Financial Transparency Coalition

The United Kingdom is shifting some tax laws to make it easier for multinational corporations to avoid taxes via tax havens, through vehicles known as Controlled Foreign Corporations (CFCs). These vehicles are commonly used in the United States, and elsewhere, to shift profits to low tax jurisdictions. They are a legal way of pretending you made more where you did not. You would think that any smart country would be moving toward stricter laws to prevent the use of tax havens for profit shifting and corporate tax avoidance, but that's not the most important part of the law's impact....

There have been more responses to Action Aid’s report on the use of tax havens by FTSE 100 companies.

ActionAid have produced another fine report, this time about the use of tax havens by multinational corporations listed on the FTSE 100. The statistics are staggering: for example more than half of the financial sector's overseas subsidiaries are in tax havens. More precisely:

• The FTSE 100 largest groups registered on the London Stock Exchange comprise 34,216 subsidiary companies, joint ventures and associates.
• 38% (8,492) of their overseas companies are located in tax havens.
• 98 groups declared tax haven companies, with only two groups, Fresnillo and Hargreaves Landsdown, who did not.
• The banking sector makes heaviest use of tax havens, with a total...

Whether it’s tackling corporate tax dodging, changing international rules on tax havens, or improving tax systems, everyone involved in the international tax justice movement is aiming to increase the tax take in developing countries. This is both to increase the money available to pay for nurses, teachers and roads, desperately needed when you’re trying to run, say, a health service on a few dollars per person per year - as is the case in many of the poorest countries. It is also to encourage and develop the social contract between state and citizen, improving accountability. And it is to afford...