“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
FACT Brings Corporate Tax Dodging Concerns to Congressional Hearing on Tax Competitiveness
On Wednesday, FACT joined a leading tax expert in highlighting incentives for offshoring present in the U.S. corporate tax system at a hearing held by the House Ways and Means Tax Subcommittee. While the hearing was intended to frame the 2017 and 2025 tax reforms as pro-growth and benefiting working families, tax experts and lawmakers emphasized the aspects of the U.S. tax code that reward large businesses for moving their profits, operations, and jobs to tax havens.
Professor Kim Clausing, a witness at the hearing, noted that “the legislation doubles down on a steep tilt in the tax playing field in favor of multinational companies’ foreign operations relative to domestic operations.” Clausing also argued that the U.S. tax code puts domestic small businesses on an uneven playing field compared to large multinationals, saying that multinationals “get taxed at a much lower rate than domestic small businesses which pay the full freight. This is a systematic problem through which our tax code is encouraging market concentration.”
📺Important #tax argument cutting through @KClausing's wider testimony on #tariffs – our nation's tax code favors foreign income earned by big multinationals over domestic businesses.
— FACT Coalition (@FACTCoalition) December 4, 2025
"This is a systematic problem through which our tax code is encouraging market concentration.” pic.twitter.com/I5nT6HDPsp
Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) raised the issue of corporate tax avoidance via tax havens, saying that the practice “is a real detriment to U.S. competitiveness… and we have not addressed that. Base erosion is very real, and by pretending it doesn’t exist, we’re putting our heads in the sand.”
Corporate tax policy isn’t all about global competitiveness! It’s also about stopping tax avoidance via profit shifting to tax havens. Very important point from @beyer.house.gov in @waysmeanscmte.bsky.social international tax hearing just now.
— Zorka Milin (@zorkamilin.bsky.social) Dec 3, 2025 at 11:18 AM
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FACT submitted comments making similar points ahead of the hearing, calling for reforms to “end all offshoring incentives, including fully eliminating the preferential tax rate on foreign corporate earnings, and align the U.S. with international standards designed to discourage profit-shifting to tax havens.” For more information on the international provisions of the 2025 reconciliation bill, see FACT’s recent policy brief, as well as FACT’s 2025 tax policy platform. Further analysis of the hearing by Steve Wamhoff of the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a FACT-member organization, can be found here.
Senate Budget Proposal Omits Harmful Riders While Maintaining Anti-Money Laundering and Tax Enforcement Budgets
Last week, the Senate released its draft of the 2026 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) funding bill. The bill maintains the budget for the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) at $190.2 million, as well as the IRS enforcement at nearly $5.4 billion.
FinCEN is the nation’s financial intelligence unit, and the bureau responsible for administering numerous long-awaited anti-money laundering reforms. FinCEN has been funded at the same level since 2023.
As FACT has long argued, Treasury’s FinCEN plays a critical role in insulating the American economy from dirty money and associated national security threats, and the bureau needs dramatically more funds than have been historically appropriated in order to meet its mission.
An earlier FSGG draft from the House included language that would have prohibited FinCEN from using funds to implement the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), as well as language forcing the Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) to withdraw a long-awaited corporate income tax disclosure rule. The new Senate package does not include either rider.
Latest from FACT
Financial Times: US army’s reliance on private equity is a national security risk
The Financial Times published a letter from FACT executive director Ian Gary on the need for anti-money laundering safeguards for the private investment industry – particularly in light of the Trump administration’s recent interest in financing military infrastructure with private equity funds. Unlike banks and other financial institutions, investment advisers are exempt from legal obligations to implement anti-money laundering programs.
“The Treasury Department should not stall safeguards that would make it harder for our adversaries to evade sanctions and spy on our nation’s defense technology. Delaying these rules will put Americans and our national security at risk.”
FACT in the News
Devex: Tax transparency can fuel the fight against climate change
Devex published an op-ed from Ian Gary arguing that tax transparency in the form of public country-by-country reporting can help in the fight against climate change by increasing revenues for Global South nations.
“In this time of climate crisis, now is the time to embrace innovative solutions to address the huge financing gaps facing the world,” said Gary.
A complementary op-ed, also by Gary, was published just days earlier in the Inter Press Service.
“Global tax justice must be advanced to fill the ‘yawning gap’ highlighted by the UNEP between what has been committed and what is needed to deal with the climate crisis. The OECD has said that countries suffer $100-240 billion in lost revenue annually from profit shifting by multinational corporations.”
S&P Global: Gold industry needs reforms to curb illegal mining – watchdogs
FACT program director for environmental crimes Julia Yansura was quoted by S&P Global on the need for large-scale reforms to stop illegal gold mining.
“We are not going to solve an illicit economy this big and powerful by simply sending out groups of police one day at a time to a mining site,” said Yansura, noting the need for policy solutions. “Countries that are destinations for the gold and the proceeds need to step up and be part of that solution.”
CFO Dive: FASB’s tax rules avert funding threat
FACT policy & communications officer Thomas Georges was quoted with regard to the shutdown-ending spending bill passed last month. Earlier House drafts of the bill included a provision that threatened FASB’s funding unless the Board withdrew a landmark revised tax reporting standard, but the final bill left this provision out.
“Companies are already in the process of complying with the new standards,” said Georges, “and once the first round of disclosures is out, I doubt that there will be appetite to revisit the no-funds rider.”
From Our Members and Allies
Inter-American Development Bank: “Cultural Property, Art and Money Laundering”
A new report from the Inter-American Development Bank finds that countries do not properly address money laundering risks in the art and cultural asset market, and do not consistently implement appropriate policies to mitigate them.
From the report: “Addressing the threats of money laundering and terrorist financing in the art, antiquities, and cultural property market requires a comprehensive approach that combines regulatory strategies, institutional strengthening, international cooperation, and public-private dialogue.”
C4DS: “Billion-Dollar Blind Spot: Brazil’s Drug Traffickers and the Florida Corporate Registry”
New analysis from C4DS reveals that Brazil’s most prominent transnational criminal organization—Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)—continues to operate its global network despite U.S. sanctions and decades of law enforcement efforts. The investigation uncovered Florida-registered companies tied to three alleged PCC members and money launderers, exposing how even red-flagged networks can access the U.S. financial system in the absence of a robust beneficial ownership registry.
From the analysis: “The revelation that Bozhanaj and Cazula operate active companies in Florida—including a company they registered together—despite facing allegations of involvement in international drug trafficking overseas, exposes how even red-flagged networks can access the U.S. financial system and continue to operate worldwide.”
EU Tax Observatory: “Shift or Share? Profit Shifting and Workers’ Profit-Sharing”
New analysis from a team of researchers at the EU Tax Observatory demonstrates how profit-shifting hurts workers’ earnings by reducing profit-sharing payouts in French multinational firms. The report estimates that large French multinationals shift €22 billion in profits annually, representing 19 percent of their foreign profits, and finds that profit-shifting reduces the annual profit-sharing amount received per employee by €919, equivalent to 2.6 percent of net wages for workers in shifting subsidiaries.
From the report: “Low-income workers are disproportionately affected relative to their wages: the loss amounts to 3.2 percent of net wages for the bottom decile, compared to 2.3 percent for the top decile.”
Recent and Upcoming Events
November 20- Instituto Peruano de Economía – Minería Ilegal: una mirada internacional a la crisis
On November 20, Julia Yansura spoke on a panel hosted by the Instituto Peruano de Economía analyzing the economic, environmental and social impacts of illegal mining, and particularly highlighting new data estimating that illegal gold generates $12 billion a year in Peru.
December 9-10: ACAMS – The Assembly Caribbean
On December 9, Julia Yansura will speak at The Assembly Caribbean, where she will provide insight into how criminal organizations are expanding into new markets like illegal gold trafficking. Her presentation will discuss how transnational organized crime operates today, the flow of illicit funds across borders, and the need for stronger public-private partnerships to disrupt these threats.
January 7-8: 10th Annual D.C. Bar Tax Conference
On January 8, FACT policy director Zorka Milin will speak at the D.C. Bar’s tenth annual tax conference, which will cover developments in international, corporate, partnership, energy, artificial intelligence, and individual taxation, along with emerging issues in tax controversy and tax administration. Milin’s panel, “Individual Taxation: Wire We Doing This? Understanding the New Remittance Tax on Cash Transfers Abroad” will discuss a new provision included in the 2025 budget megabill that imposes a tax on money sent from the U.S. to other countries by non-U.S. citizens. As FACT has noted, this tax targets working-class families and presents a host of compliance, enforcement, and illicit finance issues.
About the FACT Coalition