Finance ministers are meeting this week in Berlin to review the international crackdown on tax havens.

As a key step to tackling the issues, Stephen Timms, financial secretary to the UK Treasury, is pushing for “country-by-country” financial reporting for all multinationals.

The Treasury believes that this additional reporting requirement would bring more transparency into their negotiations with developing countries on transfer pricing. This determines the allocation of taxable profits between parts of a multinational.

Business is less keen to support the idea partly due to the additional compliance burden and other development experts have reservations given the general problems facing some developing nations’ tax administrations.

Deals to help trace those hiding funds in offshore accounts are due to be signed this week which may penalise named ‘offshore tax havens’ with sanctions. As a consequence, over 30 tax information exchange agreements have been ratified since November.

Keeping up pressure on those tax havens that are resisting the new measures will be one of the key points of discussion along with the emergence of new offshore centres, such as Ghana.

The study, by the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, says tax losses from profit shifting by multinationals due to faulty transfer pricing have been “overestimated drastically” and continued “Overall, it is fair to conclude that most existing estimates of tax revenue losses in developing countries due to evasion and avoidance are not based on reliable methods and data.”

It suggested that political instability and concerns about property rights rather than tax evasion could be motivating the transfer of money from developing countries. That said, the study does support campaigners and aid charities who are asking for more transparency, and says evasion and profit shifting are likely to be significant problems.