Provision of Open Data for Offshore Companies (GR0019)

The Ministry of Finance will provide the list of all foreign companies (offshore companies) registered in Greece in a machine readable format. The information that will be published will contain the following: Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), contact details in Greece, information on operations, company name, distinctive title and other relevant information registered for the holding company (TIN of the offshore, country, address, etc.). This information will be accessible and updated in monthly basis (at least).

Commitment 2.6. Open data for offshore companies

Commitment Text:

The Ministry of Finance will provide the list of all foreign companies (offshore companies) registered in Greece in a machine readable format. The information that will be published will contain the following: Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), contact details in Greece, information on operations, company name, distinctive title and other relevant information registered for the holding company (TIN of the offshore, country, address, etc.). This information will be accessible and updated in monthly basis (at least). Milestones –Timescales The commitment will be completed by the end of October 2014. This includes software implementation for the population of the data sets. After that, the mechanism for publishing the data will be implemented by the end of March 2015.

Responsible institution: Ministry of Finance

Supporting institution(s): None

Start date:     July 2014                                                                      End date: March 2015

Commitment Aim:

This commitment aims to provide crucial information regarding companies that might be involved in tax evasion or corporate fraud. The Ministry of Finance committed to publish a list of all foreign companies (offshore companies) registered in Greece in a machine readable format. This information would contain the following: Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), contact details in Greece, information on operations, company name, distinctive title and other relevant information registered for the holding company.

Status

Midterm: Not started

During the first year of the action plan, neither the central open data portal (data.gov.gr), the Ministry of Finance (www.minfin.gr) nor the General Secretariat of Public Revenues website (http://www.publicrevenue.gr/kpi/) showed offshore company datasets. The Openwise IRM research team learned two main reasons for this absence at a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Finance. First, it is unclear who is responsible for the Commitment within the Ministry of Finance. Second, despite the fact that commitment text refers specifically to all offshore companies without exceptions, some Ministry stakeholders find this definition problematic because technically there is more than one type of offshore company.

End of term: Not started

According to the government’s self-assessment text presented as a table within the third NAP, implementation of this commitment has not yet started.^{[Note 19: Greece’s Third Action Plan, 9, http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/GREEK_NAP3-OGP-ENG.pdf. ]} This delay is due to pending clarification of which offshore companies should fall under the commitment. The Openwise IRM research team found this problem of defining companies during midterm report interviews and encountered it again while researching for the end-of-term report.

Did it open government?

Access to information: Did not change

This commitment addresses access to information regarding offshore company data. This commitment might have had a moderate impact by imposing a level of transparency that might then have enabled structural reform in the fight against tax evasion and financial fraud.  However, due to the fact that implementation has not yet begun, there is no evidence that the commitment had any effect on openness.

Carried forward?

The Ministry of Finance does not include this policy area in the third Greek action plan. As of January 2017, the General Secretariat of Public Revenue, the agency within the Ministry of Finance responsible for implementing this commitment, will be reorganised as an Independent Agency. This independence will remove the agency from government hierarchical control. The Openwise IRM research team suggest that as soon as the new Independent Agency is operational, it should be informed officially about OGP’s work and the potential impact of a renewed version of this commitment in the next NAP. Since no other independent agency undertakes OGP commitments, the possibility to complete this commitment depends on the new agency’s priorities.