Tax residency self-certification

CRS is designed to mitigate offshore tax evasion. It provides participating countries transparency on the financial assets held offshore by their tax residents. CRS is a reporting regime and is not designed with the objective of imposing additional taxes.

CRS requires financial institutions based in CRS participating countries to identify customer tax residencies and report financial accounts held directly or indirectly by foreign tax residents to the local tax authorities in the jurisdiction where the financial institutions are based. The local tax authorities (in participating countries) are expected to exchange this information with the relevant tax authority in a participating country.

We will request that impacted customers to complete a self-certification form that includes a declaration of their tax residency.

Under the CRS requirements, we will be asking for these information:

• Name
• Address
• Place of birth* (for Individual and Controlling Persons)
• Date of birth*(for Individual and Controlling Persons)
• Country(ies) of tax residence
• Taxpayer identification number(s)*
• Place of registration/incorporation (for Entities)
• Entity Type (for Entities)
• Controlling Person Type for certain Entity Types (for Controlling Persons)* this does not apply in all participating countries and is subject to local law requirements

You can access the forms in the Forms section.

Tax residency refers to where you are resident for tax purposes and each country has its own criteria to determine it. Please consult your tax advisor or the OECD website for more information.

If you do not provide the requested information / certification, regardless of you being an existing customer of Great Eastern or not, Great Eastern may not be able to issue certain policies to you.

If there is any change in the information provided to Great Eastern, you are required to inform Great Eastern immediately so that we can advise you of further documentation required, if any.

Regretfully, Great Eastern is unable to provide professional tax advice. Please refer to the OECD website or seek advice from a tax advisor.

By regulation, there are only 2 circumstances in which a TIN is not required to be collected or reported:

1. a TIN is not issued by the relevant Reportable Jurisdiction; or
2. the domestic law of the relevant Reportable Jurisdiction does not require the collection of the TIN issued by such Reportable Jurisdiction.

However, in certain circumstances, you might not have a TIN temporarily or due to personal circumstances. In such instances, you would need to justify the absence of TIN.

No, all financial institutions in CRS participating countries are required to collect and report account holder information.

Your data and privacy are important to us. For more information please view our Privacy Statement to find out how we collect and handle your personal data.

Additional information for the CRS is still required to be provided even if you have already provided information under the United States government's Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as these are different regulations with different requirements.

FATCA is a regulation enacted by the U.S. in March 2010 to deter and detect U.S. tax evasion by U.S. persons through the use of foreign financial accounts. FATCA requires all FIs outside the U.S. to report, on a regular basis, information about financial accounts held by U.S. persons to the U.S. IRS.

In 2014, Singapore entered into a Model 1 Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the U.S. to facilitate compliance with the U.S. FATCA by Singapore-based Financial Institutions (SGFIs). Under the IGA, reporting SGFIs are required to perform due diligence to identify financial accounts held by Specified U.S. persons and report such financial account information to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). IRAS will in turn share this information with the U.S. IRS.

As a reporting Singapore FI, Great Eastern is required to collect and submit information on financial accounts held by Specified U.S. persons to IRAS.

FATCA was established to deter and combat U.S. tax evasion by U.S. persons whereas the CRS is intended to deter and combat tax invasion on a global level.

While the FATCA only requires SGFIs to identify and report account information of specified U.S. persons to IRAS, the CRS will require SGFIs to establish the tax residence(s) of all their customers and report to IRAS the financial account information of customers who are tax residents of jurisdictions where Singapore has a Competent Authority Agreement (CAA) based on CRS to exchange the information with.

A U.S. person refers to:

a. an individual who is a U.S. citizen or U.S resident (including U.S green card holder); or

b. a partnership or corporation organised in the U.S. or under the laws of the U.S. or any State thereof, a trust if:

• a court within the U.S. would have authority under applicable law to render orders or judgments concerning substantially all issues regarding administration of the trust; and
• one or more U.S. persons have the authority to control all substantial decisions of the trust, or an estate of a decedent that is a citizen or resident of the U.S.

We may not be able to issue certain policies to you. For existing policyholders, we may need to report your account information to the IRAS.

If there is any change to the information provided to us previously, please update your information immediately with us and submit the relevant forms. We may approach you for further requirements or clarifications, if any.

Your data and privacy is important to us. Customer details are secured by a strict protocol. For more information, please view our Privacy Statement to find out how we collect and handle your personal data. We safeguard your personal data in accordance with our guidelines.

Yes. You will need to submit a CRS self-certification form and FATCA W series form (if applicable) which can be found on the Great Eastern website. We may reach out to you for supporting documents, if required.

Generally, personal information such as name, address, date of birth, country(ies) of tax residence, U.S. TIN, and financial account information such as account balance will be submitted to IRAS.

For general questions on FATCA, please feel free to contact your agent or refer to the IRAS website for more information. However, we are unable to provide any tax advice. For questions on your tax residency, please refer to the IRAS website or seek advice from your tax advisor.

In general, customers should provide the details by the stipulated date as indicated in our notification requests such as email, SMS, or letter.