Jersey Finance has defended the transparency of the island’s ownership information, in response to Ed Miliband’s claims that it is a ‘tax haven’ that could be blacklisted under a labour government.
The organisation suggested that a public registry would be of ‘dubious value’. It stated that Jersey has collected benefit ownership information on a registry since 1999, while on-site compliance examinations are completed regularly, and all of this information is available to law enforcement agencies.
It also maintained that Jersey’s ability to capture this information is ahead of other onshore and offshore jurisdictions, including the UK.
According to Jersey Finance, a public registry could easily be bypassed by criminals and those who could use companies for money laundering and tax evasion. It also pointed out that data collected in this way could prove to be unreliable anyway.
Ed Miliband had claimed to be cracking down on “tax havens not complying with the basic rules of transparency”, and threatened a ‘blacklisting system’ for jurisdictions that refuse to make their books public.
