taxe and spending this article is more than months old european banks storing €bn a year in taxe havens -- [ ] church bay park in southampton bermuda the island nation has a taxe rate of zero alongside panama the british virgin islands and the cayman islands photograph cj guntherepa church bay park in southampton bermuda the island nation has a taxe rate of zero alongside panama the british virgin islands and the -- leading european banks are booking around €bn £bn a year – equivalent to of their total profits – in taxe havens with barclays hsbc and natwest group among those enjoying the lowest taxe rates according to a new report the figures emerge from an analysis conducted by the eu taxe -- banks said to enjoy a particularly low effective taxe rate on their profits of less than include barclays hsbc and natwest – which changed its name from royal bank of scotland last year the effective taxe rate is calculated as the ratio between aggregated taxe paid and profit posted across all jurisdictions a spokesperson for hsbc said the bank did “not employ taxe avoidance strategies including those designed to artificially divert profits to -- shoppers pass an hk branch of hsbc hsbc is headquartered in hong kong with an official effective taxe rate a spokesperson for barclays said the bank was the fifthlargest uk taxepayer and paid taxe across the jurisdictions in which it operated -- the claims will nevertheless further fuel those arguing that leading countries must more ambitious in cracking down on aggressive taxe avoidance and profit shifting to lowtaxe jurisdictions by -- the use of taxe havens by banks is seen by many activists as particularly egregious since more than €tn in taxepayer money was -- cooperation and development oecd countries representing more than of global gdp backed a global minimum taxe rate on multinationals of last july after an initial attempt by us -- parallel measures to limit the shifting of profits into taxe havens by the worlde s largest companies were proposed by biden and are now -- finance centres the british virgin islands has a zero taxe rate the british virgin islands has a zero taxe rate photograph todd vansickleap the eu taxe observatory an independent research group has highlighted the benefits of taxeing the profits of multinationals at a higher global minimum taxe rate – the lowest current rate within the seven largest world economies the organisatione s report suggests that with such a taxe rate the sample of european banks chosen in the report would have to pay €bn to €bn in additional taxe annually lower taxe rates reduce the gains to €bn to €bn at a taxe rate and between €bn and €bn at the rate -- multinationals bnp paribas and société générale and standard chartered have the largest collectible taxe deficits – the difference between taxe paid today and that which would collectible the eu taxe observatorye s research further suggests the uk exchequer would the biggest beneficiary if any global minimum taxe rate were enforced on europee s banks in part due to the size of the banks -- under a taxe rate the uk would have collected an extra €m a year in and €bn in “we find that most taxe revenues with a minimum taxe will originate from british banks” write the authors of the report have european banks left taxe havens evidence from country by country data taxe systems around the world have been increasingly left behind in recent years by the shifting of profits by large multinationals taxe abuse by multinationals and avoidance by rich individuals is said by the taxe justice network campaign group to cost nations bn a year in lost revenues according to the eu taxe observatorye s report the profits booked by banks in taxe havens are abnormally high about € profit per employee is posted by the banks in havens as opposed to € in -- even though the banks book of their profits in taxe havens the percentage of staff employed in them is only luxembourg city in luxembourg the principality has a taxe rate of luxembourg city in luxembourg the principality has a taxe rate of photograph pocholocalapregetty imagesistockphoto -- to the disappointment of policymakers and activists the percentage of profits booked in taxe havens has not changed over the last seven years despite hopes that countrybycountry reporting introduced in -- eight banks have even increased the percentage of their profits booked in taxe havens during this period ​​monte dei paschi di siena up intesa sanpaolo up hsbc up barclays up -- the figure is high because of hsbce s strong ties to hong kong which for the purposes of the study was counted as a taxe haven -- turnover profits and employees within the banks studied the report claims that its profits attract the lowest mean effective taxe rates -- hsbc books almost of its overall profits in hong kong with an effective taxe rate of this is despite the percentage of staff in hong kong of the total being strikingly lower than the profits -- “one of the possible explanations is that hong kong is characterised by a favourable taxe system and is often used as an investment hub to route investments in asia especially from china” the reporte s authors