CRS

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is a global standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information. It was developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and has been designed to prevent offshore tax evasion. Applicable for individuals and legal entities, it aims to give participating countries transparency on the financial assets that residents hold offshore. CRS requires financial institutions to identify customer tax residencies and report to local tax authorities financial accounts held directly or indirectly by foreign tax residents. It also requires those tax authorities (in participating countries) to exchange this information. More than 100 countries have committed to the standard, including Lebanon.

Lebanese laws and Regulations based on the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS) require NACB to collect and report certain information about an account holder’s tax residency. If the account holder’s tax residence is located outside Lebanon, we may be legally obliged to pass on the information in this form and other financial information with respect to financial accounts to the Lebanese Ministry of Finance which may exchange this information with tax authorities of another jurisdiction or jurisdictions pursuant to intergovernmental agreements to exchange financial account information.

Lebanon is part of the second wave and will begin to automatically exchange information in year 2018, based on the international standard for the exchange of information and will follow the below timeframes as well as local law No. 55, decree No. 1022 and circular No. 139:

1 July, 2017

• On-boarding Due Diligence of New Individual and Entity Accounts.

Dec 31, 2017

• Account Due Diligence for Preexisting High Value Individual Accounts.

Dec 31, 2018

• Pre-existing Individual Low Value Account and;
• Pre-existing Entity Account Due Diligence

Year 2018

• First Reporting Year