The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provided an update on the implementation of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) during its recent "Tax Talks" forum.  The forum is designed to provide updates on important recent and upcoming developments in the OECD's international tax work.

The CRS, was developed in response to the G20 request and approved by the OECD Council and calls on jurisdictions to obtain information from their financial institutions, such as the account balances of non-citizens who are not residents of the jurisdiction, and automatically exchange that information with other jurisdictions on an annual basis, mainly for the purpose of limiting the opportunities for taxpayers to circumvent reporting.

During the forum, OECD reported that 49 jurisdictions commenced their reporting on September 30, 2017, and another 53 jurisdictions are slated to commence reporting in September of 2018.  The United Kingdom and the EU states commenced in 2017, with Canada and Australia scheduled for 2018.  The United States has not chosen to participate in the CRS.  A complete list of the signatories, together with their respective implementation date can be found here.