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Citing the ongoing fight against tax evasion, the federal Department of Finance Canada released a set of legislative proposals on Friday that would establish a process for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to exchange financial information automatically with other countries about foreign accounts.

The proposals are aimed at implementing the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), which was developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2014 to facilitate the automatic exchange of financial information between countries.

According to Finance, when the CRS takes effect, Canadian financial services institutions “would be required to have procedures in place to identify accounts held by non-residents and to report the required information to the Canada Revenue Agency.”

Then, the CRA would swap information on a reciprocal, bilateral basis with foreign jurisdictions under information exchange arrangements. Finance says the information the CRA receives through these arrangements will help fight tax evasion.

“The industry has been anticipating the release of these legislative proposals,” notes Andrea Taylor, managing director with the Investment Industry Association of Canada (IIAC), in a statement. “We will carefully review the proposals and hope that the requirements align sufficiently with the existing [Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act] and [anti-money laundering] regimes to minimize disruption for both financial institutions and their clients, particularly during the account opening process.”

Earlier this year, the federal government indicated that it plans to implement the CRS by July 1, 2017. Comments on the draft proposals are due by July 15.

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