Ireland: Common Reporting Standard (CRS) Update

The common reporting standard framework was first released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (the “OECD”) in February 2014 as a result of significant political will demonstrated by the G20 members to endorse a global model of automatic exchange of information and increase international tax transparency. On 21 July 2014, the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters was published by the OECD and this includes the Common Reporting Standard (the “CRS” or the “Standard”).

The goal of the Standard is to provide for the annual automatic exchange between governments of financial account information reported to them by local financial institutions (“FIs”) relating to account holders who are tax resident in other participating jurisdictions.

Over 95 jurisdictions have committed to exchanging information under the Standard and a group of 50 jurisdictions, including Ireland, have committed to the early adoption of the CRS from 1 January 2016 (known as the ‘Early Adopter Group’) with the first data exchanges scheduled to take place in September 2017. All EU Member States (with the exception of Austria) are members of the Early Adopter Group. The U.S. has not joined the CRS to date which, given the extensive FATCA IGA network, is not surprising. The large number of jurisdictions signed up to the Standard highlights the increasing trend towards global financial account tax transparency.

Click on the link below to view the full advisory:

Walkers Ireland – Common Reporting Standard -Client Advisory – Dec 2015.pdf