On Aug. 5, the United Nations Security Council voted to pass powerful new sanctions on North Korea. If successfully enforced, the new sanctions could deal a significant blow to the regime, cutting off as much as its foreign currency supply. But if sanctions are going to have any effect on the North Korean regime, we cannot continue to leave open critical loopholes that allow them to launder money and get around the sanctions.
A little over a year ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released the Panama Papers, a treasure trove of information and a window into the world of financial secrecy. In some ways, much of what the Panama Papers revealed was already well known. Previous estimates put the amount of money hidden in offshore secrecy havens somewhere between $8 trillion and $32 trillion. In 2015, The New York Times published an impressive five-part series on the use of anonymous shell companies to purchase prime real estate in New York City. Prior to that, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit (which they just won on June 29th) to force the forfeiture of New York property secretly owned by the government of Iran in direct violation of economic sanctions. And so on. Yet it is hard to deny the captivating intrigue of the specific stories in the Panama Papers involving Russian kleptocrats, world leaders, athletes, movie stars, and others.
Massive protests in Venezuela, Tunisia, Brazil, Morocco, and the Dominican Republic over the last few weeks have highlighted political graft around the globe, and the ensuing instability and violence that can result.
Since tax dodging via tax havens and other methods would continue among the largest players, it seems misleading to say to the public that the House plan would end the gaming.
Massive corporations are cheating us out of trillions of dollars that our infrastructure desperately needs. And none of it is illegal.
Crumbling bridges, abandoned schools, stalled plans for green energy—name a problem with American infrastructure, and someone will tell you the issue is a simple lack of funds.
In this article—originally published in Tax Notes—FACT Executive Director Gary Kalman uses the recent Apple tax ruling by the European Commission to identify problems with proposals for a territorial tax system in the United States. He argues that policymakers should instead focus on ending deferral, requiring public country-by-country reporting, and adopting provisions of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.
