From the Tax Justice Network's Financial Secrecy Index:
"The U.S. provides a wide array of secrecy and tax-free facilities for non-residents, both at a Federal level and at the level of individual states. Many of the main Federal-level facilities were originally crafted with official tolerance or approval, in some cases to help with the U.S. balance of payments difficulties during the Vietnam War; however some facilities – such as tolerance by states like Delaware or Nevada of highly secretive anonymous shell companies – are more the fruit of a race to the bottom between individual states on standards of disclosure and transparency.
While the United States has pioneered powerful ways to defend itself against foreign tax havens, it has not seriously addressed its own role in attracting illicit financial flows and supporting tax evasion. It is currently a jurisdiction of extreme concern for global transparency initiatives: instead of agreeing to join and comply with the emerging global standard of multilateral information exchange, the OECD Common Reporting Standards (CRS), it has stuck with its own FATCA model (see below), which does not appear to mesh with the CRS despite technical similarities. Washington’s independent-minded approach risks tearing a giant hole in international efforts to crack down on tax evasion, money laundering and financial crime."
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Members of the FATF will decide on proposals to review Recommendation 24, which requires countries to ensure that competent authorities have timely access to adequate, accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information. Civil society groups The B Team, Global Witness, Open Ownership, The Tax Justice Network and Transparency International urge delegates to support proposals in which Recommendation 24 mandates verified, central registers of beneficial ownership information. Such registers must be public and online in an open data format. Open data registers enable analysis by a wider group of users, including media and civil society, which leads to improved data quality. Open registers also facilitate the development of investigative tools and techniques that can help improve enforcement of anti-money laundering regulations. Furthermore, such registers facilitate international cooperation and can be linked to other public databases.
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