MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK unions seek disclosure from “nationalized” banks

Banks which have received UK Government help to deal with the financial crisis should be made to reveal full details of their tax haven activities, urged union leaders in Britain, reports The Gibraltar Chronicle.

The TUC said that Lloyds Banking Group, RBS, HSBC and Barclays had well over 1,000 subsidiary companies between them, incorporated in tax havens, although some could be providing banking services to the local population. The most popular location was the Cayman Islands, followed by Jersey, according to a study by the union organisation. Gibraltar appeared 19th on that list. Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, who has visited Gibraltar for union events on several occasions, said: "The taxpayer is now propping up Britain's banks, either directly or indirectly. Even those who have not had direct bail-outs now trade with an implicit guarantee from the (UK) Government. The irresponsible behaviour of banks here and abroad is the biggest cause of the recession. "Yet even those who come cap in hand to the taxpayer and Bank of England continue to do business in tax havens. This raises questions about whether part of the objective is avoiding paying a fair rate of tax to the UK - a tax gap that has to be made up by the rest of us". "We cannot know the extent of these activities. Indeed one of the main attractions of tax havens is their secrecy. There is no suggestion that anyone has broken any tax laws, but now banks have public stakes or trade with the knowledge that the taxpayer stands ready to bail them out, the taxpayer has a right to know the full extent of bank activities and liabilities across the world". "We should know where banks undertake their activities, where they record their profits and where they pay their taxes. Country-by-country reporting of their activities is essential if we, the UK taxpayers, are to know the risk we are under-writing". TUC secretary general said voters are increasingly angry at the banks, "who they rightly think must take a large share of the blame for the jobs and homes that will be lost in this recession. The Government should set up a tough public inquiry into why our financial system came so close to collapse - and it should investigate the full extent of their tax avoidance." The TUC accepted in its statement that not every subsidiary located in a tax haven or financial secrecy jurisdiction will necessarily be used for tax avoidance, says the TUC analysis. Some may be simply providing banking services to the local population and business community of countries such as Ireland - or have particular commercial links to countries such as HSBC ties to Hong Kong. Cayman was the most popular tax haven (262 companies in all), the top 20 were: 1 Cayman 2 Jersey 3 Hong Kong 4 Ireland 5 Guernsey 6 Bahamas 7 British Virgin Islands 8 Luxembourg 9 Isle of Man 10 Bermuda 11 Switzerland 12 Singapore 13 Malaysia (Labuan) 14 Panama 15 Mauritius 16 Malta 17 Philippines 18 Cook Islands 19 Gibraltar 20 Liechtenstein.