About Andres Knobel
Now you see me, now you don’t: using citizenship and residency by investment to avoid automatic exchange of banking information
On February 19th, the OECD launched a consultation entitled “Preventing abuse of residence by investment schemes to circumvent the CRS”. It was about time. Since 2014, we have written several papers and blogs (here, here, here, here and here) explaining how residency and citizenship schemes offered by countries can be abused to avoid automatic exchange of bank account information established
Read the full article…Inverted Maps: The Corruption Perception Index and the Financial Secrecy Index
On February 22nd, 2018, Transparency International published the latest edition of the Corruption Perception Index, less than a month after the publication of TJN’s Financial Secrecy Index. Comparing Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and TJN’s Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) may be like comparing apples to oranges. Not only do they measure different things, but the way they measure them
Read the full article…Trusts and the UK: half a step forward, three steps backwards
Remember our paper calling for the registration of trusts? Back then the British government opposed this. During discussions related to the EU 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, Treasury spokesperson Lord Newby even said: “We consider registration of trusts to be a disproportionate approach and, in particular, one which undermines the common-law basis of trusts in the UK.” It may be unfair
Read the full article…Enough evidence on trusts – where are the State’s actions?
Our two last papers on trusts (here and here) described trusts’ involvement in grand corruption and other cases that would anger any rational person. The Paradise Papers, and recent case law, shed outrageous new light on trusts’ role in worsening inequality, shielding assets from legitimate creditors, and avoiding or evading taxes. Why does society tolerate these kinds of trusts? When
Read the full article…Our paper “Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?” – now available in Spanish
Our paper “Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?” which we released and blogged about earlier this year is now available in Spanish. The English version of the paper is available here. The paper provoked critical attention from practitioners and from tax havens. Our response to their critiques is here which we’re now also able to offer in Spanish. Details in Spanish
Read the full article…“Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?” A response to the critics
On February 13th, 2017 TJN published a paper titled “Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?”, which has attracted critical attention from practitioners and tax havens. This is our response. Our paper, “Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?”[1] asks some deep and searching questions about the role trusts play in our societies, and proposing radical remedies to some of the abusive roles that
Read the full article…Post-Panama Papers sunlight on New Zealand Trusts
UPDATE BELOW, 24/07/2017 If you ever wondered what kind of response to a financial transparency law might indicate a corrupted financial secrecy industry, look no further. We reported recently on what’s been happening to trusts in New Zealand in our Offshore Wrapper (our weekly take on tax justice news – for which you can sign up here, don’t miss out).
Read the full article…Double-Layer Secrecy: add Lawyer Confidentiality to Banking Secrecy
Global automatic exchange of banking information is set to start among countries that have committed to implement the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Similar automatic exchanges have already started between the U.S. and some countries that have managed to sign a FATCA-related Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) although there’s little reciprocity between Tax Haven USA and other nations. We’ve already highlighted our
Read the full article…Faking residency: OECD’s Common Reporting Standard leaves the door wide open for fraud
The OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for automatic exchange of banking information leaves the door wide open for fraud. The OECD has recently made available a form to report potential avoidance schemes of the CRS. While this form is a first useful step – we’ve been sharing with them the loopholes and risks we’ve identified, and a suggestion on how
Read the full article…The Achilles heel of effective beneficial ownership registration: Why is everyone fixed on 25%?
Civil society and allies are pushing for real (and useful) transparency when it comes to disclosing the beneficial owners (BOs) of companies, meaning the individuals who ultimately own and control the companies that operate in our economies, and that could be involved in illegal activities (e.g. tax evasion, corruption, money laundering, etc.). After many scandals, including the Panama Papers, the
Read the full article…The OECD – penalising developing countries for trying to tackle tax avoidance
The OECD’s new terms of reference to assess the implementation by countries of BEPS Action 13 related to Country-by-Country Reports (CbCR) may penalise countries, especially developing ones, that try to obtain by their own means the CbCR’s valuable data needed to tackle multinational tax avoidance. Country-by-Country Reports (CbCR) (to be prepared by multinationals with group revenues over EUR 750 million)
Read the full article…Beneficial Ownership and disclosure of trusts: challenging the privacy arguments
On July 22nd, 2016 the French supreme constitutional court ruled on a case brought by a US American citizen resident in France who had created a trust, allegedly to distribute her inheritance. She was contesting moves by France to set up a public register of trusts connected to France in an attempt to tackle tax fraud and serious economic and
Read the full article…Switzerland and information exchange: tweak, tweak and something will always remain
In less than a year data will start to flow under a new scheme for countries to share information automatically across borders, to help each other collect taxes from their taxpayers and fight financial crimes and abuses. The scheme is the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) which was set up by the OECD, a club dominated by rich countries. The scheme
Read the full article…The OECD information exchange ‘dating game’
The automatic exchange of information between countries’ tax authorities has been trumpeted as a game changer for the fight against tax evasion. But the publication of the latest data shows that many countries, including some tax havens, are being very selective about who they are choosing to share information with. It seems many OECD countries prefer to play this kind of ‘dating’
Read the full article…Automatic Information Exchange: a trove of useful new data. Here’s a template for using it
Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) at a global level is supposed to become effective in 2017, when many jurisdictions[1] start to exchange financial account information (e.g. bank account information) with each other, under the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS). The idea is to crack down on tax cheats and others by sharing relevant information across borders, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards. For all
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