Form 61B

India shares financial account information with other countries, to help catch tax evasion that crosses borders. That sharing has to start somewhere, and it starts with a form.

Form 61B is what a Reporting Financial Institution — a bank, mutual fund registrar, or similar entity — files once it identifies an account as reportable under the Common Reporting Standard. It is the mechanism that actually moves the information from the institution to the tax authorities, and from there to the other country involved.

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is the government's mechanism for exchanging account information between countries, to prevent tax evasion. A Reporting Financial Institution (RFI) must apply due diligence to its financial accounts to identify any that are Reportable Accounts — held by a person tax-resident in another CRS country.

Once an account is identified as reportable, the RFI reports the relevant information in Form 61B. Whether an entity counts as an RFI at all is governed by Rule 114F(7), which defines the term — a financial institution resident in India, with specific carve-outs for certain branches.

A mutual fund's Registrar and Transfer Agent, acting as the Reporting Financial Institution, runs its routine due diligence and finds that an investor is tax-resident in France, a CRS-participating country. That investor's folio becomes a Reportable Account.

The RTA reports the details of that folio — the investor's identity, account balance and relevant income — in Form 61B, filed with the Indian tax authorities, who then pass the information on to France under the automatic exchange framework. The investor's own transaction in the fund is unaffected; only the reporting obligation is triggered.

Chapter 18 (Key Regulations), in the discussion of Common Reporting Standards, names Form 61B as the form a Reporting Financial Institution uses to report a Reportable Account once due diligence has identified one, and cites Rule 114F(7) for the definition of a Reporting Financial Institution. Expect a question naming Form 61B as the CRS reporting form, or asking who is required to file it.

• Form 61B is filed by the institution, not by the investor. An investor's own paperwork is the FATCA/CRS self-certification; Form 61B is the institution's onward report to the tax authorities.
• Do not confuse Form 61B with Form 60/61 — the near-identical numbering is coincidental. Form 60/61 is a PAN-substitute declaration; Form 61B is a CRS reporting form filed by an institution, not an individual.
• Whether an entity is a Reporting Financial Institution at all turns on Rule 114F(7), not on its size or type alone.