CRS — the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard — is the global sister of FATCA. Since 2017 it powers automatic tax-information exchange between 110+ states. Georgia joined in 2023. What does that mean in practice?
What CRS does — in short
Every Georgian bank reports once a year (typically in April):
- Account existence (IBAN, opening date)
- Balance as of Dec 31 of the prior year
- Gross income of the year (interest, dividends, other earnings)
- Account holder data including the tax-identification number
The data goes to the Georgian Revenue Service which forwards it automatically to the tax authority of the tax-residence country — so for a German tax resident, to the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern.
What CRS does NOT do
-
No transaction-level transfer
Your home authority does NOT receive a list of individual transfers. Only balances + aggregates.
-
No third-party access
Debt collectors, private detectives, credit bureaus see nothing. It is a state-to-state flow, not an open register.
-
No automatic prosecution
A CRS report alone does not trigger a case. Only when the aggregate does not match your filing does the tax office investigate.
-
No real-time visibility
CRS data is ~12 months old when your home authority processes it. There is no live monitoring.
Practical consequence
How to declare
For DE tax residents with a GE account or LLC:
- Anlage AUS of the income-tax return — foreign income, Georgia line
- Tax treaty offset of the 1% or 15% paid in Georgia against the German liability
- CFC notification if you hold > 1% in an LLC — we deliver the certificates
If you are our client: we generate the offset-eligible certificates annually and send them to your German tax advisor by March 31.
Verdict
CRS is not a “tax-haven killer” — it is a transparency mechanism that enforces exactly what we recommend our clients do anyway: structure cleanly, declare correctly, legally use the lower rates.
If you can live with CRS, you can live with Georgia. If you can’t, this isn’t the right direction.