Guernsey Publishes CRS Bulletin on Reporting Trustee Documented Trusts

May 19, 2017

Paul Ogawa

Author

Sovos

This blog was last updated on June 26, 2021

Guernsey recently published Bulletin 2017/3, detailing how Trustee Documented Trusts (“TDT”) must report under the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”). This bulletin provides guidance on the format for electronic reporting through the Information Gateway Online Reporter (IGOR), the Guernsey electronic reporting portal.

While trusts would ordinarily be considered Reporting Financial Institutions (RFIs) under Schedule 2 of the current CRS Regulations, a TDT may be considered a Non-Reporting Financial Institution as long as two basic criteria are met:

The trustee of the trust is itself a Reporting Financial Institution; and
In that capacity the trustee completes all of the CRS reporting requirements, as detailed in Section I of Schedule 2 of the Regulations.

The Bulletin goes on to detail what steps the trustee and the TDT must take to register with IGOR and report electronically through the portal.

It is important to note that the treatment of TDTs under CRS differs from the treatment under FATCA, as detailed previously in Bulletin 2016/4.

To review Bulletin 2017/3 in full, please click here to visit the Guernsey website.

Paul Ogawa

Paul Ogawa is a Senior Regulatory Counsel at Sovos Compliance. As part of the Regulatory Analysis team, his main areas of focus are state and federal tax withholding, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and Canadian tax information reporting. Prior to Sovos, Paul worked as a litigation attorney in Boston area law firms, representing clients in insurance subrogation claims, family law matters, and employment disputes. Paul is a member of the Massachusetts Bar, earned his B.A. from Brandeis University and his J.D. from the Suffolk University Law School.

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