In late July 2018, our client Mrs. Zhang received an email from St George Bank, a request to provide her tax residency status.

Why would Mrs. Zhang receive such a notification from St George Bank?

St George Bank found out Mrs. Zhang is currently living in Australia and receiving stable local income which mismatches the previous personal information recorded under her bank account. Her previous record showed she received foreign income and applied mortgage with foreign income.

How did St George Bank find out?

Early in July, Mrs. Zhang approached St George Bank and tried to switch her loan type to the principal with interest repayment.  It was supposed to be a win-win switch for both the bank and client, but she did not update her personal information consistently, particularly tax residency status.

Background of Mrs. Zhang’s case

In 2010, Mrs. Zhang family (couple with one daughter) planned to migrate to Australia, her husband and daughter had arrived in Australian prior to Mrs. Zhang arrival, meanwhile, Mrs. Zhang was still employed in a company in China during 2010-2015. (It means that she was receiving foreign income during 2010-2015. ) Her husband runs a small business in Australia since 2010.

In late 2014, they came to VIP Mortgage to do their home loan application. Their home loan application got approved by  St George Bank because of Mrs. Zhang’s additional foreign income on top of her husband and daughters’ income.

In Late 2015, Mrs. Zhang quitted the job in China and migrated to Australia to manage her husband’s business.

After her landing in Australia in 2015, she didn’t update personal information in St George Bank account until she recently went to the bank for changing loan repayment type in July 2018.  It means St George Bank account still records Mrs. Zhang as working overseas with foreign income, whereas the fact that she has been living and working in Australia with local income since 2015.

How Mr. Zhang Solve this Crisis?

Step 1:

Updated and share her tax residency status to ATO based on International Common Reporting Standard(CRS).

CRS is the single global standard for the collection, reporting, and exchange of financial account information on foreign tax residents.

Step 2:

Update her detail and tax residency as requested by St George Bank.  Be ready to cooperate with Bank investigation call and to provide recent-year tax history.

Result:

After the investigation, Mrs. Zhang was informed by the bank that there’s no more issue in her case due to her reliable tax history.

What if Mrs. Zhang Ignored that email?

They probably need to corporate with ATO investigation and receive a huge amount of penalty fee.

Key takeaways :

  1. Never ignore bank notification for updating personal information
  2. Cooperate with the bank actively after receiving notification

If you faced any similar issues or have related concerns, please talk to us on 1300 880 123, we probably can address your worry.