{"id":52954,"date":"2020-09-21T10:05:16","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T09:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=52954"},"modified":"2020-09-22T07:28:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T06:28:57","slug":"money-laundering-is-rampant-and-the-government-is-refusing-to-put-in-place-the-measures-to-tackle-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/09\/21\/money-laundering-is-rampant-and-the-government-is-refusing-to-put-in-place-the-measures-to-tackle-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Money laundering is rampant and the government is refusing to put in place the measures to tackle it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/global-banks-defy-u-s-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reports this morning<\/a>, the FinCEN Files that it has uncovered show trillions in tainted dollars flow freely through major banks around the world, swamping a broken money laundering enforcement system. Their key findings are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"item-list\">Global financial giants have moved a flood of dirty money tied to mobsters, fraudsters and corrupt regimes.<\/li>\n<li class=\"item-list\">Big banks shift money for people they can\u2019t identify and in many cases fail to report suspect transactions until years after the fact.<\/li>\n<li class=\"item-list\">Government fines and threats of criminal prosecutions against banks haven\u2019t stopped a tide of illicit payments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Documents\/Intheshade.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I have argued,<\/a> time in again and over many years, the UK's refusal to put in place a proper company regulatory regime is a key component in creating this money laundering opportunity. The UK does now require:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Proof of the beneficial ownership of companies;<\/li>\n<li>The identification of all members of a company on public record on an annual basis;<\/li>\n<li>Full rather than abbreviated accounts on public record, whatever the size of a company;<\/li>\n<li>That rthe directors of companies have unlimited liability if they fail to comply with their regulatory obligations;<\/li>\n<li>That banks be required to report annually their understanding of the beneficial ownership of companies to Companies House to ensure that the information supplied by a company to banks and regulators is the same.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is quite literally no reason why these measures could not be put in place and at relatively little cost, particularly given that the current annual registration fee for a company is just \u00a313 a year. But, our government refuses to put in place the measures that are necessary to prevent money-laundering, to provide information to protect the public from abuse from limited companies, and to provide a level playing field on which all businesses can compete. The sad reality is that it proves itself to be anti-market in the process. Except for the fact that this is happening, and has been persistent government policy, it would be hard to make such a thing up.<\/p>\n<p>Now would be a perfect time for reform, but I really cannot see it happening: this government appears to be wedded to corruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reports this morning, the FinCEN Files that it has uncovered show trillions in tainted dollars flow freely through<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/09\/21\/money-laundering-is-rampant-and-the-government-is-refusing-to-put-in-place-the-measures-to-tackle-it\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,26,138,14,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountancy","category-accounting","category-companies-house","category-corruption","category-tax-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}