PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
British Overseas Territories: Taxation (25 January 2016)

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the written statement by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 15 December 2015, HLWS393, what elements constitute a similarly effective system for tax information exchange and company beneficial ownership information.

Asked by:
Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat)

We have asked the Overseas Territories to implement either a central register of company beneficial ownership, or a similarly effective system, which meets the following criteria:
a) UK law enforcement and tax authorities must be able to access company beneficial ownership information without restriction, subject to relevant safeguards;
b) These competent authorities should be able to quickly identify all companies that a particular beneficial owner has a stake in without needing to submit multiple and repeated requests; and
c) Companies or their beneficial owners must not be alerted to the fact that an investigation is underway.

We are continuing our dialogue with the Overseas Territories and have offered technical support as they develop their proposals.

The Overseas Territories have shown their commitment to tax information exchange by being early adopters of the new OECD global standard on tax transparency with the first exchange of data taking place in 2017. They have also had the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance on Tax Matters extended to them.

Answered by:
Sir James Duddridge (Conservative)
28 January 2016