BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown has officially joined the international effort to curtail corporate tax avoidance in places such as Bermuda, pledging during this week's Prime Minister's Questions session to "clamp down on these tax evaders".

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr. Brown said he believed it would be possible to form an "international agreement" to ensure overseas jurisdictions were sharing information on corporate "tax dodgers".

The Prime Minister's pledge came amid criticism from Liberal Democrat party leader Nick Clegg, who accused Mr. Brown of having created policies allowing British companies to avoid corporate taxes by operating out of off-shore tax havens during his time as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"Instead of going on about British jobs for British workers, isn't it time to go on about British taxes for British companies?" Mr. Clegg said. "[Mr. Brown] is the one who created a system which let big companies run circles around the Treasury."

Yesterday, the UK's Guardian newspaper quoted a Downing Street aide saying that the Prime Minister was "ratcheting up the pressure" for countries to share information on companies avoiding corporate taxes.

According to the Guardian report, the Prime Minister's team at Downing Street has "been engaged in a 'twin track' approach for some time, working with the EU and 'leading the way' in efforts within the OECD. It said UK officials had persuaded Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands to share information."

Indeed, there has been a Tax Information Exchange Agreement in place between Bermuda and the United Kingdom since December 2007.

The Prime Minister's assurances that corporate tax avoiders will no longer be tolerated comes as the US Senate begins probing off-shore business in earnest.

This week, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations announced it would look into multinational companies that may have abused a 2004 tax break on profits made overseas in jurisdictions such as Bermuda.

According to a study by accounting firm Grant Thornton, about ten per cent of the $312 billion repatriated came from Bermuda, with about 5.5 per cent from the Cayman Islands, which, like Bermuda, imposes no corporate income tax.

The chairman of this Subcommittee, Michigan Senator Carl Levin, is also the co-author of the much-discussed 'Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act', which aims to close corporate tax loopholes. Senator Levin, along with fellow Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan, was also responsible for the recent release of a US Government Accountability Office report, stating that 83 of the 100 largest publicly-traded companies in the US have 'tax-haven units' in places such as Bermuda.