Under the Taxation Administration Act 1953, Australian Unity Bank is required to ask all account holders certain information about their residency details for tax purposes and also to submit information to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) about foreign tax residents annually.
As tax residency is not a static event, we will ask you to provide or update information held on our systems when one or more of these circumstances apply:
If any details such as your contact information or tax information change, we need you to let us know so we can capture this information.
In an effort to cut down on tax evasion, the Australian Government is committed to a worldwide requirement to share information about foreign tax residents with other taxation agencies and authorities. The sharing of information is called the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) regime. This supports the exchange of information under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which facilitates the exchange of information between Australia and the United States of America (U.S.A). The AEOI regime also includes the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), which is the exchange of tax residency information by Australia with other countries that have implemented the CRS. As a result, Australian Unity Bank, as well as many other financial institutions around globe, are committed to collecting and validating the tax residency information of our customers. Currently, we collect tax residency information for our customers before their account is opened, and as an ongoing measure, and monitor all existing accounts to identify where customers may now be reportable to the ATO. If you have already indicated you’re a foreign tax resident or if we think your account matches the criteria for a foreign tax resident, you’ll receive a letter or email from us requesting you to supply further information via the Tax Residency Information form.
All relevant information supplied to us or that we have on file will be shared with the ATO as per our Privacy Policy. The ATO may then exchange this information with other relevant tax authorities in other jurisdictions, pursuant to the relevant AEOI regimes.
If you don’t provide information about your tax residency status, including providing your USA Tax Identification Number (TIN), if applicable, we’ll write to you and request that you provide this information. We’ll also write to you if the USA Internal Revenue Service (IRS) notifies the ATO that the TIN provided to us is missing or incorrect in order to obtain the correct TIN. If you don’t provide the information requested within the timeframe provided in our letter(s) to you, we may choose to act in accordance with the product’s Terms and Conditions available at https://www.australianunity.com.au/banking/terms-and-conditions.
Foreign tax residency is when you may be liable to pay tax in country(ies) other than Australia, irrespective of whether a tax return must be filed, or whether any tax is payable. We recognise customers can be a tax resident of more than one tax jurisdiction.
Information about how to work out your tax residency is available on the ATO website. The OECD Website also provides guidance from of over 100 countries about the tax residency rules applicable to that jurisdiction.
If you are a foreign tax resident, you are required to disclose certain information relating to your tax residency to us. We may then be required to provide that information to the ATO, depending on the type of accounts you hold and the balance of these accounts.
Individuals and Non-Individuals may be issued with a Tax Identification Number (TIN) or equivalent if you are a tax resident of another country. Although TIN is an international term, from country to country it can be referred to by a different local name and may vary in format. For example, Australia’s TIN equivalent is a Tax File Number (TFN).
If you’re unsure what your TIN equivalent and TIN format is, please refer to the OECD Website, the IRS website or Contact your Legal or Tax Advisor.
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is US legislation that requires financial institutions and certain non-financial institutions that are foreign to the US to report information about US tax residents/citizens who have financial accounts.
The Australian Government has committed to sharing this information with the US Government to reduce tax evasion.
Australian Unity Bank is required to collect relevant information about US residents/citizens, including their TINs, and provide this information to the ATO. The ATO shares this information with the IRS under the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) regime.
The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an international initiative by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a way to reduce offshore tax evasion and provide greater transparency in over 100 participating countries and jurisdictions. These obligations came into effect in Australia on 1 July 2017.
The CRS regime is the single global standard for the collection, reporting and exchange of financial account information on foreign tax residents, including US residents/citizens, who are also regulated under FATCA. Under the CRS, banks and other financial institutions collect and report financial account information about foreign tax resident status to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The ATO exchanges this information about foreign tax residents with their participating foreign tax authorities.
Australian Unity Bank is required to capture information about foreign residents/citizens and provide this information to the ATO.
Applicants and existing customers seeking to open an account with us will generally be required to provide a self-declaration about their tax residency status as part of the application process. We will need this information in order to open the account(s). Failing to provide this information may result in delays in opening an account while we attempt to obtain this information from you.
For customers who have existing accounts, any change in your tax status and/or contact information where foreign indicia (such as a foreign address or phone number) is identified, may require an updated tax residency form to be completed by you. As part of our ongoing monitoring, we may initiate this process by sending you a notification by email, letter or talk to you about it over the phone. We ordinarily request that the relevant Tax Residency Information form is completed and returned to us within 30 days to avoid your account being suspended. Account suspension will mean that you will be unable to access your money and/or to close your account during the suspension period.
If based on the information that you have provided us, our records indicate that you may be a foreign tax resident, we may contact you in relation to on one or more of the following details below:
It is important that we have the most up-to-date and accurate information regarding your tax residency status. If you do not respond to our request to confirm your tax residency status, we will base our reporting to the ATO of your tax residency on the information we currently have. It is therefore important that we have been provided with the most accurate and current residency information. If you don’t provide the requested further information to us, under Australian Unity Bank Transaction, Savings and Investment Products Terms and Conditions, we can withhold funds, suspend or close your account(s).
If your account is closed during the required reporting period, we may still try to contact you in order to ensure we have accurate tax residency information at the time you held your accounts with us.
Tax residency can also be linked to birthright/citizenship in the United States and can carry with you for life. Sometimes you may not be required to have lived or worked in the US to be considered a US Tax Resident.
Financial Institutions like Australian Unity Bank are required to collect tax residency information (including a TIN) about customers with US Indicia or declared US tax residents/citizen. If we do not receive this or the relevant documentary evidence, we will not be able to offer you a financial service.
In order to accept the information you have provided regarding your tax residency status, Australian Unity Bank may request you to supply additional supporting evidence (Documentary Evidence) to validate the responses you have provided. If the requested Documentary Evidence is not supplied, you may continue to receive notifications or have your account suspended until the matter is resolved.
As each customer scenario is different, what you may be asked to provide may differ.
Depending on your circumstances Documentary Evidence may include:
For further information on what Documentary Evidence may be required / requested, please refer to:
Yes, the Terms and Conditions of your account state that you are required to inform us of any change in circumstances within 30 days of this change. A change to your country of tax residency is a circumstance that we must be notified of because it affects your tax residency status. We require you to provide us with an updated Tax Residency Information form within 30 days of this change.
Our ongoing monitoring may also pick up possible changes in circumstances if you have not already notified us of them. Depending on your change in circumstance, we may ask you to supply Documentary Evidence to support your self-declaration or change in tax status.
Accidents happen, the form you may have previously completed may have been recently reviewed and we have identified something with the previous form as:
It is important to know that the TIN’s structure and format must be provided in line with the tax authority of that country. If your form is unclear or does not match the correct structure or format, we will endeavour to contact you to recomplete your Tax Residency Information form. Format and structures of TIN’s for a specific country are available via the OECD Website.
Other reasons may be:
If we don’t receive confirmation of your tax residency status within the timeframe requested. Under the Australian Unity Bank Transaction, Savings and Investment Products Terms and Conditions, we may:
If we’ve made a decision to close your account and funds remain in your account, these funds may become unclaimed moneys that are required to be reported to ASIC.
If we have closed or suspended your account, it will have been as a result of multiple attempts by us to get into contact with you request that you provide important information regarding your tax residency status. If you have not responded to these requests or have not provided the information within the timeframe requested, we may suspend or close your account/s under the Australian Unity Bank Transaction, Savings and Investment Products Terms and Conditions.
If your account remains suspended for more than 12 months, it may be subject to dormancy processes before being transferred to Unclaimed Monies. To resolve an account to gain access to funds and to stop it from going to dormancy or unclaimed monies, you may be required to complete outstanding tasks, such as providing us your tax residency status.
If you need to access funds in your account/s please call us immediately on 1300 790 740 (from Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.30pm AEST). If you are overseas you can contact us on +61 3 8682 7666.
Under section 69 of the Banking Act, we must submit an annual statement to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) detailing unclaimed monies for all Accounts with a balance of $500 or more that have been inactive for at least seven years. If your Account remains inactive for seven years or more, the funds will be transferred to ASIC, in which case you will have to apply to ASIC to retrieve the funds.
Refer to the ASIC Website for further information about Unclaimed Monies and how to make a claim for unclaimed monies.