HMRC has asked for access to the leaked data – the ‘Panama papers’ – which, it is alleged, reveal large-scale tax evasion and money laundering facilitated by Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama. More than a million of the firm’s documents covering a 40-year period were leaked first to the German Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and other news organisations. Covered extensively in the press, these documents appear to implicate prominent politicians and other high-profile figures from all over the world in widespread use of nominee companies and other arrangements to hide assets in various tax havens, with the involvement of a number of major international banks. A large proportion of the companies set up for this purpose are registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The UK’s prime minister is under pressure to declare any continuing family interest in a network of offshore investment funds set up by his late father.
OECD secretary-general Angel Gurría described Panama as the ‘last major holdout that continues to allow funds to be hidden offshore’. The country was reported recently to be ‘back-tracking on its commitment to automatic exchange of financial account information’. Panama ‘must put its house in order,’ Gurría said, ‘by immediately implementing these standards’.
On a brighter note, Gurría commented that the ‘Panama papers’ show a general decline in the use of offshore companies and bearer share companies. This, he said, is a ‘testament to the incredible transformation effected in the last seven years to establish robust international standards on tax transparency, including on beneficial ownership’.
HMRC has asked for access to the leaked data – the ‘Panama papers’ – which, it is alleged, reveal large-scale tax evasion and money laundering facilitated by Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama. More than a million of the firm’s documents covering a 40-year period were leaked first to the German Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and other news organisations. Covered extensively in the press, these documents appear to implicate prominent politicians and other high-profile figures from all over the world in widespread use of nominee companies and other arrangements to hide assets in various tax havens, with the involvement of a number of major international banks. A large proportion of the companies set up for this purpose are registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The UK’s prime minister is under pressure to declare any continuing family interest in a network of offshore investment funds set up by his late father.
OECD secretary-general Angel Gurría described Panama as the ‘last major holdout that continues to allow funds to be hidden offshore’. The country was reported recently to be ‘back-tracking on its commitment to automatic exchange of financial account information’. Panama ‘must put its house in order,’ Gurría said, ‘by immediately implementing these standards’.
On a brighter note, Gurría commented that the ‘Panama papers’ show a general decline in the use of offshore companies and bearer share companies. This, he said, is a ‘testament to the incredible transformation effected in the last seven years to establish robust international standards on tax transparency, including on beneficial ownership’.
