Will Singapore banks report financials to home land authorities?

[thom84]

Hi folks

I used to live in Singapore until earlier this year and have currents, savings and trading accounts with a local bank. However, I remember that they asked me for my home tax ID when I registered the account.

Does anyone have experiences with this and knows if the banks will automatically inform homeland income authorities over details like sold stocks, gained dividends and things like that?

[Max Headroom]

Assume yes.

[sundaymorningstaple]

^^^^This!

[malcontent]

Singapore has several information sharing agreements in place including with FATCA (US) and CRS (EU) to name a few.

You should always assume the information is being reported, however, if Singapore hasn’t asked you for any foreign tax ID numbers yet, I would say the risk is lower, but not zero. Once Singapore does collect that information from you, it is almost guaranteed that the accounts will be reported. If you fail to report on your side and get caught, the consequences are serious and costly.

[sundaymorningstaple]

thom84, this may interest you.....

https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/08/21/g ... and-clues/

moderator

[malcontent]

One interesting thing that happened when we opened a POSB account in my daughter’s name alone after she turned 7, using only her Singapore birth certificate... the bank teller assumed incorrectly that she was a Singapore citizen and registered the account as such. No FATCA forms as the US indicia (father being a US citizen) were completely overlooked.

I seriously doubt that the account will ever be reported by Singapore, which doesn’t mean a free pass, but I’ll take it as some accidental risk reduction due to the oversight... and in the unlikely event she ever overlooks reporting the account in the future, at least she will have a lower risk of getting flagged and penalized for it.

[thom84]

Thanks guys. I was aware of CRS (FATCA not relevant for me) but I was wondering what level of details they share with the home countries.

This shared link is interesting. It's highlighting countries that are reporting back to Germany but I guess this would look the same for any other country under CRS...

...
https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/08/21/g ... and-clues/
...

However, Singapore reports accounts, income and balance and that answers my initial question more than expected.

Thanks for sharing!

TL;DR: Your home country will know everything* about accounts in Singapore being held by individuals and/or entities. (*when participating in FATCA/CRS)

[PNGMK]

I'd add to that any country in the Four Eyes agreement as well (Singapore, Australia, NZ and HK I think at a minimum).