Weekly Tax Update - Monday 24 June 2013

1 GENERAL NEWS

1.1 G8 conference, transparency and tax

The G8 has endorsed the following core principles it considers are fundamental to the transparency of ownership and control of companies and legal arrangements:

1. Companies should know who owns and controls them and their beneficial ownership and basic information should be adequate, accurate, and current. As such, companies should be required to obtain and hold their beneficial ownership and basic information, and ensure documentation of this information is accurate.
2. Beneficial ownership information on companies should be accessible onshore to law enforcement, tax administrations and other relevant authorities including, as appropriate, financial intelligence units. This could be achieved through central registries of company beneficial ownership and basic information at national or state level. Countries should consider measures to facilitate access to company beneficial ownership information