PANews reported on December 17 that the Hong Kong government recently announced that it had told the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Effective Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes that Hong Kong is committed to implementing a reporting framework for crypto assets (reporting framework) to improve international tax transparency and combat cross-border tax evasion. Hong Kong is committed to implementing the reporting framework with appropriate partners on the basis of reciprocity, and the relevant partners must meet the standards for protecting data confidentiality and security. Taking into account the latest timetable set by the Global Forum, the government initially plans to complete the required local legislative amendments by 2026 or earlier, and to conduct the first automatic information exchange under the reporting framework with relevant tax jurisdictions starting in 2028.
The OECD announced the reporting framework in June 2023 to ensure global tax transparency. As an extension of the existing "Common Reporting Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information for Tax Matters", the reporting framework stipulates a similar mechanism for tax jurisdictions with crypto asset users or controllers as their tax residents to automatically exchange tax information related to crypto asset accounts and transactions every year. To ensure that the reporting framework can be implemented fairly and effectively around the world, the Global Forum has invited all tax jurisdictions with relevant crypto asset industries and identified as directly related to the reporting framework (including Hong Kong) to implement the reporting framework.
