SEC to help unmask firms’ tax-dodging owners

MANILA  -The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is boosting ties with the United Nations and nonprofit Open Ownership to help unmask the identities of potential tax evaders.

The tie-up involves the use of information on firms’ beneficial ownership, which refers to the person who ultimately owns and controls a corporation instead of the legal owner, to aid the Bureau of Internal Revenue in enforcing tax collections.

The corporate regulator said beneficial ownership data “can be used to reveal individuals who ultimately control legal entities and aid in the promotion of tax integrity.”

The partnership with the UN and Open Ownership, an organization that works with government and companies to promote more transparent beneficial ownership policies, strengthens the SEC’s own requirements for corporations to declare beneficial owners in their general information submissions.

“Taxation is an important element of ensuring the economic stability of a nation,” SEC Chair Emilio Aquino said in a statement on Wednesday.

The corporate watchdog is also using beneficial ownership data to help curb corruption during the bidding of government projects

Recent discussions during a focus group meeting explored the application of beneficial ownership “on public procurement, emphasizing the importance of data in mitigating corruption and improving the decision-making process of the procurement lifecycle.”

“Beneficial ownership plays an important role in detecting indicators of bid rigging and conflicts of interest during the procurement process,” Aquino said.

“As such, it is important that we ensure there are few avenues for corrupt individuals to take advantage of the system,” he added.