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What is CRS?

The CRS is the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD’s) global standard for sharing financial information between governments. It is part of the current global drive for everyone to be as open and honest as they can about tax and financial information, so that we can help the fight against tax evasion. These new regulations came into effect on 1 January 2016.

Under CRS, we aim to identify customers who we think are tax residents in a country outside of the UK – we’ll then share this information with the relevant country so that their tax authority has everything they need.

What this means for you?

To help us comply with the regulations, we’ll need you to provide us with information on where you are reportable for tax. This is usually where you pay tax on your income or profits.

  • If you are a UK tax resident you may be asked for your National Insurance number.
  • If you are a tax resident of another country you will be asked for your Tax Identification Number (the number given to you by that country’s tax authority). Some countries do not issue a TIN but may rely on other issued numbers such as social security / national insurance numbers. If you are unable to provide this at the account application stage, we will contact you after the account has been opened for this information.

If you are completing an online application, these questions will be asked as part of the account opening process. If you are opening an account via the post or in one of our Stores, then you will be required to provide this information on the application form.

Accounts in your name

If you opened your account before 1 January 2016 we may contact you to confirm your tax residence status. We may do this if, for example, you have a foreign correspondence address as this might indicate you could be a non-UK tax resident. We will ask you at this point to complete and return a Self-Certification form  to confirm where you are resident for tax. It is important that you return any forms to us to ensure we hold accurate and up to date information for you for reporting purposes.

Accounts for someone else

If you open a bank account for someone else, for example where you have a power of attorney or for your child, the information we require is in respect of that other person.

FATCA

The United States government’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is US law and requires us to identify any persons reportable for tax in the US. Even if you have already provided us with information under FATCA, you may still need to provide us with additional information for the CRS as these are different regulations with different requirements.

What you have to do

If Virgin Money contact you to gather more information about you and your account, it is important you reply. If the information we hold about you is incorrect there is a risk you could be reported to HMRC in error. You may be required to complete a Self-Certification form  which must be returned to the following address:

Savings Operations
Virgin Money
Jubilee House
Gosforth
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE3 4PL

Keeping us informed

If you think the information we hold about you could be incorrect please contact us as soon as possible, so that we can correct any inaccuracies for you.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. All financial institutions are required to be compliant with CRS.

In line with CRS, we may ask for the following information:

  1. Name
  2. Address
  3. Date of birth
  4. Country (ies) of tax residence
  5. Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN)

Under CRS, we are legally obliged to establish the tax residency of all of our customers even if you are resident and pay tax within the UK. Your details, however, will not be passed to the tax authorities for CRS purposes.

You will need to provide this information each time you open an account with us or if we write to you asking you to complete and return a Self-Certification form.

The information we provide to the tax authority will have been given by you in the application or Self-Certification form, as well as details about your account(s), including:

  1. The account balance
  2. The total amount of interest paid

If we identify any information on your account which may lead us to believe you may be reportable for tax in another country, we will send you a Self-Certification form for you to complete and return to us to enable us to ensure our records are up to date. An example of this could be a foreign telephone number, foreign address or passport which has been used as ID to open your account. This is known as ‘indicia’ and requires Virgin Money to establish tax reporting liabilities of the customer.

If you do not return the completed Self-Certification form, we may report you to our tax authority based on the information we hold about you. It is important that you return this form to us within 30 days of the date on the letter so we can ensure that our records are accurate and up to date.