Offshore finance

It was deep in the night of February 7, 1794, in Boden Town, the only settlement on Grand Cayman, the largest of the three Cayman Islands. The storm was raging and residents were locked in their homes. Suddenly, they heard the church bell ring. This rarely happened, only in times of great danger.

A report by the Council of Europe's Commission, tasked with evaluating measures against money laundering and terrorist financing, highlights Bulgaria's progress in these areas. Presented alongside the 2022 assessment, the report indicates improvement across 10 out of 12 indicators, with no indicators showing a decline.

In an important stride towards global transparency and cooperation in tax matters, Bulgaria has received a laudable rating of Largely Compliant from the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (GFTEITP).

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has failed in its efforts to reform the international tax system despite several deals in recent years, the Tax Justice Network said yesterday, calling for the United Nations to take over responsibility.

Four people have been brought in as defendants in the pre-trial proceedings for the activities of the Nexo crypto platform. This was stated by the chairman of the National Investigation Service, Borislav Sarafov.

The U.S. and Turkey announced on Nov. 22 an agreement on the transition from existing Digital Services Tax to a new multilateral solution agreed by the OECD-G20 inclusive framework. 

After the Serbian investigative media outlet KRIK published confirmation of claims that Serbia's Finance Minister, Sinisa Mali, owned a portfolio of property in Bulgaria bought through secretive offshore companies, it has reported that the "Pandora Papers" also shed light on the hidden business activities of another Serbian minister - Novica Toncev, minister for developing poor municipalities.<

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointed out Washington's plans to make fighting corruption a key national security task, commenting on the publication of the Pandora Papers - a massive leak of millions of documents about offshore bank accounts of world's lead politicians and celebrities.

The G7, which is holding its annual summit this weekend in a Cornish resort in the UK, gave the effort a boost last week when it issued a joint statement on how revamping the global corporate tax structure should proceed. But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week called the idea "absurd" and said he would not support it.

The Cayman Islands is responsible for the largest global tax losses