According to ActionAid, a leading anti-poverty charity, the vast majority of the UK's largest companies are involved in corporate tax avoidance by using offshore tax shelters.
The charity's research, suggest that 98 multinational companies listed in the FTSE100 habitually invest in tax havens and that such behaviour is causing a 'massive impact on rich and poor countries alike'.
The biggest culprit is the advertising giant, WPP, which has 611 offshore interests, where a quarter of the 34,216 companies established by FTSE100 groups are housed.
According to the research, UK banks, in particular, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Group and RBS, collectively set up 1,649 offshore companies. The Cayman Islands appears to be their preferred location where Barclays has 174 arms.
Other popular havens include Jersey and Luxembourg.
The charity is urging the government to reconsider proposals relaxing the rules regarding the use of offshore shelters, reasoning that during a time of economic difficulty the government should be collecting much needed revenue from these companies rather than allowing them to keep it abroad.
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