Offshore Activities and Money Laundering: Recent Findings and Challenges

Please note: Each EPRS Study is assigned a DOI (digital object identifier), which is a safe and long term way of ensuring a hyperlink to the full text of this report. However, when ESO creates this record, on occasion the DOI still has not been activated by the EU Bookshop. If you find the source url hyperlink does not work please use the alternative location hyperlink listed as a related url.The Panama papers and further leaks revealed that money laundering and tax evasion are important issues, which often go hand in hand. The major role of offshore centres is to provide secrecy. With this, offshore centres played an important role for hiding illegal activities, criminal identity and criminal ownership of assets right from their start. In the last years, combating tax evasion and money laundering have become politically more important.

A ‘hot phase of regulation’ has started initiated from the US. The paper argues that Europe has to find its own European way of creating compliance among its member states. For this, creating transparency with regard to bank registers, beneficial ownership, tax accounts and criminal investigations is important. The regulation of European offshore centres would be a first promising step. A homogenous European anti-money laundering and anti-tax evasion policy would need a differentiated EU approach for different groups of Member States and not a one size fits all approach.

This publication was managed by the Policy Department on Economic and Scientific Policies for the European Parliament Committee on Money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion (PANA).

European Parliament: Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union: Publications available via the EU Bookshop http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/directorate-general-for-internal-policies-of-the-union-cbf.cKABstF7wAAAEjwYYY4e5K/

ESO: Background information: EP inquiry committee into Panama Papers http://www.europeansources.info/record/ep-inquiry-committee-into-panama-papers/

European Parliament: Committees: Committee on Money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion (PANA) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/pana/home.html

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