On Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released an investigation uncovering tax evasion by nearly 336 prominent leaders and politicians. Called Pandora Papers in reference to Pandora’s box, the report accuses these personalities of having created nearly 1,000 offshore companies, more than two-thirds of which in the British Virgin Islands.
“The Virgin Islands are specialized in the fast and inexpensive registration of companies, assures the director of the British NGO Tax Justice Network, Alex Cobham. London is asking its overseas territories (to publish public registers of beneficiaries) when it could quite simply legislate. So these territories know that it is not serious, they say “we will do it in 2023 or when all the other countries have done it” “.
The government is dragging its feet, according to the NGO
For the NGO, the British government is dragging its feet on the fiscal transparency of its overseas territories and dependencies of the British Crown (which also include Bermuda, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man). “The main player (in the global tax avoidance network) is the United Kingdom and its network of overseas territories,” says the director, who calls on European Union policymakers to keep a close watch on the government Britain at the time of Brexit.
“There is a real danger that the United Kingdom, at the time of Brexit, will return to the old post-colonial model of tax jurisdictions with the City at the center,” he concludes.
