TaxWatch is an investigative think tank shining a forensic light on who pays tax, who doesn’t, and why
The transparency registers that weren’t
UK ministers have praised five of the UK’s Overseas Territories for searchable registers revealing who really owns companies there. TaxWatch set out to see how these registers are working on the ground. One of the five registers, which ministers told Parliament was “fully public” and had been launched on 30 June, does not yet exist, and there are no plans to make it directly publicly searchable. In other cases, last-minute law changes have added major legal, evidential and cost hurdles to accessing the information.
New weapons, same problems?
Stronger powers against ‘enablers’ – those who design and enable aggressive tax avoidance and evasion – are back on the table once again. But new figures show that existing powers are still not being used.
Broken offshore promises undermine the UK’s tax system
Even after years of attempts at reform, offshore havens still offer secrecy for those determined to hide money and evade tax. In a week when Britain’s Overseas Territories have ignored yet another deadline for functioning ‘beneficial ownership’ registers, new figures on UK tax enforcement stemming from the Pandora Papers show that leaks can’t supplant properly available information about who really owns offshore companies.
The gap in the Tax Gap
Quietly buried in HMRC spreadsheets released today is the news that the UK Tax Gap is consistently much bigger than HMRC previously said. New evidence suggests that the government may be under-estimating by several billion pounds the amount of income hidden offshore, and non-compliance amongst the largest and wealthiest taxpayers.