Economic crime report 2004 - Ekobrottsmyndigheten

Trends Over the Next Three Years
For a number of years, the OECD and EU have devoted a great deal of
effort to following and assessing the injurious effects of taxation differences
among various countries.
Labelling it unfair or harmful tax competition, the EU has concentrated
on attempts by Member States to use favourable regulations to attract
businesses, capital and individuals at the expense of other countries. The
OECD calls the phenomenon harmful tax practices, focusing on tax
havens instead. Following extensive investigation and negotiation, most
of the 40-odd tax havens that were pinpointed have pledged to amend
their regulations. One key area of reform is to make it easier to share
information and learn the identity of a company’s true shareholders.
Proposal
• The most important measures involve continuing to design monitoring
methods, following and analyzing trends in the market for
financial advice, and strengthening international cooperation, both
generally among the various EU and OECD institutions and specifically
on the purely operational level. Since spurious advisers are often
the hub of this type of economic crime, action to deal with them is
of particular urgency.
Spurious Founders of Shelf Companies
Each year, individuals and businesses in Sweden form a large number of
shelf companies that they sell for SEK 4,000-5,000 each without ensuring
that the share capital of at least SEK 100,000 is ever deposited. In
most cases, the purchasers plan to use the companies to withdraw excess
input VAT and commit various and sundry types of fraud.
Government agencies are acquainted with the spurious founders of shelf
companies who are engaged in extensive activities. There are 15-20 individuals
who manage businesses that buy and sell shelf companies in a
spurious manner. After a short while, most of the companies declare
bankruptcy and the purchasers are saddled with very high debts, both
public and private. Approximately 17,000 joint stock companies, some
3,000 by spurious founders of shelf companies, have been started annually
over the past three years.
In that way, such a company can become a vehicle for engaging in illegalities.
Sometimes these spurious founders help purchasers commit various
tax crimes and other economic offences. Shelf companies without capital
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