Russian oligarchs have hidden vast wealth thanks to the secrecy granted by many EU countries, three experts told MEPs on the Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC) on Tuesday 10 May.
According to the participants in the public hearing, the assets of the oligarchs are estimated to be about half of the wealth of Russian households, with some of this being carried out through EU countries and with the services of EU-based financial intermediaries.
“Registers need to be improved for everything related to actual registers”, suggested Theresa Neef, a researcher at the EU Tax Observatory and coordinator for Eastern Europe and Russia of the World Inequality Database. As already mentioned in the public hearing at the end of March (see EUROPE 12921/23), this European register would detail the assets held throughout the EU and centralise the information. All types of assets would be covered, as well as all legal forms, such as trusts or foundations, as well as real estate. “Still, one central blind spot remains: real estate, particularly when held through shell companies. For real estate until now, Member States hold information in national registers in different formats and with varying data quality and accessibility”, explained Neef.
Richard Murphy, Professor of Accounting at the University of Sheffield, focused on tax havens: “The EU still has secrecy jurisdictions providing opportunity for abuse”. “The fight against abuse requires coordinated action and too little attention has been paid to financial intermediaries so far”, he said.
Susana Peralta, Associate Professor at Nova University in Portugal, presented the specific case of her country. Portugal has very opaque systems in place, such as golden visas, citizenship for Sephardic Jews and non-taxation of crypto-assets. She also pointed out that, so far, the only asset frozen in Portugal was a bank account worth €242, which belonged to a Russian citizen who had been living in Portugal for 30 years and had since been unfrozen.
MEPs focused their questions on how to make existing legislation work better and what new tools would be needed at EU level to address the problems. They also asked for more details on how the EU asset register could be established and how best to target Russian oligarchs with the next round of sanctions. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)