Financial Transparency Coalition

The UK's Channel 4 News decided to go to the Channel Island of Jersey, where over 600 of these subsidiaries are registered, to investigate the problem further. Its a great summary of the issues facing the United Kingdom, and how companies use jurisdictions like Jersey to brazenly avoid taxation.

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...

My report for the TUC on corporate taxation in the UK, published today, highlights an issue not picked up by the press, but for me of some considerable significance. That is the decline of corporate reporting for activities in the UK – less than 20% of the largest companies in the UK now reporting in this way compared to 50% a decade ago. As I note in that report:

In 2000, half the sample of companies surveyed published information in their published accounts on their results arising in the UK. Usually this separate...