BVI Enacts Legislation Implementing OECD Common Reporting Standard

The government of the British Virgin Islands ("BVI") has amended the Mutual Legal Assistance (Tax Matters) Act, 2003 in order to enact domestic legislation implementing the OECD Common Reporting Standard ("CRS") which was published on 31 December 2015 (the "BVI CRS Legislation"). 

It is not currently intended to issue guidance notes in relation to the implementation of CRS in the BVI given the extensive guidance published by the OECD by way of commentary to CRS and in the CRS Implementation Handbook. 

The principles under the BVI CRS Legislation are very similar to FATCA and the BVI US and UK FATCA legislation (collectively "FATCA"), although there are some important distinctions.  For example, while US FATCA focused on citizenship and tax residency, CRS only focuses on tax residency.  Given the extensive overlap with the BVI UK FATCA regime, it is proposed that this regime be subsumed into CRS by 2017.