Britain and its islands square off over tax haven rules

Leaders of three tiny British islands gathered in London on Monday to try to head off proposed legislation aimed at increasing transparency and ending secret company ownership in their jurisdictions.

Britain has been gradually ramping up its fight against money laundering and various tax avoidance and evasion schemes.

But it has less say in the rules governing the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea and its fellow crown dependencies of Jersey and Guernsey near the French coast.

The European Union has threatened to include the three in its 2019 list of tax havens if they fail to improve their transparency rules.

The BBC reported that they are home to 76,000 companies -- nearly one for every three people living there.

A cross-party amendment to be debated in the British parliament on Monday wants the islands to introduce registers disclosing the true ownership structures of companies.

The law would require the names of parties owning more than 25 per cent of any firm registered in the ...