New rules to counter tax evasion

COMPANIES will be forced to disclose their ultimate owners on national registers in EU countries as the bloc seeks to clamp down on tax dodging, money laundering and terrorism financing. European Parliament legislators and representatives of 28 EU national governments had struck a deal late on Tuesday to upgrade the bloc’s legislation on corporate transparency, the assembly said in a statement. The proposed law would also “require banks, auditors, lawyers, real-estate agents and casinos, among others, to be more vigilant about suspicious transactions made by their clients”. Krisjanis Karins, a Latvian legislator in the assembly’s centre-right group leading work on the file, said: “Creating registers of beneficial ownership will help to lift the veil of secrecy of offshore accounts and greatly aid the fight against money laundering and blatant tax evasion.” UK Prime Minister David Cameron is among leaders to call for measures to tackle tax evasion and other offences using shell firms. – Bloomberg