The profitability of major UK banks recovered to levels seen before the financial crisis, but Meeks said there was a "paucity" of disclosure on how banks pay tax between national jurisdictions.
Britain's banks have in recent years paid a third of the corporation tax they were paying less than a decade ago despite a rebound in profits, a study showed on Tuesday.
The study comes as HSBC and Standard Chartered assess whether to move their headquarters to Asia, partly due to pressure from shareholders after a rise in a UK bank tax.
But UK corporation tax receipts from banks fell to 1.3 billion pounds ($2 billion) in 2011/12 and 2.3 billion pounds in 2012-13 from 7 billion pounds in 2005/06, according to a study from Cambridge Judge Business School.
That left banks paying just 4% of total UK corporation tax receipts in 2011/12 from 20 percent six years earlier.
"The exact reasons are difficult to pinpoint due to incomplete and patchy disclosure requirements on banks, which we believe obstruct analysis," said Geoff Meeks, a co-author of the study and professor of financial accounting at Cambridge Judge.
The profitability of major UK banks recovered to levels seen before the financial crisis, but Meeks said there was a "paucity" of disclosure on how banks pay tax between national jurisdictions.
Four of the big UK banks paid more in global tax between 2010 and 2012 than between 2005 and 2007, but only 11% - or 1.4 billion pounds - was paid in Britain in 2010/12, compared to 30% in the earlier period, according to the study, published in the journal Fiscal Studies.
Meeks said a rise in tax-deductible impairments due largely to bad loans contributed to the fall in corporation tax payments, but the drop could also reflect banks reclassifying some UK-originating profits to other jurisdictions, a rise in profits made overseas or more generous UK tax exemptions.
Britain introduced a bank levy in 2010 to ensure banks paid a "fair contribution" to society after the 2007/09 financial crisis. HSBC is expected to pay $1.5 billion under the levy this year, up from $900 million in 2013.
The bank, Europe's biggest, is assessing its best domicile on a number of factors, including taxation. It paid $7.9 billion in total taxes last year, including $2.4 billion in Britain and $1.3 billion in Hong Kong.
But that included only $69 million in UK corporation tax, because it allocates much of its global costs to its UK operations, meaning it can book more profit in lower tax countries such as Hong Kong. ($1 = 0.6494 pounds)
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