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Tax and Financial Transparency

CONTENTS

1 Duties of the Secretary of State 2 Duties of financial institutions 3 Financial transparency: companies and trusts 4Penalties 5 Short title, commencement and extent

Bill 101 54/5 Tax and Financial Transparency Bill 1

A BILL

TO

Require the Secretary of State to take steps to obtain tax information from British Overseas Territories and ; to require banks, corporations and trusts to provide tax information; and for connected purposes.

E IT ENACTED by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the of the and Temporal, and Commons, in this present BParliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1 Duties of the Secretary of State (1) The Secretary of State must take steps to secure Tax Information Exchange Agreements, if such Agreements have not already been made, with governments of— (a) all British Overseas Territories; and 5 (b) all British Crown Dependencies. (2) The Secretary of State must, within 6 months of the passing of this Act and every 12 months after that, lay a report before both Houses of setting out— (a) the steps taken under subsection (1); 10 (b) the progress made in securing Agreements; (c) the prospects for further progress during the following year. (3) In this section— “British Overseas Territories” has the same meaning as in the British Overseas Territories Act 2002; and 15 “British Crown Dependencies” means , and the .

2 Duties of financial institutions (1) Any financial institution operating in the must report any breach of the obligations arising from a Tax Information Exchange Agreement 20 to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

Bill 101 54/5 2 Tax and Financial Transparency Bill

(2) In this section “financial institution” has the meaning set out in section 182 of the Banking Act 2009.

3 Financial transparency: companies and trusts (1) Every company operating in the United Kingdom must publish comprehensive information about tax payments made by that company in any 5 . (2) Such trusts, organisations and other bodies to be set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State shall be subject to the provisions of subsection (1). (3) Regulations under this section may make such incidental or transitional provision as the Secretary of State considers appropriate. 10 (4) Regulations under this section shall be made by statutory instrument and shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. (5) In this section— “company” means a company registered under the Companies Act 2006 15 in ; and “operating in the United Kingdom” includes trading, acting charitably or making donations for political purposes.

4 Penalties (1) The Secretary of State shall, by order made by statutory instrument, set out the 20 penalties which apply in the case of a breach of the requirements of sections 2 and 3 of this Act. (2) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament. 25

5 Short title, commencement and extent (1) This Act may be cited as the Tax and Financial Transparency Act 2010. (2) This Act comes into force at the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which it is passed. (3) This Act extends to and . 30 Tax and Financial Transparency Bill

A BILL

To require the Secretary of State to take steps to obtain tax information from British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies; to require banks, corporations and trusts to provide tax information; and for connected purposes.

Presented by Mr David Drew.

Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 30 March 2010.

© Parliamentary copyright House of Commons 2010 Applications for reproduction should be made in writing to the Information Policy Team, Office of Public Sector Information, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS LONDON — THE STATIONERY OFFICE LIMITED Printed in the United Kingdom by The Stationery Office Limited £x.xx

Bill 101 (xxxxxx) 54/5

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