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Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information

In September 2014, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong) indicated its support for implementing automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) on a reciprocal basis with appropriate partners with a view to commencing the first exchanges by the end of 2018, on condition that we could put in place necessary domestic legislation by 2017.

The Government introduced an amendment bill in January 2016, which was passed by the Legislative Council (LegCo) on 22 June 2016.  The Inland Revenue (Amendment) (No. 3) Ordinance 2016, which commenced operation on 30 June 2016, put in place a legislative framework for Hong Kong to implement AEOI.

Under the AEOI standard, financial institutions are required to identify financial accounts held by tax residents of reportable jurisdictions or held by passive non-financial entities whose controlling persons are tax residents of reportable jurisdictions in accordance with due diligence procedures.  Required information of these accounts has to be collected and furnished to the Department annually.

“Tax residents of reportable jurisdictions” refer to those who are liable to tax by reason of residence in the jurisdictions.  In general, whether or not an individual is a tax resident of a jurisdiction is determined by having regard to the person’s physical presence or stay in a place (e.g. whether over 183 days within a tax year) or, in the case of a company, the place of incorporation or the place where the central management and control of the entity is exercised.

Account holders may be requested to provide self-certifications on their personal information including tax residence, so as to enable financial institutions to identify the reportable accounts.  In its Automatic Exchange Portal, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has provided information on the tax residency rules applicable in jurisdictions that are committed to automatically exchanging information.  You may access the information via the following link:

https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/crs-implementation-and-assistance/tax-residency/#d.en.347760

The Government introduced an amendment bill to the LegCo in March 2017, which seeks to expand the list of reportable jurisdictions to cover 75 reportable jurisdictions for the more effective implementation of the arrangement relating to AEOI.  The bill was passed by the LegCo on 7 June 2017.   The Inland Revenue (Amendment) (No. 2) Ordinance 2017 came into operation on 1 July 2017.

Hong Kong will only conduct AEOI with a reportable jurisdiction when an arrangement is in place with the reportable jurisdiction concerned to provide the basis for exchange.

Hong Kong's network for tax information exchange has been expanded since the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters came into force in Hong Kong on 1 September 2018. Consequently, the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (No. 2) Ordinance 2019 increased the number of reportable jurisdictions from 75 to 126 with effect from 1 January 2020.

For more information, please click below links:

If you have any question regarding AEOI, you may send your enquiry to the following e-mail address: