Blog | Page 24 | The FACT Coalition

Ask the Government to Know Who It Does Business with to Protect Us All

November 2, 2016

25 Organizations Send Letter to Congress Urging Beneficial Ownership Transparency in Procurement Process
The U.S. government has long recognized that it does not have enough information on the identities of its contractors—those that help protect our national security, provide medical and educational services, and build infrastructure.
“‘[T]here is no database in the U.S. government’ that provides reliable subcontractor information.”
— Ray DiNunzio, Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction chief investigator from August 2009 to 2011 (via the Washington Post)

This lack of information can harm us all.

Hudson Institute Highlights Links Between Criminal Secrecy and Kleptocracy

October 26, 2016

Conservative Think Tank Scholars Note “Ending Criminal Secrecy Might become that Rarest of Political Beasts: a Truly Non-Partisan Issue.”
Scholars at the Hudson Institute recently announced in an article their support for action to curtail the abuse of anonymous shell companies. The conservative think tank’s Kleptocracy Initiative argues that the U.S. efforts around the world to stabilize governments and root out corruption are being undermined by an irrational contradiction where U.S. laws are at the same time providing a “safe haven to their dirty cash.”

Tackling the Opioid Epidemic through Corporate Transparency

September 23, 2016

Ending Anonymous Shell Companies Will Enable Us to Follow the Money Driving the Illicit Opioid Trade
Opioids are killing more Americans than ever before.

On average, 78 people die from opioid overdose everyday. From 1999 to 2014, more than 165,000 lives were lost due to overdoses related to prescription opioids. This crisis is being described as “one of the worst public health epidemics” in U.S. history.

The prevalence of opioid abuse is pushing families apart, tearing at the fabric of our communities, and killing our loved ones. So what or who is to blame for this prevalence? What is allowing opiates to be transported into the heart of our communities? There are a number of reasons, but a recent report published by Fair Share Education Fund reveals one of the less-discussed—yet systemic—drivers of opioid abuse: anonymous shell companies.

Apple Ruling Puts Emphasis on Need to End ‘Deferral’—the Biggest Tax Dodge

August 30, 2016

Administration and Congress Should Focus on Collecting the Remaining $51.5 Billion that Apple Owes American Taxpayers
U.S. corporations woke up today to find that the European Commission ruled that Apple must re-pay Ireland roughly $14.5 billion it provided in illegal tax breaks.

According to The Wall Street Journal:
The European Union’s antitrust regulator has demanded that Ireland recoup roughly €13 billion ($14.5 billion) in taxes from Apple Inc., after ruling that a deal with Dublin allowed the company to avoid almost all corporate tax across the entire bloc for more than a decade—a move that could intensify a feud between the EU and the U.S. over the bloc’s tax probes into American companies.
With all of the finger pointing and spin, it’s important to take stock of the facts.

Let’s be clear—Apple’s pretense that it is a good corporate citizen that pays its taxes is now over.

TRACEpublic: A Step Towards Beneficial Ownership Transparency

August 29, 2016

Anonymous shell companies are impressively flexible tools. They can be used to launder money, evade taxation, covertly channel the payment of bribes, stash away a nation’s stolen wealth, and facilitate trafficking in drugs, weapons, and human beings. It’s a challenge to grasp the scale of the harm they help bring about.

It’s also challenging to find an appropriately scaled response. One place to start is for governments to require all companies within their jurisdiction to disclose their beneficial ownership for inclusion in a central registry—a step already taken by the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Norway. Going further, data from such registries can be aggregated and combined with other public registration materials to produce a gigantic database of company information, such as the one maintained by the UK for-profit OpenCorporates’ project.

Banks Join the Call to End Anonymous Companies

August 10, 2016

This week, The Clearing House Association, a major trade association for U.S. commercial banks, endorsed legislation requiring the collection of information about the real owners of U.S. companies (S. 2489/H.R. 4450). The Clearing House Association is the oldest banking association in the U.S., and it advocates on behalf of the largest U.S. commercial banks, such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust, just to name a few.

Their letter states, “We believe the bill would assist public sector efforts to identify money laundering and terrorist financing through the disclosure of the beneficial owners of corporations. In addition, the legislation would bring the United States further in line with international AML/CFT expectations, such as the recommendations developed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). We can see no justification for allowing corporations to shield their ownership.”