 Under the agreement, the QI maintains its own records of the U.S. or foreign status of the beneficial owners of the payments and may undertake responsibility for income reporting and tax withholding.The QI agreement is valid for 6 years and the QI entity is subject to an IRS or external audit periodically to confirm compliance with the agreement terms.The §1441 QI regime was later supplemented by foreign account reporting requirements under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.