98 of the FTSE 100 use tax havens, reveals ActionAid report

ActionAid’s report Addicted to tax havens found that after the banking sector “oil and mining companies comprise the other big group of tax haven users. BP and Shell have almost 1,000 tax haven companies between them, including more than 100 in the Caribbean (hardly a major source of oil). The extractive industries often operate in developing countries, where natural resources play a central economic role.”

Interestingly although BP and Shell use so many tax havens Mexican-based Fresnillo, one of the world’s largest silver and gold miners, was one of only 2 companies in the FTSE 100 found not to use tax havens.

This is an excellent piece of work on companies involved in all sectors on the FTSE 100 and builds upon PWYP Norway’s Piping Profits report on oil, gas and mining companies. ActionAid used a definition of a tax haven put forward by the Government Accountability Office of the United States Congress of “Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions” in addition to Delaware in the US and the Netherlands.

ActionAid is calling on the British government to urgently rethink its current proposals to relax UK anti-tax haven rules and is urging the UK to ensure the G20 takes the decisive action it promised on tax havens at the London summit in 2009.

An additional recommendation is for the EU, OECD and G20 – especially at the Cannes summit in November 2011– to create global accounting standards that require companies to break down their accounts on a country-by-country basis.

I particularly recommend their FTSE 100 tax haven tracker map which lets you sort by country, sector and name of company.

Click here to read the full report (in pdf).