CRS-a mid-term retrospective

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has achieved significant success in implementing a global system of automatic exchange of information. However, that success needs to be considered against a number of weaknesses in that system. This article explores the particular weakness of the legal framework of the CRS. That weakness arose at the time of implementing the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) intergovernmental agreements (IGAs). It would have required considerably more focus and discipline at the time of preparing the FATCA IGAs to prevent it affecting the CRS. The OECD's role in dominating the implementation of the CRS has aggravated that weakness.