Global Forum on the definition of beneficial owners

On March 20th, in the framework of the OECD Global Forum together with the Inter-American Development Bank a toolkit was prepared to assist law enforcement agencies in ensuring forum standards and as well as assistance in accessing to reliable information on identifying the ultimate beneficial owners of companies.

Ensuring the transparency of information about the beneficial owner has a great importance for deterring, identifying and preventing tax evasion and other financial crimes. The new standard prepared by the Global Forum allows various jurisdictions to adapt it flexibly to their legal culture.

The toolkit covers a range of important issues concerning beneficial ownership, including:

• The concepts of beneficial owners, the criteria used to identify them and also the importance of this issue for ensuring transparency in the financial and non-financial sectors;

• Technical aspects of the requirements for beneficial owners, differences between legal entities and trusts;

• Practical ways of realization the principles of the beneficial owner through the expert review of the OECD Global Forum;

• Why the information about beneficial ownership is also an important component of automatic exchange.

The toolkit is the first practical guide freely available to countries implementing international standards of tax transparency.

On materials of the following website: http://www.oecd.org/ctp/new-beneficial-ownership-toolkit-will-help-tax-administrations-tackle-tax-evasion-more-effectively.htm