In the CRS (Common Reporting Standard, ***Same Reporting Standard) system, the tax authority of which country is determined based on the individual’s tax residency status to provide all relevant tax information of the CRS signatory countries to the tax authorities. In other words, if you are considered a Chinese tax resident, then your tax information includes deposits, custody accounts, and cash in banks, trusts, securities firms, law firms, accounting firms, financial product investment entities, and specific insurance institutions. Funds or insurance contracts, annuity contracts, as well as accounts, account balances, names, ages, places of residence, gender, etc. must be exchanged. Of course, the premise is that your overseas assets are in a country that has joined CRS (except the United States, which will be discussed later).

So, the first way to deal with CRS is to transfer overseas assets to non-CRS countries, such as Portugal, St. Kitts, British Turks Islands (you can also transfer to British passport in the future), Malta, etc. . The holding form can be real estate (Portugal, St. Kitts, British Turks Islands), or relatively safe national debt (Malta, etc.). In addition, you can also obtain permanent residence status in these countries on this basis, including to Entry and exit from other countries are also more convenient. The holding costs and taxes are relatively low (because these countries want to attract capital), and although the income is not high, it is still 5%. Investment requirements range from 500,000 euros in Portugal to 100,000 euros in Malta. Generally more than 300,000 US dollars. Residency requirements are generally not high. For example, Portugal has to live for 14 days in two years, while St. Kitts, Malta, and the British Turks Islands do not even have residency requirements. Another advantage of doing this is that these assets can usually be sold after a few years, or you can hold on to them if you wish. But one thing is that these countries are relatively small and may be forced to join the CRS under pressure from major powers, but so far this has not happened.

Another better way is to buy overseas real estate. If you look carefully at the reporting scope of CRS, it does not include the reporting of real estate. Therefore, purchasing real estate in countries such as the United States, Canada, Greece, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand will not be declared. What needs to be noted is the appreciation potential. Popular countries like Canada and Australia are already relatively high. Recently, many have introduced some measures to curb real estate speculation, especially overseas investors (to put it bluntly, China), so we still need to be cautious. And these popular countries will not give you status just because you buy a house. If you want to get status at the same time, European countries such as Greece, Spain, and Portugal are good choices, and housing prices are not too high. Although these countries are not English-speaking countries, English international education is very cost-effective, even compared to the United Kingdom and the United States. Thailand and Malaysia have also been relatively hot recently, but in other aspects they are still worse than those in European and American countries. In addition, the holding cost is also worth noting. The basic rule is that the more popular the country and the higher the housing prices, the higher the holding cost. Of course, you can also buy other non-financial assets, such as gold, jewelry, collectibles, etc., which I won’t go into here.

Then there is the use of overseas trusts (or even insurance), which requires the selection of offshore locations, trusts, insurance structure design and other professional design and operations, and is suitable for relatively large funds.

As for the United States, although it is not a signatory to CRS, it is actually the initiator of this practice. In 2010, the United States began to implement the principle of information exchange, namely the Foreign Account Taxpayer Act (FATCA), which forced countries like Switzerland to hand over the account information of American citizens in Swiss banks, helping the US government obtain a large amount of additional taxes. As the two largest countries, China and the United States have already cooperated in this area. Therefore, from the perspective of asset declaration, whether you are in China or the United States, it is difficult to avoid supervision, and there is a trend of becoming more and more strict. But there is one thing. If you invest more than 500,000 US dollars in the United States, such as a project like EB-5, the United States currently has no obligation and has not reported it to China. You can also obtain a green card in the United States at the same time. The disadvantage is that the waiting time is as long as 6 or 7 years and the project has certain risks.

In short, in this highly information-based society, governments around the world are becoming increasingly strict in property declaration and taxation. Planning for assets, taxes, and residence status is something that every person with needs in this regard needs to seriously consider.

Reference Materials "Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters"