The federal central tax office of Germany (BZSt) on 5 March 2024 issued common reporting standard (CRS) Newsletter 01/2024 that contains the following updates:
- The 2024 provisional country exchange list was published on the BZSt website and includes all countries that have committed to the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) of financial accounts in tax matters. However, it does not yet serve as the basis for data transmission in 2024, rather, it is only meant to assist financial institutions in data preparation.
- Since the FATCA / CRS German guidance was amended in 2022, collective trust lawyer accounts could no longer be considered as excluded accounts. However, due to a delay in legal changes, the BZSt declared shortly thereafter that financial institutions could continue to consider these accounts as excluded until 31 December 2023. This rule has now been further extended until 31 December 2024.
- The Communication Manual Part 2 has been updated with non-substantive changes. Additionally, a new version of the Communication Manual Part 4 has been released, featuring new error messages with possible causes and solutions. It also includes requirements for specifying the taxpayer information number (TIN) or IN in XML schema.
Read a March 2024 report [PDF 594 KB] prepared by a KPMG member firm in Germany