Trusts and beneficial ownership: Guidance for data collection and sharing

Information submission

Well-designed registration forms make it as easy as possible for the people completing them to provide accurate and unambiguous information. This reduces accidental errors. Submitting more accurate information becomes easier, whilst disguising deliberately false information as mistakes becomes harder.

Registration forms that are robust and well designed will generally meet all of the following criteria:

• it is clear whose identities (people as well as corporate vehicles) will need to be disclosed via trust registration (it is essential to provide detailed guidance alongside the form, and referenced from the form, in order to achieve this);
• the form is easy to understand and navigate;
• it is easy for people to supply good-quality data for each field;
• it is easy for trustees of trusts with very simple structures to submit their information;
• the full range of arrangement structures, registrable by law, can be disclosed via the form(s);
• form submissions can be linked to data in other official databases so that corporate vehicles do not have to file the same information multiple times.

In many jurisdictions, a trust registration form would be produced as an online form. However, in some cases, factors like the number of registrations or the level of digitisation of related systems might make paper or spreadsheet forms a more feasible option. However, these will make onward data management and data sharing more challenging. In all cases, a registration form in an appropriate format, designed for and tested with domestic firms, will be best suited for local use.

Incorporating the following features at the design stage gives the best chance of collecting good-quality, structured [7] data:

• offering definitions of terminology at the point where they are needed;
• hiding sections of forms that are not applicable, or providing clear signposting (for example: “If you answered ‘yes’, skip section B and go straight to section C”);
• using plain language;
• providing examples where it will aid understanding;
• being clear about the format in which answers are expected (for example: “Provide dates in DD/MM/YYYY format”);
• providing selection lists rather than free-text entry where relevant (for example, when asking for the country of residence of non-resident people);
• stating clearly which fields are required and which are optional;
• stating which information is for internal use only.

Next page: Information scope