CRS and FATCA: What Global Investors Must Know About Automatic Reporting
Your banks and brokers automatically report your foreign accounts to your home tax authority. How CRS and FATCA work, and why compliance is now non-negotiable.
The era of bank secrecy is over
The Common Reporting Standard (CRS), developed by the OECD, requires financial institutions in 120+ jurisdictions to identify accounts held by non-residents and report them annually to the account holder's home tax authority. The US has its own parallel regime, FATCA, that obliges foreign institutions to report on US persons.
For any investor with international exposure, this means your home tax authority almost certainly already knows about your foreign accounts, your balances, your dividends and your sales. The investing question is no longer 'will they find out?' — it is 'is my filing consistent with what they already know?'
What gets reported and to whom
Account balance at year-end. Gross interest, dividends and other income. Gross proceeds from sales of financial assets. The account holder's name, address, residency and tax ID. For entities, also the controlling persons if the entity is passive.
The reports go from the institution to its local tax authority, which then forwards to the account holder's residency authority on an annual cycle.
Practical hygiene for Aqmār investors
Make sure every institution you deal with has your correct residency on file. Make sure the tax ID matches what you file at home. If your residency changes, update every institution promptly. And file disclosures in your home country that reconcile to the reports the authority will receive — discrepancies are what trigger reviews.
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