Press Coverage | Page 14 | The FACT Coalition

ThinkProgress: Delaware ready to crack down on anonymous shell companies

June 13, 2018

At long last, the U.S. may be moving toward preventing the types of anonymous shell companies that criminals, kleptocrats, and arms dealers have long sought. But just as Delaware, the country’s leading anonymous shell company provider, gets on board with new transparency measures, Congress has taken a significant step back, gutting a bill that could have potentially ended the U.S.’s role as the world’s anonymous company capital.

Quartz: House Republicans are gutting a bill to fight money-laundering

June 13, 2018

House Republicans this week axed a key passage in a bill that is deemed crucial in the fight to stop kleptocrats, drug traffickers and terrorists from laundering money through the US.

The original legislation would have forced anyone setting up a company in the US to tell authorities who the actual owner was. Law enforcement, anti-corruption groups and national security experts say this is essential in fighting crimes that range from child trafficking to Russian election hacking; America’s opaque incorporation laws can otherwise make it impossible to find out who is behind a company benefiting from such crimes.

ICIJ: Michael Cohen scandal a reminder that the U.S. is a tax secrecy paradise

May 21, 2018

Fresh disclosures that President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen used a shell company to receive huge payments from a firm linked to a Russian oligarch as well as two multinational corporations have highlighted the United States’ position as a leading global enabler of corporate secrecy.

Reuters: Tax activists slam U.S. reporting exemption for defense firms

May 1, 2018

Tax activists this week criticized a U.S. government move to exempt large defense contractors from a financial disclosure rule meant to fight international tax dodging, saying the need for a national security exemption was unproven.

The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition’s criticism came after the U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service sided in late March with defense contractors that had asked the agencies for the exemption.

Illicit massage parlors prolific and lucrative, study finds

October 11, 2017

Houston hosts hundreds of massage parlors described in sleazy online sex forums like RubMaps.com that generate about $107 million in illicit revenues each year, according to a new study by Vanessa Bouche, a Texas Christian University political science professor and human trafficking expert.