About Andres Knobel
New publication on beneficial ownership transparency for companies listed on the stock exchange
This new paper describes why beneficial ownership regulations shouldn’t exempt companies listed on a stock exchange. In essence, securities’ disclosure regulations aren’t enough to identify beneficial owners. In addition, definitions are subject to loopholes that affect identifying all relevant end-investors. As assessed by the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index and summarised by our paper on the 2020 State of
Read the full article…From outrage to action: how to prevent another 11 years of inaction after the FinCen files
The FinCen files leak disclosed information on “suspicious transaction reports” filed by banks between 2000 and 2017 to the US Financial Intelligence Unit (“FinCen”) in charge of monitoring anti-money laundering. Although a lot could be said about this leak, there are many outrageous highlights: the leak refers to transactions of $2 trillion (twelve zeros: $2,000,000,000,000). Some banks kept on processing
Read the full article…Regulating complex ownership chains – a call for experts for closed brainstorming round-table session
Regulating complex ownership chains – A common goal for tackling beneficial ownership transparency and tax avoidance? The Tax Justice Network, together with City University London, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), Transparency International and the Financial Transparency Coalition are co-hosting a closed brainstorming round-table on 6 October, from 2 to 4 pm London time to
Read the full article…We ran a beneficial ownership webinar for over 260 officials from Latin America
On 26 August, together with the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), we hosted a webinar in Spanish for Latin American authorities involved in beneficial ownership transparency. The Spanish webinar was based on the first and second set of presentations on beneficial ownership verification held in English by the multi-stakeholder group to promote beneficial ownership verification. Participation in the webinar
Read the full article…Dubious arguments to defend secrecy, even as automatic information exchange booms
Updated: an earlier version of this blog incorrectly referred to the legal opinion of the Advocate General as belonging to Luxembourg rather than to the European Court of Justice. For years, we have advocated the automatic exchange of bank account information across borders. The previous “on request” system, where a country had to make specific requests about specific taxpayers already
Read the full article…Germany’s new statistics on exchange of banking information: a trove of useful data and clues
For some years now, countries have been sharing information about bank accounts held by each others’ residents, implementing “automatic exchange of bank account information” under the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS). (This is what we called for many years ago, and were scorned at the time for being naïve and utopian.) As more countries join the system, however, lower-income developing
Read the full article…Judge ruling: “You are no Mother Teresa and no one goes to Cayman for philanthropic reasons”
Indian court case sees through the sham of discretionary trusts In a recent ruling from India, a court found that taxpayer Renu Thikamdas Tharani had to pay taxes on several million dollars’ worth held in a bank account in Switzerland. Tharani claimed not to own the account, but to merely be a beneficiary of the discretionary trust (see box) that
Read the full article…Developing countries, take note: how much money do your residents hold in Australia, the most transparent country on bank account information
Australia has become the first country to publish statistics on automatic exchange of information for all jurisdictions, especially those that cannot join the automatic exchange system. Here’s what they reveal and why it has more potential than statistics published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). We’ve been advocating for automatic exchange of bank account information for years, in the
Read the full article…The role of banks and digitalised beneficial ownership registries: way more than just reporting discrepancies
On 14 July the Tax Justice Network co-hosted the fourth call of the multi-stakeholder group to promote beneficial ownership verification. We took the opportunity to present updates on progress of the pilot in one African country and to hear more presentations on how to verify information (our last call included 15 brilliant presentations on strategies used by authorities, banks and
Read the full article…Beneficial ownership definitions: determining “control” unrelated to ownership
Most beneficial ownership definitions are based on ownership thresholds or voting rights. But there are ways to control a company without holding any shares. This brief explores some of these gaps and proposes ways for authorities to address them. This brief is also available to download as a PDF. The ownership bias The Glossary of the Financial Action Task Force
Read the full article…Is financial secrecy always bad?
The Tax Justice Network has long been an opponent of financial secrecy. Wealthy oligarchs, criminals, and looters have increasingly been paying lawyers, accountants and bankers to set up secrecy vehicles such as trusts, foundations and shell companies to hide their ownership of all sorts of assets from the forces of law and order, from our tax authorities, and from the
Read the full article…How authorities, banks and researchers from around the world are verifying beneficial ownership information
We have recently blogged about the first call of the new Advisory Group to promote beneficial ownership verification that we are co-developing together with the Financial Transparency Coalition, Transparency International, Global Witness, Global Financial Integrity, OpenOwnership, The B Team and the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI). We have now held three calls with the Advisory Group, the
Read the full article…US appeals court confirms firm must disclose to IRS names of clients behind offshore bank accounts and foreign entities
On 24 April 2020 the US Court of Appeals for the fifth circuit ruled that a US law firm must disclose to the US tax authority (the Internal Revenue Service) the names of requested clients in connection to an investigation. Specifically, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had asked for documents identifying any US clients at whose request or on whose
Read the full article…New group to promote beneficial ownership verification pilots around the world
On 2 April 2020 the Tax Justice Network co-organised together with the Financial Transparency Coalition, Transparency International, Global Witness, Global Financial Integrity, Open Ownership, The B Team and the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI), the first exploratory virtual call to form a multi-stakeholder advisory group to promote short term pilots on verifying beneficial ownership information. Beneficial ownership
Read the full article…Argentina finally has a beneficial ownership register. Now, it should make it public
The Tax Justice Network, together with Fundación SES, the Financial Transparency Coalition and PROCELAC (Argentina’s anti-money laundering prosecutor) have been co-hosting an event in Buenos Aires for the last five years to promote public beneficial ownership registries in Latin America. It looks like our efforts have paid off. On 15 April 2020 the Argentine tax authorities (AFIP), who have been
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