Reflections On The Common Reporting Standards

With over 100 countries as signatories to the CRS Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement there will be little need for incidents such as the Panama papers (https://panamapapers.icij.org/) for tax authorities to find out what their tax residents were squirreling away. The CRS which stands for Common Reporting Standards is in essence an automatic annual financial information exchange tool for tax authorities. It allows a tax authority to inform another tax authority of the financial accounts held by their tax residents in the first mentioned tax authority jurisdiction.

As of July 1, 2017 the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will share, with members of the CRS Multilateral Agreement with which the CRA has formalized a CRS partnership, details of the bank accounts held by their residents in Canada. In return, the CRA will receive information on financial accounts held by Canadian residents outside of Canada from its CRS partners. Canadians investing significant assets