The Ministry of Finance has issued a Decree as to the application of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development Common Reporting Standard (‘’CRS’’) and the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information.
The Decree was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic on the 31 December 2015 and is in force as of 1 January 2016.
The Decree requires Cypriot Financial Institutions (such as Banks, Co-Ops, etc) to collect and review information from their customers, which will enable them to determine their respective tax residence(s). Certain tax related information will need to be reported to the Cypriot Tax Department and from thereon the information will be exchanged with other relevant foreign tax authorities.
Cypriot Financial Institutions should obtain a self-certification and request the tax residency and Tax Identification Number (‘’TIN’’) of all of their new account holders and not only of those account holders that are resident in a CRS-partner jurisdiction of Cyprus.
For pre-existing accounts held by individual account holders, the Decree provides that where Cypriot Financial Institutions maintain a current residence address for the respective individual account holder, which is based on documentary evidence in their records, then they are allowed to treat such individual account holder as being a resident for tax purposes of the jurisdiction in which the current residence address is located and determine whether the individual account holder is a reportable person.