The group says that more than fifty businesses have now been certified in the UK, with half of those coming forward in the past eighteen months. They include FTSE-listed plcs, co-operatives, social enterprises and large private business – who between them have income of £50bn and over 7,000 offices and outlets.

However, the Fair Tax Mark which has three accreditation standards (multinational business, UK-only trading and microbusiness) has so far been developed solely with UK-incorporated parent companies in mind.

The group has now won funding from Luminate to work on the development of a new suite of standards to certify businesses that have their ultimate company situated outside of the UK.

Fair Tax Mark said the move comes in response to approaches from increasing numbers of businesses from outside the UK who seek accreditation, as well as interest from regulators, investors and municipalities across the globe.

The group said it was also anxious to address concerns that what it called ‘an ongoing international race to the bottom on tax’ could result in ‘unscrupulous accounting and auditing entities’ stepping into the vacuum and promulgating ‘bottom of the barrel’ tax kitemarks.

Fair Tax Mark will be looking at how to dovetail its work with the UN principles for responsible investment (PRI) investor guide on corporate tax disclosure and the emerging Global Reporting Initiative tax reporting standard. It intends to develop beta standards for a pilot with multinationals during 2020.

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