Recent amendments to Canada’s Income Tax Act (ITA) are part of global efforts to help address concerns related to tax compliance and improve efforts to fight tax evasion. The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is a new reporting process initiated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development which requires Canadian financial institutions to gather information about the financial accounts of Canadian non-residents (for tax purposes) held in Canada and exchange this information with foreign tax authorities/jurisdictions.
The goal of the Common Reporting Standard is to protect the integrity of the respective tax systems of over 100 participating jurisdictions around the world. The reporting standards being implemented by the CRA are designed to locate Canadian residents who may have tax reporting obligations for assets they hold outside of Canada, or residents of foreign jurisdictions who may be holding assets inside Canada.
What is Computershare doing?
As part of complying with this new standard, Computershare must collect information from account holders related to their tax residency status. Depending on the information collected, we may then be required by the ITA to report account holder financial information to the CRA. The CRA may then share this information with the relevant tax authority of the applicable foreign jurisdiction.
What should issuers do?
To meet our reporting requirements Computershare may be contacting you if it is determined that we require information pertaining to your account with Computershare. CRS may not be applicable to all accounts, and therefore some issuers may not be required to provide Computershare with any information.
The CRA has released guidance information on the CRS compliance requirements, and is expected to release more details in the coming weeks/months. As we receive these updates, Computershare will provide additional updates on how the Common Reporting Standard may impact you.
Visit the CRA website for more updates.
[Requirements as of April 18, 2017]