September 3 at 4.40 pm - Research seminar by Sergey Mityakov (Clemson University) «Offshore Schemes and Tax Evasion: The Role of Banks» joint with Lucy Chernykh

Venue: Shabolovka st. 26, Room 3211

On Thursday, September 3 at 4.40 pm International College of Economics and Finance will hold the Research Seminar.
Speaker: Sergey Mityakov (Clemson University) <Curriculum Vitae>
Theme: «Offshore Schemes and Tax Evasion: The Role of Banks» joint with Lucy Chernykh
Venue: Shabolovka st. 26, Room 3211

Abstract: We use official Russian banks’ reports to the Central Bank to construct a novel measure of offshore banking activity over the period 2000-2003. Individual bank involvement in offshore schemes is calculated as a fraction of total annual transactions with foreign countries that goes through offshore zones. We find that offshore banking is closely connected with other forms of bank malfeasance: tax evasion, money laundering, and accounting fraud. At the same time, banks engaged in offshore transactions tend to be less actively involved in traditional financial intermediation, such as lending and deposit-taking. We further document the positive relation between offshore activities of banks and tax evasion of non-financial companies doing business with those banks. Finally, we find that the Central Bank seems to detect such bank malfeasance over time and sanction involved banks through bank license revocation and/or criminal chargers against top managers. Collectively, the results of our study provide first systematic empirical evidence on the role of banks and bank-firm relationships in offshore-tax evasion schemes.

Everyone interested is welcome to attend!

See the web-page of the seminar < http://icef.hse.ru/en/announcements/156933738.html >
Pass can be ordered by:
tel. +7 (495) 772-95-90 ext. 26090
e-mail: vzheleznov@hse.ru
contact: Slava Zheleznov