draining development.pdf - Khazar University

Accounting for the Missing Billions 297Table 9.4. Multinational Corporations Surveyed bythe Tax Justice NetworknumberCountryMNCs sampledFrance 39Germany 28Netherlands 23Switzerland 20United Kingdom 33United States 100Total 243Source: Mapping Financial Secrecy (database), Tax Justice Network,London, http://www.secrecyjurisdictions.com/index.php (accessedDecember 12, 2009).sample. In practice, although all United Kingdom–quoted companies arelegally required to publish the names, places of incorporation, and percentageof the holdings for all their subsidiary companies annually eitherin their audited accounts and financial statements or as an appendix totheir annual declaration made to the U.K. Registrar of Companies, only33 of the FTSE 100 companies did so. Enquiries found that no companyhad ever been prosecuted for failing to file this information. It is a curiousexample of the United Kingdom’s opacity (see table 9A.5). 26It should also be noted that substantial problems were encounteredwith all other samples. The French data undoubtedly underreport thenumber of subsidiaries because they only relate to principal subsidiaries,not all subsidiaries. German companies do not always make the distinctionbetween subsidiaries and associates clear. The Dutch and Swiss datahave been taken from databases, not original documentation, whichimplies that there are inconsistencies in approach, particularly aboutwhether dormant subsidiaries are counted or not, and so on. All suchissues do, however, reveal one consistent theme: it is immensely difficultto determine the composition of an MNC.Detailed analysis of the regulatory requirements of the 60 secrecyjurisdictions surveyed by TJN highlights the issues. Of the 60 jurisdictionssurveyed, accounts of companies were available on easily accessiblepublic record in only six. 27