TAX QUERY

I've received similar letters from Sabadell and also my UK bank. Whilst it will help to some extent with money laundering regulations, the primary reason is for tax transparency:

"The CRS (Common Reporting Standard) requires financial institutions worldwide to play a central role in providing tax authorities with greater access and insight into taxpayer financial account information - including the income earned in your account(s). It has been described as a critical tool in the fight against tax evasion and is the next step on the tax transparency journey started by the US Foreighn Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

" As a result, banks are required by law to report in accordance with the CRS. This information will automatically be exchanged with other participating countries on an annual basis commencing from 2017. Customers may be reported if they hold financial accounts in a different jurisdiction(s) from where they are tax resident and if this jurisdiction is participating in CRS. These incude financial accounts held by various customers (individuals, certain entities and controlling persons of certain entities) and include certain types of investment paid or credited income (including interest, dividends, income from certain insurance contracts and other similar types of income) and also account balances for certain accounts sales proceeds from financial assets."

My husband and I live in Spain permanently, he has a UK military pension and I have rental income from a property I own in the UK; we have no income in Spain. I spoke to HMRC, who confirmed that we are still UK tax residents, but if this should change, it is in our interests to make tax declarations in both countries, as the country where we pay tax will provide a certificate which we can provide to the other country's tax authority to ensure that we are only taxed once on the same assets and income. Although we are more "spoon fed" by HMRC than the Spanish authorities, it is an individual's responsibility to declare assets - and ignorance is no excuse in law. Spain may appear to be more lax in this respect, but they aren't - they typically catch up with people when you sell a property or there is a bereavement, as my husband and his siblings have discovered with the inheritence of their father's property.

I found HMRC very helpful - you can dial them from abroad on 00 44 135 535 9022.

No matter who you are the Tax people in all countries are closing in onTax evasion,so if you pay your due tax do as they ask and sleep sound