The dated launch notice
IRAS issued this notice on 30 December 2016 to Singapore financial institutions, announcing the 2016 CRS Regulations taking effect on 1 January 2017. It explains CRS as an agreed automatic exchange of financial-account information standard, endorsed by the OECD and Global Forum to detect and deter offshore-account tax evasion. The statement that more than 100 jurisdictions would begin exchange in 2017 or 2018 belongs to that launch period.
Systems and the wider approach
Institutions must establish processes and systems to obtain CRS information from holders opening new accounts from 1 January 2017. The notice calls this the wider approach. Collection is not postponed until a holder’s jurisdiction already has an exchange arrangement; institutions first establish account holders’ tax-residency status using available information.
Which information was transmitted in 2018
The notice calls for transmitting in 2018 the CRS information of holders resident for tax purposes in jurisdictions with which Singapore has a CRS Competent Authority Agreement (CAA). Its footnote explains that a CAA implements exchange under an existing legal instrument, such as the mutual-assistance convention or a bilateral treaty. Collecting information and actually exchanging it are distinct stages; the historical first-exchange statement is not an annual filing deadline for every later year.
Official source
This article independently explains the substantive contents of the official PDF, including the relevant conditions, procedures and annexes. The linked document remains the authoritative source for its original wording, and later changes should be checked separately.
Read the official PDF ↗