U.S. Investor Reporting (PFIC/FATCA)

U.S. investors are either investors who have provided Odin with a registered address in the U.S. during their account setup, investors who have completed the verification checks with a U.S. passport, or investors who have otherwise informed Odin of their U.S. nationality and/or taxpayer status.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA requires Foreign Financial Institutions to report information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers, or by foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest, directly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

According to the tax advice we have received, all Odin nominee entities are considered Passive Foreign Investment Companies (PFICs) under FATCA.

Odin can accept funds from U.S. investors without issues. Please note, however, that Odin does not provide tax advice, and if you or your syndicate investors have any concerns we’d recommend speaking to qualified accountants and enquiring independently about PFIC taxation.

That being said, we understand that there is a process for any Odin PFIC to make a QEF (qualifying electing fund) election and avoid the excess distribution regime that PFICs are typically subject to. We provide the necessary information to do this annually to all US investors (a PFIC annual information statement). 

Note that Odin does not handle blue-sky filings. If you require this our advice is to seek a provider. Odin also does not provide K-1 forms for our UK SPVs, as they aren’t applicable to PFICs.

Odin’s process for ensuring tax compliance for U.S. investors is as follows:

• Once per year, in the run-up to the end of March, Odin provides PFIC documentation to U.S. investors, so that they may make a Qualified Electing Fund (QEF) special election and report annual earnings under the QEF regime (instead of being subject to the Excess Distribution Regime, which incurs additional taxation). This ensures no additional tax liability on their investments held via Odin vehicles.
• U.S. investors have additional reporting requirements regarding their investment in a PFIC. Our understanding is that U.S. investors must file Form 8621 - however, we cannot provide tax advice and recommend that investors seek independent advice on this matter.
• Additionally, if the value of your investor’s investments is greater than $50k USD, (or greater than $100k USD if they are married and file jointly with their spouse), our understanding is that investors may also have to submit Form 8938. Again, we cannot provide tax advice and recommend that investors seek independent advice on this matter. You can find more guidance from the IRS here.
• To reiterate - Odin provides the information needed for all of these filings but doesn’t handle the filings for investors. They need to fill out the forms themselves with the data we provide.