Singapore Activated Three New Relationships For Automatic Exchange Of Financial Account Information In 2018

1     Singapore has activated three new Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (“AEOI”) relationships under the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information under the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS MCAA”) with China, Malaysia and Panama for exchange in 2018.

2     A total of 64 AEOI relationships have been established for the first exchange to take place in 2018. Please refer to Annex A for the list of the 64 jurisdictions. 

3     More details on the 64 relationships can be found on OECD’s Automatic Exchange Portal^[1] and IRAS’ Common Reporting Standard webpage^[2].

4     The Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) is an internationally-agreed standard endorsed by the OECD and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (“GF”). The CRS seeks to enhance cross-border tax transparency and deter tax evasion by taxpayers through the use of offshore bank accounts. Singapore endorsed the CRS in 2014.

Footnote

^[1] https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/international-framework-for-the-crs/exchange-relationships/#d.en.345426

^[2] https://www.iras.gov.sg/irashome/Quick-Links/International-Tax/Common-Reporting-Standard--CRS-/

###

Explanatory Notes

Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (“MCAA”)

The MCAA is a multilateral framework agreement that provides a standardised and efficient mechanism to facilitate the automatic exchange of information. It avoids the need for several bilateral agreements to be concluded. Its design as a framework agreement means the MCAA always ensures each signatory has ultimate control over exactly which exchange relationships it enters into and that each signatory’s standards on confidentiality, data protection and appropriate use of information always apply.
Under the MCAA, each jurisdiction is to file a notification which includes amongst others (i) a confirmation that the jurisdiction has the appropriate confidentiality and data safeguards in place; and (ii) whether the jurisdiction will exchange on a recriprocal basis or not. 

Please see https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/international-framework-for-the-crs/ for more details. 

Automatic Exchange of Information (“AEOI”)

AEOI entails systematic and regular (such as annual) transmission of taxpayer information.

Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (also known as the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”))

The CRS is an internationally agreed standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information, endorsed by OECD and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (“GF”). The CRS sets out the financial account information to be exchanged, the financial institutions (“FIs”) required to report, the different types of accounts and taxpayers covered, as well as the customer due diligence procedures to be followed by FIs.

Annex A

New AEOI relationships are in bold.

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Barbados
4. Belgium
5. Bermuda
6. Brazil
7. Bulgaria
8. Canada
9. Cayman Islands
10. Chile
11. China
12. Colombia
13. Cook Islands
14. Croatia
15. Curacao
16. Cyprus
17. Czech Republic
18. Denmark
19. Estonia
20. Faroe Islands
21. Finland
22. France
23. Germany
24. Greece
25. Guernsey
26. Iceland
27. India
28. Indonesia
29. Ireland
30. Isle of Man
31. Italy
32. Japan
33. Jersey
34. Korea
35. Latvia
36. Lebanon
37. Liechtenstein
38. Lithuania
39. Luxembourg
40. Malaysia
41. Malta
42. Mexico
43. Montserrat
44. Nauru
45. Netherlands
46. New Zealand
47. Norway
48. Pakistan
49. Panama
50. Poland
51. Portugal
52. Romania
53. Russian Federation
54. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
55. San Marino
56. Saudi Arabia
57. Seychelles
58. Slovak Republic
59. Slovenia
60. South Africa
61. Spain
62. Sweden
63. United Kingdom
64. Uruguay

Issued by Ministry of Finance 
Singapore
09 Apr 2018