FACT Coalition Submits Comments to House Ways and Means Committee Ahead of International Tax Reform Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ahead of a planned hearing on international tax reform, the FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition today submitted comments to the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means urging lawmakers to focus reform efforts on closing offshore loopholes and ending tax haven abuse.

“Offshore loopholes and tax haven abuse cost U.S. taxpayers $150 billion per year,” said Clark Gascoigne, Interim Director of the FACT Coalition, upon submitting the comments to the Committee.  “It’s an enormous amount of lost revenue that must instead be shouldered by small businesses, domestic corporations, and ordinary individuals.”

“At the same time, tax haven abuse facilitates the outflow of trillions of dollars from developing countries—exacerbating global poverty and inequality and increasing our national security risks,” continued Mr. Gascoigne.  “It’s high time that Congress reform our tax code to close these loopholes—protecting the most vulnerable among us and evening the playing field for domestic businesses to compete fairly with multinational corporations.  We hope that the Committee chooses to move in this direction.”

The FACT Coalition’s submission to the Ways and Means Committee—which is co-signed by 12 of the coalition’s members—specifically highlights a number of issues, including:

• How the tax code is riddled with loopholes inserted by special interests resulting in the ability for large, multinational corporations to shift their tax responsibilities to small businesses and average taxpayers.
• How companies use the current system of deferral to indefinitely put off paying taxes until the profits are “brought back” to the U.S.
• The practices of inversions and earnings stripping, where a domestic company purchases a foreign firm that’s usually much smaller and reincorporates overseas in a low or no tax jurisdiction. The company then loads down the domestic entity with so much debt as to obviate any potential tax payments.
• How Congress should avoid embracing changes to the tax code that provide false “solutions” like a shift to a territorial tax system or proposals to create patent or innovation boxes.

The Coalition proposes policy solutions along the lines of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (S. 174, H.R. 297), the Stop Corporate Inversions Act (S. 198, H.R. 415), and ending the ability of multinational corporations to indefinitely defer paying taxes on offshore profits.

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Notes to Editors:

• Read an HTML version of this release on our website.
• Download a PDF of the FACT Coalition’s submission.
• Full signatories of the submission include: American Sustainable Business Council, Americans for Tax Fairness, Citizens for Tax Justice, FACT Coalition, Fair Share, Global Financial Integrity, Jubilee USA Network, Main Street Alliance, New Rules for Global Finance, Oxfam America, Public Citizen, Tax Justice Network USA, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).
• Learn more about the hearing on the website of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Journalist Contact:

Clark Gascoigne
FACT Coalition
cgascoigne@thefactcoalition.org
+1 202.813.0290