Participants listen to an expert during the seminar hosted by KPMG Qatar.

KPMG in Qatar held a seminar recently to help chief financial officers and chief compliance officers from financial institutions understand the implications of Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and what they need to do to comply.
The seminar comes after the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched the CRS, a globally-coordinated approach to disclosure of account information between tax authorities.
Craig Richardson, partner and head of Tax at KPMG in Qatar, said: “While CRS is similar to Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), it requires a much broader information standard and therefore, businesses will need more help to meet the new standards. It was great to be able to help some of Qatar’s key financial organisations gain a deeper understanding of CRS at the seminar.”
The new standards are based on annual sharing of information between financial institutions from one jurisdiction with other jurisdictions through specific exchange of information agreements.   
Currently, 61 countries have agreed to implement CRS from January 1, 2016, with over 30 more expected to join in subsequent years (Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have committed to implement CRS starting in January 2017).
Christopher S Brown, a tax director for KPMG London, was a speaker at the seminar and shed light on which entities are considered financial institutions under CRS, the differences between CRS and FATCA, and how and when CRS will affect the financial institutions in Qatar, especially holding companies that have entities in early adopter countries.  He said: “Preparation is key for early adopter countries to meet their CRS implementation requirements cost-effectively and with as little disruption as possible. In order to achieve this, it is critical that financial institutions are on board and fully-understand their role as soon as their host countries begin implementation.”