With effect from January 1 2017, banks and depository institutions, investment entities and custodial institutions in Singapore are now required to establish the tax residency status of all their account holders.
The city-state's Inland Revenue Authority has reminded industry professionals they must report to the tax authority the financial account information of customers who are tax residents of jurisdictions with which Singapore has a Competent Authority Agreement (CAA) to exchange the information.
More than 100 jurisdictions, including major financial centres such as Hong Kong and Switzerland, have committed to implement the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) based on the common reporting standards (CRS) and will commence AEOI under the CRS either in 2017 or 2018. Singapore has made an international commitment to commence AEOI under the CRS in 2018.
The institutions will report to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore the information of account holders who are tax residents of jurisdictions with whom Singapore has signed agreements to share data from 2018.
Singapore currently has CAA agreements with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Republic of Korea, South Africa, Norway, Italy, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Iceland, Malta, Ireland, Latvia and the United Kingdom.
