Senator Carl Levin introduced the “Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act” today in the US Senate, taking aim at offshore tax haven abuses which costs the US approximately $100 billion in lost tax revenue per year.
The bill contains an array of provisions which would permanently close offshore tax loopholes, raise revenue, and increase transparency and accountability for multinational businesses. The bill is cosponsored by Senators Bill Nelson, Sanders, Shaheen, and Whitehouse, and is supported by business leaders and public interest groups including Tax Research LLP partner in the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, Global Financial Integrity.
“Passage of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act would be a game changer,” said Global Financial Integrity (GFI) director, Raymond Baker. “It would close offshore tax loopholes, remove incentives to send money and jobs overseas, level the playing field between small businesses and multinational corporations, and strengthen law enforcement and tax collection capacities.”
The bill also contains a provision (§201) to require annual country-by-country reporting by SEC-registered corporations related to their employees, sales, purchases, sales, financing arrangements, and taxes. This provision is similar to §1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 which requires all U.S. and foreign companies registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to publicly report how much they pay governments for access to their oil, gas and minerals.
“The country-by-country reporting provision adds a layer of pro-investment, best practices accountability to this bill,” said Mr. Baker. “For investors, the more information available about a company's business practices and balance sheets, the better. This reporting requirement would also help anti-corruption and economic development efforts in developing countries by creating more transparency and accountability in the business dealings between multinational companies and governments.”
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Carl Levin is a clown. If you actually think this will pass, you don’t know enough about our American legislative process. The business lobby will shut this down faster than a 184 newspaper owned by Murdoch.
The part that you’re missing is that Sarbanes Oxly will get rolled back in the next few years too, the business lobby in the United States makes the London City Corporation lobby power look mouse like.
Levin is a hero. We need a private member’s bill in the UK parliament and the equivalent move in the European parliament. The more similar the better – a united front is what the tax dodgers will fear the most.
The fightback against Murdoch is giving us an intriguing glimpse of the possibility of parliaments rediscovering their potential to be a means of defending the people against exploitative power.
The previous post showing how central the whole offshore & secrecy thing is to the Murdoch empire is an opening for tax campaigners. The utter hypocrisy of claiming to stand for the honest working family against those who don’t pay their dues, whilst operating hundreds of offshore subsidiaries and never paying any tax – people can join the dots and see this as the same hypocrisy that can hack the phone and exploit the family of a missing girl.
We all want to see Murdoch taken down as an outcome of this crisis. I’d like to see the whole idiotic philosophy of David Gauke (and the man whom he is a front for – Osborne) on tax dodging on the ropes as a result of this.
This is Ed Miliband’s chance of a lifetime – let’s hope he has the courage to go for it.
It will all blow-over, sooner rather than later.
Just as soon as the other ‘papers start to look at themselves and realise where the smell is coming from (the Daily Wail used the same questionable means of gaining information much more than the NoTW)
As for the States…….money voting to pay more money ?
Not in this world.
No, another storm in the proverbial teacup. The “electorate” are easily bribed and have such short memories.
Another winter of [bill] discontent will be engineered to draw the voters already pathetically short memories onto other more pressing subjects, such as how to pay said bills.
Interesting at times, humerous at other times and always interesting: How little those guardians of public morality actually care about morals (The Great Fourth Estate)
“Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other”
(Oscar Ameringer)
“Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage”
(Ambrose Bierce: The Devil’s Dictionary,1911)