Following today’s announcement by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) of the release of their “Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information: Common Reporting Standard,” the FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition released the following statement from its Director, Nicole Tichon:
The FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition along with partners from small business, faith, labor and public interest groups submitted a formal response to Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and the Senate Finance Committee, calling his proposed changes to the international tax system as falling short “…in three critical ways and leaves room for the offshoring of jobs and profits to continue.”
Nicole Tichon, Executive Director of the FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition release the following statement on the budget plan released by senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI):
The FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition today praised Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) for the introduction of the Sequester Delay and Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. Among other things, this legislation would close or tighten tax loopholes that have been used by some of the most profitable multinational corporations – Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Nike – to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Some tax loopholes allow corporations to use complex accounting schemes to make it appear that profits earned in the United States are actually generated in other countries, often a tax haven with little or no tax on profits.
While citing progress in terms of closing offshore tax loopholes, the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) coalition believes that the tax reform discussion draft introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus falls short when it comes to permanently ending incentives for America’s biggest multinational corporations to shift jobs and profits offshore. The coalition found the proposal to lack some critical details.
Despite the damage that shadow banking and financial secrecy has caused to global markets and local budgets today’s release by the Tax Justice Network (TJN) of their 2013 Financial Secrecy Index ranking the world’s nations by their financial concealment shows a global financial network still remains hidden in the shadows. The FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition sees many opportunities for the U.S. to not only take action on this issue, but also in the process bring in new revenue to alleviate some of the constraints imposed under sequestration.
