Stricter controls on Chinese people buying real estate in Cyprus

Even stricter rules to control the country's wealthy citizens are being adopted by the Chinese authorities in an effort to combat tax evasion and concealment of assets.

In a recent report, Bloomberg reports that Chinese investors are choosing specific methods and ways to evade taxes and in recent days the country's state media have been constantly reporting on the new measures taken.

In particular, the implementation of the Common Reporting Standard, which aims to exchange information between the various countries 'authorities for the verification of citizens' tax data, shows that a significant number of Chinese tax evaders evade the Chinese government. "Chased" to collect the amounts due to tax evaders.

CRS is a system of exchange of information between tax authorities, with which, for example, if a Chinese citizen opens a bank account in Cyprus, then the Cypriot authorities are obliged to inform the Chinese authorities and vice versa. It is worth noting that Cyprus and China have been exchanging information under CRS since last year.

Bloomberg notes that a person referred to in CRS is any legal entity or natural person resident in a state applying CRS, although certain assets such as real estate are excluded from the standard. On the other hand, as informed by Insider and at the urging of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, it is up to the banks whether they will request any additional information from third country nationals to then forward it to the competent tax authorities.

In fact, the Bloomberg article also refers to Cyprus where it notes that the Chinese took advantage of the investment programs to provide citizenship and permanent residence and possibly undermined the CRS.

According to a recent study by the Ministry of Finance on the Cyprus Naturalization Investment Program, mainly Russians and Chinese were the ones who received Cypriot citizenship, with investments being made mainly in real estate. Based on the relevant study, Limassol is chosen by the Russians where they buy apartments in high-rise buildings while the Chinese choose Paphos where they invest in houses. Of course, in addition to the investments through the naturalization plan, even more were the Chinese who used the plan combined with a permanent residence permit.

Source: philenews