Certificate on the Common Reporting Standard (CCRS)
Why take this certification?
The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an internationally agreed standard for the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on financial accounts. Its goal is to increase the fiscal transparency of cross-border wealth management and combat offshore tax evasion. 109 jurisdictions have exchanged information under the CRS as of 2020.
Designed for front office, compliance, operations and tax professionals, this online certification aims to provide an understanding of the key requirements and intentions of the CRS regime, and how to incorporate them as part of a strategic compliance operating model. This will help practitioners navigate common issues when onboarding accounts or reviewing changes in circumstances, and better prepare for the reporting exercises and audits.
Common problems with CRS that this course helps to solve
Do any of the problems below sound familiar to you? The CCRS course will help you and your team tackle them more effectively.
Tax transparency regulations are still fairly new, and many frontline and operational staff find it difficult to explain the rationale of collecting such tax related data from their customers. Tax being a sensitive issue, customers tend to be reserved and hesitant when providing such information. Staff in client facing roles often struggle to alleviate any customer concerns about where the data is going and who will get access to it.
Financial institutions are required to validate the reasonableness of the tax residency claim made by their clients. Without a proper understanding of the spirit and key objectives of the CRS, it will be very difficult to effectively and efficiently handle communication with clients as well as being able to validate the reasonableness of the form at the time of on-boarding.
Common issues will arise such as poor data quality, lack of response from clients, clients providing explanations that may or may not sound reasonable etc. Based on the fact patterns, you and your team will need to make a call as to whether to onboard the customer or not.
Financial institutions have to monitor for any changes that may result in a change in tax status for their clients. Without an awareness across the institution of what could constitute a change in tax status, there may be many instances which fall through the cracks.
Many financial institutions face challenges with this due to inconsistent or poor data quality, lack of awareness of what data needs to be reported in what format in which jurisdiction, and insufficient data validation at the time of reporting. This has led to many firms being questioned by the tax authorities and having to re-submit reports that they had previously filed in the earlier years.
Certificate Structure & Curriculum
This certificate is split into 6 lessons and a final exam, all taken online. All of the lessons tackle a key problem or difficulty in implementing the Common Reporting Standard regime and have been developed in partnership with experts in regulatory reporting. You can find outlines for all of the lessons below.
Depending on your level of experience, the CCRS will take approximately 4-5 hours to complete. You will have access to the lessons for 6 months.
- This lesson provides the background and the key objectives of the Common Reporting Standard.
- This builds the foundation to understand why the due diligence and reporting requirements are structured as such.
- After completing this lesson you will be better equipped to explain to customers why you are collecting tax related data and to alleviate any of their concerns.
- Gain a solid understanding of what data is to be reported, for which type of accounts, in what type of general format.
- These reporting requirements will then feed the necessary due diligence procedures.
- Through this lesson students will gain a strong understanding of financial institutions’ annual reporting obligations to the tax authorities, and in turn learn the respective roles of the various business units.
- This is where many front-line and operational teams struggle.
- This lesson will walk you through all the key requirements to validate data for new accounts, including the
reasonableness of tax status claims.
- There are numerous case studies and real life scenarios in this lesson to help you put your learning into practice.
- Understand the various strategies financial institutions can adopt when it comes to remediation of pre-existing accounts.
- Learn the main requirements for the different types of pre-existing accounts.
- Learn how to assign tax status to accounts which do not engage or provide any data.
- Understand the meaning of CIC and what kinds of data changes constitute a CIC.
- Learn a number of strategies to address CIC.
- Learn how to make decisions when it comes to re-assigning a tax status to an account.
- Learn how to comply with the CRS in conjunction with other due diligence procedures, such as AML/KYC, which rely on a lot of common data points.
- Discover strategies to synergize the business operating model to enable a more holistic and comprehensive compliance model while reducing inefficiencies and errors.
- The final exam can be taken at any time before the expiry of the account (you get access for 6 months) and after you have completed the 6 lessons.
- The exam consists of multiple choice questions and lasts for 60 minutes.
- To ensure the integrity of your result the exam is live proctored via the internet. The only requirement is a steady internet connection.
- The passing grade is 70%. Upon passing the examination, learners will be issued a downloadable, accredited certificate, signed by the ICC Secretary General
- You can then use the “CCRS” designation and join our alumni community
- The programme allows one attempt at the exam. If required, a retake can be purchased for USD $60 (before the expiry of your account) by contacting our Help Desk at helpdesk@iccacademy.com.sg.
FAQs
Answers to your most commonly asked questions.
Your purchase of the CCRS allows one attempt at the exam. If required, a retake can be purchased for USD $60 before the expiry of your account (you get 6 months access). Please contact our Help Desk at helpdesk@iccacademy.com.sg
All candidates need to be able to read and write in English. Additionally the course is intended for professionals working in the areas of compliance, finance or tax but also operations specialists or relationship managers within financial institutions who may already be familiar with the common reporting standard, or who need to understand it better.
Your purchase includes 6 months to access all 6 lessons in the CCRS programme. You can access the lessons as many times as you like within the 6-month access period. Once you have completed the 6 lessons, you will get access to the final exam.
Yes, all 6 lessons of this course and the final exam are taken online.
To complete the entire certificate programme including the final exam will take between 4-5 hours depending on your level of experience.
- 6-months access to the entire certificate programme – 6 online lesson and a final online exam.
- Interactive learning – quiz questions challenge activities and 8 case studies to show you how to apply what you learn to real-world scenarios.
- Downloadable study guide for offline reference.
- Lesson highlight summaries at the end of every lesson to recap what you have learned.
- A timed one-hour online exam – if you pass (70%) you will receive an ICC Academy, industry-recognised
The course will benefit representatives of financial institutions around the world. Especially, professionals working in the area of Compliance, Finance or Tax but also Operations specialists or Relationship Managers are addressed.
Due to the immediate availability of our course content upon registration, ICC Academy has a strict no-refund policy for our courses and certifications. For more details, please refer to our Terms and Conditions.
