Common Reporting Standard: HMRC Guidance for Charities Released

As discussed in our earlier briefings, the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is designed to combat international tax evasion by allowing countries to swap information on each other's tax payers. This is achieved by requiring banks and other 'Financial Institutions' to collect data on 'Account Holders' and report some of it to HMRC annually for onward global exchange.

Surprisingly for some, charities can be 'Financial Institutions' and so caught in the reporting web. The key consequence for those charities is having to collect information on their charitable grantees and report on some of them. Reporting charities will also need to collect information from their settlor(s), if living, and may need to report it.