British Virgin Islands And The CRS

Introduction to the CRS

On 29 October 2014, the British Virgin Islands ("BVI") was among 50 other jurisdictions which signed a Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (the "MCAA") demonstrating its commitment to implement the "CRS" or Common Reporting Standard, an international regime developed by the OECD to facilitate and standardise the exchange of information on residents' assets and income, primarily for taxation purposes.¹

The Mutual Legal Assistance (Tax Matters) (Amendment) (No.2) Act, 2015 (the "Amendment Law") was enacted in the BVI on 29 December 2015 (and gazetted on 31 December 2015) and must be complied with by BVI Reporting Financial Institutions ("Reporting FIs") from 1 January 2016.