Mapping the global geography of shell companies

Giulia Aliprandi, Thijs Busschots and Carlos Oliveira
Additional contact information
Giulia Aliprandi: EU Tax Observatory
Thijs Busschots: EU Tax Observatory
Carlos Oliveira: EU Tax Observatory

No 9, Notes from EU Tax Observatory

Abstract: This note examines the global prevalence and distribution of shell companies, which are often used for illicit financial activities like tax evasion. Using business registry data for over 200 jurisdictions, including individual US states, we construct an indicator of shell company prevalence based on the number of registered companies per capita. We find that known tax havens like the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands have extremely high rates of company presence per adult. Zooming in on Europe reveals Estonia as a lesser-known host for shell companies, besides flagging known conduit countries like Luxembourg and Cyprus. A unique decomposition of US states also shows Delaware and Wyoming are potentially hosting a large number of shell companies. Indicative for the role of shell companies in international tax evasion, our shell company prevalence indicator correlates with jurisdiction characteristics catering tax evasion, such as low corporate tax rate and aggressive tax treaties.

Keywords: Shell companies; tax evasion; business registries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F38 H26 K34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2023-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iue
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.taxobservatory.eu//www-site/uploads/2023/12/Note_Shell_companies.pdf Full note (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dbp:plnote:009

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Notes from EU Tax Observatory Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Inga Chilashvili ().