Question Open Bank Account with an Address of a different country

[Clank]

Hello, would it be a good option to avoid CRS opening a bank account in another country for example Switzerland with an address in Germany while I live in France and I don’t pay taxes there?

Thanks

 

[Silvio]

Usually banks will ask for more proof - residency card, credit card statement - confirming your address. Also they may check your phone number, the IP you are using, etc.

 

[Clank]

Usually banks will ask for more proof - residency card, credit card statement - confirming your address. Also they may check your phone number, the IP you are using, etc.

In the case they accept just a bank statement (my case) would it work

 

[Silvio]

Depending on the bank it would work but will be illegal. And if the bank suspects your address is false (or your TIN is false) they may report you based on your citizenship.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

The way I understand it, CRS means the banks send information to the local tax authorities who then forward this information to other countries. The minimum would be the country whose address you give, but they can report to additional countries, based on other factors, such as the telephone number you give them or the IP addresses you connect from.

So let’s say you open a bank account in Switzerland and you tell them you live in Germany. There will be a message to the German tax authorities that you opened a bank account in Switzerland with a year end balance of X where you indicated that you live in Germany. Now the German tax authorities may not care at all because the amount is low or they see that you are no longer a resident. Or they may take interest in you since you claimed to be living in Germany: “Hmmmm, this is weird, he claims to be living here, but he isn’t registered as a resident and he’s not paying any taxes? We need to investigate this in more detail.”
And as mentioned, they may also send the information to the French authorities if they have reason to believe you are actually living in France.