Documentation for Chapter 4

If you make a withholdable payment, you must determine the chapter 4 status of payees, beneficial owners, intermediaries, and flow-through entities receiving the payment to the extent required for chapter 4 purposes. You must also

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determine the chapter 4 status of persons that own an interest in an entity receiving a withholdable payment that you treat as an owner-documented FFI, provided you are either a U.S. FI, participating FFI, or reporting Model 1 FFI. To establish chapter 4 status, you must generally obtain a valid withholding certificate or documentary evidence that you can reliably associate with the payment. If you make a payment to a passive NFFE, you must obtain either a certification that the NFFE does not have any substantial U.S. owners, or the name, address, and TIN of each substantial U.S. owner of the NFFE (or, under an applicable IGA, each controlling person that is a specified U.S. person).

You can reliably associate a payment with a Form W-8 for purposes of establishing a payee’s chapter 4 status in most cases if, prior to the payment, you:

• Obtain a valid form that contains the information required for chapter 4 purposes,

• Can reliably determine how much of the payment relates to the form, and

• Have no actual knowledge or reason to know that any of the information, certifications, or statements in, or associated with, the form is unreliable or incorrect for chapter 4 purposes.

See Standards of Knowledge for Purposes of Chap- ter 4 , later, for the reason to know standards that apply for chapter 4 purposes.

For the requirements for documenting specific chapter 4 statuses of persons receiving withholdable payments, see Regulations section 1.1471-3(d). For rules related to when a withholding agent may rely on an otherwise valid withholding certificate received electronically from a third-party repository, see Regulations section 1.1441-1(e)(4)(iv)(E). Also, see Regulations section 1.1471-3(d) for the extent to which a withholding agent may rely on documentary evidence (other than a Form W-8) to establish the chapter 4 status of an entity payee, including the forms of documentary evidence permitted for each specific chapter 4 status. For the requirements for documentary evidence, see Regulations section 1.1471-3(c)(5). If you make a withholdable payment to an entity payee and cannot reliably associate the payment with a valid withholding certificate or valid documentary evidence, you must apply the chapter 4 presumption rules described in Presumption Rules for Chapter 4, later.

You may rely on the same documentation for purposes of both chapters 3 and 4 provided the documentation is sufficient to meet the requirements of each chapter. For example, you may use a Form W-8BEN-E to obtain both the chapter 3 and chapter 4 statuses of an entity providing the form.