What is the Common Reporting Standard?

A quick summary

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is a global standard for the automatic exchange of Financial Account information between governments.

CRS helps fight against tax evasion around the world and protects the integrity of systems by improving transparency.

It needs all Financial Institutions including companies within Lloyds Banking Group, who operate in Participating Countries, to gather certain customer information. They must then report it to local tax authorities.

How the Common Reporting Standard works

Governments around the world have introduced standards to allow increased sharing of information between tax authorities. This is under a framework known as Automatic Exchange of Information (AEoI). One piece of legislation is the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), seen as a critical tool in the world wide fight against tax evasion.

So far more than 100 jurisdictions have committed to adopting the CRS. This includes the UK and areas with their own distinct tax regulations such as Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man etc. Any reference to countries in the FAQs relates to all jurisdictions who have committed to adopting the CRS.

The full list of in-scope jurisdictions is available on the OECD website.

To comply with the CRS, Participating Countries must collect certain customer information from their Financial Institutions. They exchange that information on an annual basis with other Participating Countries.

In the UK, we must complete CRS reporting to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) by 31 May every year for customers we’ve identified as Reportable Persons or Reportable Entities.

Let’s look at the details

How does the Common Reporting Standard impact me? expandable section
Under CRS, we must identify customers that are a tax resident in one country with Financial Accounts held in another, for inter-country reporting purposes.

If you’re a UK tax resident only, and only hold Financial Accounts in the UK, UK companies won’t report you. But you may need to confirm your tax residency.

If this applies to you, we’ll write asking you to complete a Tax Residency Self-Certification form, and document proof of tax residency. Other reasons we may send you a Tax Residency Self-Certification form could be:
- You have opened a new account;
- You changed the personal details we hold for you; or
- A review of your accounts has indicated that we don’t hold up to date information on your tax residency or whether you’re a US citizen.
We may also need you to contact us so we can update the information we hold, such as:
- Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN)
- National Insurance Number
- Date of birth
Local tax authorities would need certain information on Reportable Persons / Reportable Entities and their Financial Accounts.
What does the Common Reporting Standard mean for customers? expandable section

Lloyds Banking Group must report to the local tax authority the customers with a Financial Account who are tax resident in one Reportable Country but with Financial Accounts held in another. The local tax authority will then pass this information onto the Reportable Country where it’s been found the customers are resident for tax purposes.
Do I need to do anything? expandable section

We may write to you asking you to fill in a Tax Residency Self-Certification form. It’s very important you complete this document. Otherwise, you may receive repeated requests until we collect the necessary information.

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