“Just the FACTs” is a round-up of news stories and information regarding efforts to combat corrupt financial practices, including offshore tax haven abuses, corporate secrecy, and money laundering through the financial system.
Send feedback or items for future newsletters to Thomas Georges at tgeorges@thefactcoalition.org
State of Play
Experts Call to Repeal Fossil Fuel Subsidies at Launch of FACT’s New Report
On October 23, FACT released a new report, America-Last and Planet-Last: How U.S. Tax Policy Subsidizes Oil and Gas Extraction Abroad, which finds that, despite collectively producing more oil and gas domestically than in all other countries combined, American multinational oil and gas companies reported owing less than a fifth of their overall taxes in the U.S. This is due to decades of preferential tax breaks that cost billions each year while exacerbating the climate crisis and harming public health.
The launch event featured opening remarks by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and an expert panel composed of speakers from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Friends of the Earth.
“Scrapping tax breaks for foreign oil production would save taxpayers more than $75 billion over ten years,” said Senator Whitehouse in his opening remarks. “It is past time to de-corrupt our tax code, and ending tax breaks for polluters is a really good place to start.”
During the panel, Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth, noted that “This is a 100-year-old problem that we must solve, otherwise the oil and gas industry will continue producing at the record levels that it has been doing over the last decade.”
Zorka Milin, Policy Director at FACT and report coauthor, highlighted key findings. “We continue to provide industry-specific subsidies for oil and gas companies, resulting in a staggering loss of $35 billion per year,” she said. “That includes subsidies for domestic oil and gas production, but the numbers are even bigger for production abroad. A big part of that is foreign tax credits.”
Matthew Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP, discussed the corporate tax context of the report’s findings, saying that “We must fairly and effectively enforce our tax law, particularly as it affects the best-off individuals and the large publicly-traded companies that are getting away with [paying below the statutory rate] right now.”
The report was covered by several news outlets, including Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg, Law360, and Accounting Today. A recording of the full launch event can be found here.
New Penn Wharton Research Shows Soaring Price Tag of Congress’ Recent Handouts to Multinational Corporations
As FACT has covered extensively this year, the tax reform package signed into law on July 4, 2025 included nearly $1 trillion in new and expanded tax breaks for large corporations, largely paid for by cuts to green energy incentives and vital public programs. Among the most egregious of these new corporate tax breaks are extensive tax cuts for the foreign income and export profits of America’s largest multinationals.
New research by Penn Wharton Budget Model shows that international tax changes passed as a part of Congress’ recent reconciliation package will reduce federal revenue by $276 billion over the coming decade, nearly $100 billion more than official estimates released by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) ahead of the bill’s passage in July.
More than $180 billion of this forgone revenue is from the expansion and permanent extension of a major tax break for American tech companies – called the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income deduction, or FDII – which has ballooned in cost since its introduction in 2017. The remainder of the cost to taxpayers comes from weakening a minimum tax on the foreign profits of American multinational companies.
Latest from FACT
FACT Submits Comments on Investment Adviser Rule Delay
FACT responded to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)’s request for public comment on plans to postpone and revise a long-overdue rule introducing anti-money laundering safeguards in the U.S. private investment sector. The private investment industry is currently the only major U.S. capital market actor without a legal obligation to know their clients or perform due diligence. FACT’s comment pushes back on the rule’s delay, and expresses concern that the delay may harm U.S. national security by leaving this long-standing money laundering vulnerability unaddressed.
From the comment: “The Administration’s agenda to deregulate or otherwise reduce impact on industry should not come at the expense of its responsibility to protect American national security and public safety. Further, Treasury’s failure to implement this rule on the designated timeline would be a self-inflicted wound, contradicting its own stated national security priorities.
FACT in the News
AFP: US Oil Giants Produce Mainly At Home But Send More Tax Dollars Overseas
Agence France-Presse covered FACT’s latest report analyzing the tax disclosures of leading U.S. oil and gas companies, and quoted Zorka Milin. “The headline finding of our report is that these companies are indeed very lightly taxed. They are under-taxed relative to any kind of number of metrics”, said Milin.
“These policies make no sense economically, environmentally, or ethically. It’s time for Congress to close these loopholes.”
Reuters: Accountants’ New Warning: Political Interference in FASB Revives Old Threat to Financial Reporting Credibility
Thomson Reuters interviewed FACT Policy Director Zorka Milin and FACT Policy & Communications officer Thomas Georges on a proposed budget rider to defund the FASB’s oversight body if a rule designed to provide investors with more transparency isn’t withdrawn.
Thomas Georges stated that industry concerns regarding data collection burdens or potential misinterpretation “don’t come close to outweighing the benefits for investors that was the prime consideration that FASB had when they were drafting these disclosures and narrowly tailoring these disclosures.”
Blood Money Media: Trump’s Crypto Pardon Puts “National Security Up For Sale”
FACT deputy director Erica Hanichak was interviewed by Blood Money Media on President Trump’s recent pardon of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. In the interview, Hanichak explains that anti-money laundering enforcement needs to apply fairly to everyone if it is to be effective.
“After pleading guilty in a case with the Department of Justice, Binance, the crypto exchange that Changpeng Zhao led was responsible for facilitating terrorist financing, child abusers, fraud…all that is now forgotten after Changpeng Zhao took steps to not only boost the President’s own crypto ventures and also engage in a lobbying campaign for his own pardon.”
From Our Members and Allies
ITEP: Oil and Gas Companies Are Paying Less Tax to the U.S. than to Foreign Governments
Following the release of our oil and gas report, Matthew Gardner published a blog emphasizing the importance of taxing the oil and gas industry properly. “Because the oil and gas industry imposes outsized costs on Americans (and residents of other countries) by exacerbating the climate crisis, it’s doubly important to ensure that these companies are paying their fair share of the corporate tax.”
Climate Rights International: Before It’s Too Late: Curbing Cattle-Driven Deforestation and Rights Abuses in Brazil
Climate Rights International released a new report exposing, documenting, and explaining the problem of cattle ranching causing illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The report identifies ten ranches implicated in human rights abuses, and performs a macroanalysis linking these abuses to deforestation.
From the report: “By keeping labor costs artificially low or usurping Indigenous lands, ranchers engaged in illegal deforestation increase the likelihood that their environmental crimes translate into financial gain.”
G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality
At the request of the South African presidency of the G20, Joseph Stiglitz led the production of the first-ever report on economic inequality for the G20. The report covers inequality’s interrelated dimensions, causes, consequences, and recent trends, and proposes policies to address its most adverse effects. “Between 2000 and 2024, the world’s top 1% captured 41% of all new wealth, while just 1% went to the bottom 50%, amid growing concerns about democratic capture associated with wealth concentration.” The report calls on the G20 to play a key role in facilitating global coordination to rewrite tax rules to ensure fair taxation of multinationals and the ultra-wealthy.
FACT Coalition member Oxfam America released a related report, UNEQUAL: The rise of a new American oligarchy and the agenda we need, which provides a snapshot of U.S. economic inequality and looks at the underlying trends that led to the growing divide in recent decades between the very wealthiest and much of the country.
Recent and Upcoming Events
October 21-23: UK Government Gold Conference
From October 21-23, FACT program director for environmental crime Julia Yansura spoke at a London conference on dirty gold and illicit finance. Hosted by the UK’s customs authority, HMRC, and its foreign ministry, FCDO, the conference brought together approximately 200 participants from 15 countries to cover three key topics: physical movements of gold, illicit financial movements, and policy solutions.
October 15, 2025: Takeaways on illegal gold mining and illicit financial flows: from the Amazon basin to destination countries
Julia Yansura and Isidoro Hazbun joined the Basel Institute’s Countering Environmental Corruption Practitioners’ Group to share their research on illicit finance and gold. A summary and video recording are available here.
About the FACT Coalition