Common Reporting Standard

In October 2014, the OECD announced that over fifty jurisdictions had committed to the mutual exchange of information between tax authorities, termed the Common Reporting Standard ("CRS"). CRS involves the collection of information for tax purposes, commencing with high value accounts, by the tax authority of the jurisdiction where an account is held, and passing that information to the tax authority in the jurisdiction where the holder of the account is resident.

Many of the principles underlying CRS derive from the US FATCA regime. It is expected that the early participants in CRS will be reporting information about high value accounts for calendar year 2016, with reporting due to take place by end September 2017.