A Practical Review Of The Common Reporting Standard (CRS)

A. INTRODUCTION

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) has been initiated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) aiming at improving international tax compliance and preventing tax evasion, through the automatic exchange of information between the countries that implement CRS. The participating countries are listed in Appendix I.

Although the CRS was largely based on the FATCA Model 1 IGA, there are many differences between the two reporting regimes. Please refer to Appendix II.

The CRS is applied by all authorized credit institutions and other financial institutions, which are located in countries that participate in the CRS, and applies to all account (individuals and entities). It requires the financial institutions that are in countries which implement the CRS, to submit information on financial accounts that are held by account holders who are tax residents of countries which implement CRS.