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Tax Avoiding Companies Well-Represented at Tax Reform Hearing

Today the House Ways and Means Committee will hold its first tax reform hearing of 2017, which marks the official opening of the tax reform debate in Congress. True tax reform, if the committee sought to achieve it, could create more jobs and ensure companies are paying their fair share by cracking down on the massive offshore tax avoidance that companies engage in. Unfortunately, the panel of witnesses for today’s hearing is largely made up of representatives of various major corporations that are beneficiaries of the loopholes in our current corporate tax laws. Given this, it seems likely that these panelists will not push for a fairer corporate tax code, but rather a code that allows them to avoid even more taxes and incentivizes moving more jobs offshore.

The biggest tax avoider represented at the hearing is AT&T, which received $38 billion in tax breaks over the past eight years, meaning that it received more tax breaks than any other Fortune 500 company during that time. Over the past 10 years, the company managed to pay an average federal income tax rate of just 11.3 percent, less than a third of the statutory rate of 35 percent. In 2011, it managed to pay nothing in federal income taxes, despite earning $12 billion in profits.

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Legalized Cheating

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.

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Debunking the 35 Percent Corporate Tax Myth

For years, the number one tax policy talking point from corporate lobbyists has been the claim that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. The story then goes that this high tax rate is driving away business and Congress should move to dramatically lower it.

A new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reveals the reality that while corporations face a statutory tax rate of 35 percent, the tax code is so packed full of tax breaks that over eight years our nation’s largest and most profitable corporations paid an average effective tax rate of just 21.2 percent.

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New Bill Takes Aim at Offshore Tax Avoidance

FACT Coalition Statement on  Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) Thursday takes aim at offshore tax avoidance by closing a number of loopholes in the tax code.

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Report Shows House Tax Plan Fails to Curb Tax Avoidance

Statement by the FACT Coalition on ITEP Study
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new report published Wednesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) explains—among other things—how the House tax plan fails to curtail tax avoidance, contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington.

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Just the FACTs: December 9, 2016

For more than a decade we have seen a steep climb in the amount of money kept offshore by multinational companies.  This has resulted in $2.5 Trillion to remain untaxed—at an estimated cost of $700 billion to the US Treasury.  Throughout the 2016 election, both presidential candidates pledged to close loopholes that allow corporations to dodge taxes and stop companies from booking their profits overseas.  Though the follow-through has yet to be seen.  Many have even argued that Donald Trump’s victory was the result of a frustrated middle class that increasingly feels over-burdened, while they see the wealthy and corporations—following their own set of rules—shifting their responsibilities onto them.

A new report from U.S. PIRG Education Fund finds that multinational companies dodge an estimated $147 billion in federal and state taxes annually through offshore tax haven loopholes, shifting that burden instead onto small businesses and individual taxpayers.  Titled “Picking Up the Tab 2016: Small Businesses Bear the Burden for Offshore Tax Havens,” the study estimates that each small business, on average, owes $5,186 more on its annual tax bill to collectively make up for the federal and state corporate tax revenue lost to offshore tax havens.

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