Australia is getting ready for the Common Reporting Standard

"Australia has arrangements in place to receive information from 50 jurisdictions and send information to 41. We can expect that further jurisdictions sending information to Australia will be added over the next 12 months."
Scott Jago, Allan Hall Business Advisors, Sydney

For those with financial arrangements dispersed across international borders, the world is becoming a much smaller place.

Scott Jago, a member of Alliott Group's Global Mobility Services Group comments that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been "working on measures to identify individuals and companies that use cross border transactions and international financial arrangements to avoid paying tax in their jurisdiction of residence". Scott adds that "As a result,  they have implemented a Common Reporting Standard (CRS) that calls on jurisdictions to obtain information from their financial institutions and then automatically exchange that information with other jurisdictions on a yearly basis."

The information to be collected and shared includes:

• Identifying data
• Jurisdiction of residence
• Account balances
• Income paid on the account including interest and dividends
• Proceeds from the redemption of an account.

Countries exchanging information with Australia

Jago reports that Australia has arrangements in place to receive information from 50 jurisdictions and send information to 41 jurisdictions: "Most of these were activated on 22 December 2016 and are effective from varying dates. The earliest effective date noted is for taxable periods starting on or after 1st January 2016.

The following jurisdictions will be sending information to Australia (as of 9th January 2017): Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Montserrat, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turks and Caicos Islands. 

Two more rounds of activations are scheduled to take place in March and June 2017. In total, 101 jurisdictions have agreed to start automatically exchanging information in 2017 and 2018 under the CRS. We can expect that further jurisdictions sending information to Australia will be added over the next 12 months."

For advice on CRS in Australia

If you are an expatriate, high net worth individual or a corporation with overseas assets and accounts, or are considering operating across borders, please contact Scott Jago at Allan Hall Business Advisors for guidance on compliance with the Common Reporting Standard. Allan Hall Business Advisors can work with the network of tax experts in the Global Mobility Services Group to coordinate advice with their international counterparts in 70 countries.