The Government of the British Virgin Islands has decided to extend its deadlines for firms' notification and reporting obligations in accordance with the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) by two months.

Reporting BVI financial institutions will now have until 30 June to register with the BVI International Tax Authority (ITA) on its reporting portal, BVI FARS, without the ITA considering compliance measures or penalties. Those institutions will now have to observe their reporting obligations by 31 July.

FATCA obligations unchanged

Deadlines pertaining to the US Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act 2010 remain unchanged:

• all Reporting BVI financial institutions that have not previously enrolled on BVI FARS must have done so by 1 April; and
• the deadline for reporting all reportable accounts through BVI FARS is 31 May.

UK CDOT notification and reporting obligations

In its move towards CRS, the UK has indicated that for 2016 accounts reportable in 2017, both UK CDOT (the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories International Tax Compliance Regulations) and CRS will be operational. In order to comply with both, reporting BVI financial institutions will be required to report the maximum of what is required by the CRS and UK CDOT. For example, in 2017 CRS does not require the reporting of lower value pre-existing individual accounts and pre-existing entity accounts unless they have already been identified and the due diligence time period for CRS runs until 31 December 2017. However, under UK CDOT, all lower-value pre-existing accounts must be reported in 2017 and so such accounts must be reported.

It has been agreed that UK CDOT will remain in force until 31 December 2018 so that any queries on information submitted under the UK CDOT can be dealt with. There will no longer be an option to make a separate UK CDOT filing and reports for UK CDOT made in 2017 must either be submitted using the manual entry or XML upload for CRS on BVI FARS. The 2017 deadlines for UK CDOT will, therefore, be the extended deadlines for CRS.

BVI FARS is fully operational for FATCA enrolment and 'filings' - an American term now in use in the BVI that describes the reports that companies have to send to (or lodge with) governmental organisations - but is not yet open for enrolment and 'filing' in respect of UK CDOT and CRS.

* Philip Graham is available on +1 284 852 2551