UK presses for beneficial ownership registries

The heads of Britain's Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories are to produce national action plans on beneficial ownership registries.

The leaders met UK Prime Minister David Cameron at Downing Street at the weekend, where he presented them with the demand ‒ softened by a promise that the UK and the G8 countries will do the same. The G8 countries are meeting this week, and are expected to produce an agreement on a new standard for company beneficial ownership registries. Whether trusts are to be included is not yet clear.

Renewed controversy over corporate tax planning

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has published a report criticising 'contrived' tax avoidance schemes used by the multinational firm Google.

Google has paid little UK corporation tax in recent years. It earned revenues of GBP11.4 billion in the UK during the five years 2006-2011, but paid only about GBP10 million in UK corporation taxes.

Mexico applies to be first non-EU country in new international tax agreement

The Mexican finance ministry has submitted an application to become the first non-European member nation of a project to develop a new multilateral tax information exchange program following the model of the US’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).