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This is the meaning of the USA term referencing Qualified Intermediary. The term refers to a foreign bank that has entered into a special agreement with the USA IRS to report information to the IRS on Americans with accounts at the bank. The bank also has a requirement to withhold a percentage of the interest income paid to the account. The bank has an obligation to file tax reportage forms to the IRS. If the bank fails to comply they can be prosecuted criminally. In 2005 there were about 5,000 banks participating in the program. To put this in perspective Panama has four banks out of 150 that are in the program. We never use any bank in any country that is in the program, even for non-Americans.
The UBS scandal has caused the IRS to rethink this program and they wish to tighten the rules. They want to make it incumbent on the banks to search through Corporate, Trust and Foundation records to determine if there is an American with ownership or control over the accounts in there somewhere. This will mean more due diligence and disclosure. They will want more diligent audits to report suspicious activity. So think more trouble receiving and sending wires. More trouble opening accounts with more documents required. Will be harder to work with these banks in general.
The IRS in their wisdom is consulting with the US Treasury in an effort to make the rules retroactive. It appears that when the USA had a constitution or respected a constitution more accurately stated, retroactive legislation was against the law but now it is apparently accepted in their disregarding of the constitution legal environment.
Our conclusion is we are grateful that only a very small amount of banks in the world are affected by this Qualified Intermediary procedure and that we do no business with any such bank nor we will ever do business with such a bank.
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