The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) was developed by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and is a global tax information reporting standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (AEOI). CRS is governed by local law and local tax authority; the Revenue Department for Thailand. Financial institutions in the CRS participating countries are required to report information of their customers who are tax residents of other CRS participating countries. The local tax authority will then exchange such information of the customers with other CRS participating countries.
Please see the list of participating countries at https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/crs-implementation-and-assistance/crs-by-jurisdiction/
In preparation to comply with the upcoming CRS law in Thailand, the Bank started to collect CRS self-certification for new account opening for the purpose of complying with the reporting obligations from 1 January 2023 onwards.
The CRS reporting applies to financial account(s) held by Reportable Jurisdiction Person (i.e. persons who are tax resident in a CRS participating country and are not exempted from such reporting). Therefore, the Bank must require the customers to identify the CRS reporting status and their tax residency country or countries by completing the self-certification form.
Under CRS, local tax authorities (for Thailand; the Revenue Department) require financial institutions to collect and report information relating to customers’ tax statuses, particularly where he/she is a tax resident.
If the account is identified as CRS reportable accounts at the end of year, the Bank must report the customer’s information e.g. name, tax ID, principal and interest amount to the Revenue Department.
If you are a new-to-bank customer, you will be required to provide a completed CRS self-certification as part of your account opening process. If you are an existing customer, the Bank may contact you for account status confirmation following any change in an existing customer’s information, or any “reason to know” which may affect your CRS status of an account.
Please note that you may receive more than one request for a CRS self-certification if you multiple relationships with more than one business unit within the Bank. Therefore, it is important for you to respond to all requests although you have already submitted to any of the requests.
The Bank cannot proceed account opening if the customer, both new customer and existing customer, do not complete the self-certification. For more information related to CRS, please visit OECD website at www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/crs-implementation-and-assistance/ or contact your tax advisor.
All financial institutions including Banks, Specified Insurance Companies, Custodial Institutions, Investment Entities in participating countries are required to comply with the CRS.
Tax residence definition depends on the criteria of each country/jurisdiction. Please contact your tax advisor for more information or check the OECD website https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/crs-implementation-and-assistance/tax-residency/, as the Bank cannot provide tax advice.
If a person meets the criteria of multiple jurisdictions in the determination of tax residence status, the person can have more than one tax residence and is required to provide all details to the Bank according to CRS.
FATCA and CRS are different laws/regulations with different requirements.
FATCA is US Law that require financial institutions to identify US persons and report according to FATCA regulations. The CRS requires financial institutions to identify the tax residence of all customers and report information of the customers who are tax resident in other countries.
The Bank is unable to proceed account opening.
You would need to provide a reason for not having a TIN and submit the supporting document to the Bank. Please check OECD website http://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/crs-implementation-and-assistance/tax-identification-numbers/#d.en.347759 for jurisdictions that provide information with respect to their TIN and seek advice from your tax advisor.
The CRS self-certification is valid until there is a change in circumstances which causes your tax residence status or where any information provided becomes invalid.
No. If you are tax resident of a country other than Thailand, the Bank is required to report your information to the Revenue Department who will pass your information to the country or countries that you are tax resident of. The participating countries are expected to have a strong standard rule of law to ensure the confidentiality of information exchanged and to prevent any unauthorised use.
If there is a change in the information which previously provided to the Bank, you are required to notify the Bank promptly and provide a self-certification within 30 days of the change(s) in your circumstances.
Yes, the Bank will still collect status of your tax residency and will report to the Revenue Department as and when requested.