Financial Transparency Coalition

Anonymous companies are entities that are used to disguise the identity of their true beneficial owner (BO) —the person (or people) who ultimately control or profit from a company. Right now, there are only a handful of countries where you have to register BO information of a company, and even fewer where this information is

The reason why places like Jersey became tax havens was to raise tax revenue from third parties. The tax revenues raised were, in effect, export earnings that kept their economies afloat.

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.

I, like many in the tax justice arena, was very dubious when the OECD set up the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes to undertake peer reviews of the operation of tax information exchange by participating states in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the rush to sign tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs). TIEAs are deeply flawed and the OECD designed and promoted them. The OECD was also remarkably cagey about this whole process: civil society was excluded from most involvement, far too many tax havens appeared to get positions of influence over it, the...