Withholding of income tax on interest

Herewith, we would like to draw your attention to the following important information that has recently been  published by the Curaçao Bankers Association (‘CBA’) in local newspapers.

On December 30 2014, the Parliament of Curaçao approved the legislation regarding the introduction of a new Ordinance  with regards to ‘withholding of income tax on interest’ received by individuals, who are considered to be resident tax payers as per January 1, 2015. Under this Ordinance, all onshore banks are qualified as an interest withholding agent. The banks are therefore obliged to withhold 8.5% tax on interest paid to any individual resident tax payer and remitting the withholding tax to the Tax Authority of Curaçao ('Ontvanger').

Consequently, the banks are required to automatically deduct this tax from all interest paid to individual accountholders who reside in Curaçao, and hold a savings account, time deposit and/ or any other interest bearing deposit account with onshore banks.

In case you are exempted from local taxes, we kindly request you to provide us with a letter issued by the Tax Authority of Curaçao that indicates your tax exempt status. In case you are no longer a resident of Curaçao, you should immediately inform and provide us with a proof of your new address, thus we can change your account resident status in our files.

As a resident account holder with a savings and/or time deposit account, you will notice that we have started to withhold 8.5% tax of interest paid on your account as from January 2015; this is in compliance with the law.

We trust we have informed you accordingly, and should you have any additional questions please feel free to contact us at + 599 9 433-9130.

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