New data has revealed that thousands of offshore companies who own properties in the UK haven’t publicly declared their real owners as they are controlled by secretive trusts, Guardian reported.
Of the 18,000 companies registered with the government’s new register of overseas entities, at least 2,400 companies with UK property have not revealed their owners yet.
The government had brought in the new register of overseas entities legislation to improve the transparency of offshore property ownership. The deadline to sign up is this Tuesday.
These trusts were given an exemption when the new bill was brought in, but the owners were still required to give their details privately, which will be available to HMRC, Guardian reported.
According to the newspaper, about 5,800 of the beneficial owners so far – about a third – are named as companies rather than individuals, with at least 2,412 of these appearing as trusts with no public information on the register about who is behind them.
On Friday, the Guardian reported that over 20 Conservative donors and many billionaire businessmen are among those who have declared they own UK property through offshore jurisdictions.
Among the wealthy businessmen include Gulf royalty and states such as China, who have reportedly bought up billions of pounds of mostly London property legally, often via jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Channel Islands.
Owning properties through offshore companies is actually legal. Some individuals, out of privacy or security concerns or business reasons, use offshore trusts to own properties abroad.
According to experts, it is done to minimise an individual’s tax liability as the owner or buyer of a property or, until now, to allow a property to be held anonymously.
Some say that the stability of the tax regime provided in jurisdictions such as Jersey and Guernsey are the primary reasons their companies are based there.
(With inputs from agencies)
