Chances are if you've been doing business in Canada, you
know the country is strong on compliance and transparency.
Already a participating signatory to the Foreign Account Tax
Compliance Act (FATCA) - the US's requirement that foreign
financial institutions report on foreign assets held by US account
holders - Canada has now also signed up to the OECD's Common
Reporting Standard (CRS), and the first reporting deadline is 1 May
2018.
The CRS was developed in response to a G20 request and approved
by the OECD Council back in 2014, but it's only really going
live in Canada now, with the first reporting deadline right around
the corner. CRS calls on jurisdictions to obtain
information from their financial institutions, and automatically
exchange that information with other jurisdictions on an annual
basis. It sets out the financial account information to be
exchanged, the financial institutions required to report, the
different types of accounts and taxpayers covered,
