First of all, I think the principal problem that I am aware of in the United States with entities and their ownership is probably Delaware, which allows for companies to be owned with bearer shares. There has been a lot of complaint about that.
One of the problems I have in addressing this question is that you really do need to focus, in my opinion, on whether you are talking about individuals or corporations, because the problems are really quite different. Also, when you cite leading jurisdictions, as the Tax Justice Network has, again, I think the problems are very different between corporations and individuals.
I'm all for transparency. Whether we can achieve it in the United States, given our federal system, is a serious question. There are going to be restraints on how far the federal government—I'm sure this is true in Canada too, although I'm not an expert on Canadian law—can go in telling a state of the United States what it has to do in incorporating an entity. I don't think it's as easy as all that.
I will say this about the United States, and then I will turn it over. What people commonly forget is that even with regard to the entities in the United States in Delaware that are owned with bearer shares, the United States is not transparent, but those entities are paying tax. Believe me, they are paying tax. They are not avoiding U.S. tax.
The federal government has access to the information, and if it wanted to, I believe it would have access to the owners of those entities, if it wanted to. It's a burdensome process to get that revealed.
The real problem is the bearer shares that are issued by corporations in certain states, Delaware being the leading one.