Hong Kong Plan Raises Tax Concern - WSJ.com.

As the Wall Street Journal notes:

The Hong Kong government wants to make it faster and easier to set up a corporation, even as recent high-profile U.S. criminal cases have revealed that some tax evaders have used Hong Kong shell companies to hide their identities.

By early 2011, Hong Kong wants to set up electronic incorporation and registration of businesses, allowing a person anywhere in the world to establish a company via the Internet in a matter of minutes.

But as the paper also notes:

But the use of Hong Kong firms by some people as a front for illegal activities has raised questions about whether a shadier business segment flourishes here.

At least three American clients of UBS AG who have entered guilty pleas in U.S. courts used Hong Kong shell companies to obscure their ownership of Swiss accounts. In December, a Hong Kong shell company was used to lease a plane that attempted to carry weapons from North Korea to Iran but was intercepted in Thailand.

Candidly - no one on earth needs a company in minutes. I stress, no one.

This is negation of responsibility. Why don't governments have a duty to undertake fit and proper person tests on who forms companies? Surely, this is the most basic pre-requisite for tackling fraud - and this proposal flies in the face of it.