ITEP Report Reveals Fortune 500 Companies Booking Record $2.6 Trillion in Untaxed Profits Abroad
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As Washington turns its attention to tax reform, a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy underscores the immense scale of offshore tax avoidance: Fortune 500 companies have booked a record $2.6 trillion in profits offshore, allowing them to avoid up to $767 billion in U.S. taxes. ITEP is a member of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition (FACT Coalition), an alliance of more than 100 state, national, and international organizations working toward a fair tax system that addresses the challenges of a global economy.
Clark Gascoigne, the deputy director of the FACT Coalition, issued the following statement welcoming the report:
“As policymakers pivot from healthcare to tax reform, these numbers should grab their attention. The current tax code is broken — it’s riddled with offshore loopholes systematically inserted by special interests that result in large, multinational companies shifting their tax responsibilities to small businesses, domestic businesses, and taxpayers.
“Despite anger generated over offshoring in last year’s campaign, congressional leaders have yet to propose a tax plan that would address the offshore gaming.
“Instead, House lawmakers have been floating a tax reform blueprint that would alter but not stop the gaming. It is a fairly radical and untested policy exercise to upend the international tax system. A better approach would be to fix the current one.
“End deferral, strengthen anti-inversion rules, and boost transparency of where multinationals book profits and pay taxes. These comparatively simple reforms would stop the gaming of the tax code and ensure that wholly domestic and small businesses can compete more fairly with multinationals. This is a pragmatic approach that solves the offshoring problem without creating a litany of new ones.”
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Notes to Editors:
- Read the full ITEP report, titled “Fortune 500 Companies Hold a Record $2.6 Trillion Offshore”.
- Read a new op-ed by FACT Executive Director Gary Kalman in The Hill, “The House tax plan won’t stop big companies from gaming the system,” published March 27, 2017.
- Read FACT’s “Briefing Memo: Tax Reform — Important Steps to Fix the Gaming of the Corporate Tax System”.
Journalist Contact:
Clark Gascoigne
Deputy Director, The FACT Coalition
+1 202 827-6401
cgascoigne@thefactcoalition.org