Fighting Tax Havens with AEOI

The Automatic Exchange Of Information (AEOI) and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) allow tax administrations to have systematic knowledge of the financial assets held abroad by its tax residents.

The implementation of the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) is based on a combined action between:

• account holders who must declare their tax residence to determine whether they are considered "non-residents" via self-certification;

• financial institutions that must report annually to their local tax authority the "non-resident" customers, the balances of their accounts and the financial income they have received in the year;

• the tax authorities of the participating countries which transmit this information to the tax authorities of the country of tax residence of the customer who is the subject of this declaration.

Through to the implementation of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), financial institutions and tax jurisdictions will exchange automatically financial account information to fight against tax avoidance and tax havens.

Information such as name of the client or company, address, account number and account balance will now available and transferred between the tax authorities.

Asian countries that will start to report in 2018 are India, Bahrain, Brunei, China, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Macao (China), Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and UAE.

Asian countries that have not yet signed to the CRS are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Maldives, Philippines, Georgia and Thailand.