS releases draft guides for FATCA International Data Exchange Service

The FATCA IDES User Guide, draft version, Publication 5190 is now available online.  This guide is intended to serve as a tool for FIs and Host Country Tax Authorities (HCTAs) who enroll in the International Data Exchange Service (IDES) to transmit FATCA data. The document assumes that the reader is familiar with the FATCA regulations and is experienced with extensible markup language (XML) and schema technology.

The main function of IDES is to provide authorized users with secure exchange services for FATCA data transmissions, with the additional protection of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). The primary features of IDES are:

 Enrollment

 Certificate Management

 Account Management

 Secure Data Transmission

 Status of Data Transmission (Alerts and Notifications)

The IDES web application is a secure managed file transfer service that is available to both FIs and HCTAs to facilitate FATCA reporting. This reporting is provided for under U.S. Treasury Regulations, the FFI agreement, Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs), Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs), and other guidance issued by the Treasury Department and the IRS that outlines how financial institutions will implement FATCA. The data collected through IDES will be incorporated into IRS compliance operations.

IDES is accessible to enrolled users over the Internet via Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) or Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). IDES provides for an end-to-end controlled file transfer with enhanced monitoring and security features. The system only accepts encrypted electronic submissions, and will allow for the transmission of FATCA reporting in the approved FATCA XML Schema v1.1 (FATCA XML).

Authorized IDES users are either FIs or HCTAs. Each authorized user has limited access to the system based on the data flow model described in their agreement with the United States (for example, an IGA or an FFI agreement) or in Treasury regulations. Note that for many IDES users, the IRS is the only valid recipient for files. The table below provides additional information regarding user access based on agreement types.

The FATCA Metadata XML Schema v1.0 User Guide, Publication 5188 is now available online.  This guide is intended to serve as a tool for financial institutions (FIs) and Host Country Tax Authorities (HCTAs) who transmit data through the International Data Exchange Service (IDES). It explains how to prepare and validate the IDES metadata file used in FATCA reporting. The document assumes that the reader is familiar with the FATCA regulations and is experienced with extensible markup language (XML) and schema technology.

Metadata is a collection of data about the content and characteristics contained in the FATCA reporting files. It is used to ensure the data packets are correctly processed. IDES metadata files should never be encrypted. An authorized user should create and validate a metadata file using the FATCA Metadata XML Schema v1.0. An unencrypted metadata file must be included in the data packet (.ZIP). A metadata file can also be generated using a sender metadata template on the IDES Enrollment Site.