The Government has announced a plan to create a register of all the ultimate owners of UK property via offshore companies in an effort to tackle people and companies using offshore schemes to avoid tax.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy wants the register to detail who owns overseas companies and other vehicles that own property in the UK.
According to the Government, the move would help promote the country’s reputation as a place of corporate transparency and anti-corruption.
“More than £122 billion of property in England and Wales is owned by offshore firms,” says John Penrose MP, the Government’s anti-corruption champion.
“If they’re clean and reputable, fine, they’ll have nothing to fear. But if murky shell companies have bought British property with plundered or laundered cash, we don’t want them here.”
His views are backed by Business Secretary Greg Clarke, who says the register will “build on our reputation for corporate transparency as well as helping to create a hostile environment for economic crimes like money laundering.”