FACT Coalition Spokespeople Available to Comment on Tax Bills and Paradise Papers
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee’s amendments to the proposed tax legislation Monday evening nearly eliminated a safeguard in the tax bill meant to discourage some shifting of profits offshore by multinational corporations according to a score by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.
Lawmakers Must Investigate How Proposed Legislation Will Address Offshore Loopholes Highlighted in New ‘Paradise Papers’ Leak
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new leak of documents from an offshore law firm, published by an international network of news outlets Sunday, expose a number of tax avoidance techniques used by the wealthy and multinational corporations to avoid taxes.
$129 billion to $205 billion: Amount that U.S. taxpayers lose in federal revenue to offshore tax haven abuse each year.
$94 billion to $135 billion: Lost U.S. revenue from offshore profit shifting by multinational corporations annually.[i]
$35 billion to $70 billion: Lost U.S. revenue to tax evasion by wealthy individuals annually.[ii], [iii]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee unveiled legislation Thursday that would overhaul the U.S. tax system. According to the FACT Coalition, the bill would reward corporations that have shifted profits to tax havens.
History Shows Tax Giveaways on Offshore Profits Neither Create Jobs nor Spur Investment
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The president is expected to claim in a speech Wednesday afternoon that a zero percent tax rate for multinational corporations that book profits offshore and a tax holiday for those multinationals that have already booked stockpiles of money offshore will increase the pay of the average American household by $4,000 — an erroneous notion according to the FACT Coalition.
A 2004 Offshore Tax Holiday Left 600,000 Jobless. A Decade Later, Congress Is at Risk of Making the Same Mistake
In 2004, the grass seemed greener on the other side — overseas where multinational corporations kept stashing profits. A corporate tax policy (known as “deferral”) allows U.S. corporations to defer taxes on their profits booked offshore until they are returned to the U.S. By 2004, deferral had led to a cash hoard of $527 billion, equivalent to 4.3 percent of GDP, amassing offshore.
Back then, President Bush signed the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (AJCA) believing that bringing home the stockpiles of cash would mean huge jobs and growth here in the U.S. The act provided a “tax holiday,” allowing corporations to return their deferred profits at an astonishingly low 5.25 percent — instead of the statutory 35% rate.
Companies — including Pfizer, Merck & Co., Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, and IBM — immediately took advantage. Together, these five corporate giants repatriated $88 billion from their offshore accounts located in well-known tax havens such as Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and the Bahamas. According to the IRS, some 843 companies followed suit resulting in the repatriation of $312 billion in qualified earnings. In total, the companies received $265 billion in tax deductions between 2004 to 2006.
