UK's offshore finance centres commit to tackling tax evasion All of Britain's offshore finance centres have committed to sign a treaty tackling evasion, in a boost to David Cameron's efforts to secure agreements on transparency from other world leaders next week. Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury said the decision by all Britain's Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies to sign the multilateral convention on mutual tax assistance would "strengthen enormously" the arguments for greater transparency at next week's summit of the G8 group of leading countries. The announcement was made at a meeting of political leaders, business representatives and civil society in London on the agenda of trade, tax and transparency. Mr Cameron also promised to consult on whether to make public a planned central register of the "beneficial ownership" of companies, which will reveal who are their ultimate owners. Campaigners have called for public registers to maximise scrutiny of potential illicit deals. He said more transparency was needed because "some people use complicated and fake structures to hide their profits and avoid taxes and also because bribes are often held in opaquely-owned companies with bank accounts in secretive havens." Mr Cameron said "The most important thing is that it is available to tax authorities. It will be their first point of call to try and uncover corrupt payments or tax evasion. We will consult on whether it will be public but personally I would hope the whole world will move towards public registers of beneficial ownership. He added: "I want to maximise the leverage the UK has over others in terms of taking each step in turn and want to make sure that business and enterprise comes with us on this debate. " Will Morris, chair of the tax committee of the CBI said it was "very supportive of the idea of a register of beneficial ownership. "We think it is a "no brainer"," he said. He said the CBI did not yet have a view of whether it should be public or private but he personally would support making it public. Mr Cameron told the meeting: "Each and everyone of our Overseas Territorities and Crown Dependencies has agreed to sign up to the multilateral convention on information exchange. They have also agreed to exchange information automatically with the United Kingdom and to produce action plans on beneficial ownership. Mr Cameron said he would call on other international partners to work with their territories reach similar agreements. Although most of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories had already committed to sign the treaty, some had expressed reservations. In a statement, Bermuda said the concerns it had expressed about signing the multilateral convention were because Bermuda's fiscal system was not appropriate for automatic exchange of tax information. But it added, the "wisdom of the drafters" of the multilateral convention meant that automatic exchange was based on mutual need and mutual agreement of both parties. The decision of all the offshore centres to commit to the treaty will help neutralise some of the criticism frequently levelled at the UK by other countries asked to make concessions on transparency although reservations are likely to remain regarding the transparency of trusts. All the overseas territories and crown dependencies said they supported the government's drive on transparency but Richard Hay, counsel to the IFC Forum, which represents professional firms in British offshore centres, said the UK was taking a risk of an own goal by moving ahead of other countries, particularly the US.