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Sen. Carl Levin: Want to cut the deficit? End offshore tax abuses
Published 12:09am Thursday, November 3, 2011The vast majority of Americans fulfill their legal and civic obligations to pay the taxes they owe, and rightly expect others to do the same. But too often, corporations and wealthy individuals use overseas tax havens to dodge their duty, passing their tax burden off onto others and increasing the federal budget deficit.
That’s why I have introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, legislation geared to stop offshore tax abuses that constitute a huge drain on U.S. taxpayers. This bill offers powerful tools to combat offshore tax abuses and eliminate tax incentives that encourage corporations to move jobs and profits overseas. And at a time when budget deficits are everyone’s concern, this bill offers a reasonable way to reduce the deficit by billions of dollars. I have recommended to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – the so-called “super-committee” – that they consider the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act as they work on a bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit.
The bill is a product of the investigative work of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair. For more than ten years, the subcommittee has exposed billions of dollars in offshore abuses, including the use of offshore corporations and trusts to hide assets; the use of tax haven banks to set up secret accounts; and the use of U.S. bankers, lawyers, accountants and other professionals to devise abusive tax shelters. A small office building in the Cayman Islands, called the Ugland House, is listed as the headquarters for more than 19,000 shell corporations that in too many cases are being used to dodge their taxes. In addition, over the past two years, 30,000 Americans have come clean to the IRS about hiding funds in offshore bank accounts.
Why is this so important? Because the stakes for taxpayers and our budget problem are enormous.
Our subcommittee has estimated that offshore tax abuses cost taxpayers about $100 billion a year. The loss of that money means two things happen: the tax burden on law-abiding, middle-class taxpayers goes up to cover the obligations of those who fail to pay what they owe; and our budget deficit deepens.
The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act would help put a halt to offshore tax dodging in several ways. It would authorize the Treasury secretary to take special measures against foreign jurisdictions or financial institutions that impede U.S. tax enforcement. It would give law enforcement new tools to establish who owns and controls offshore entities. And it would stop corporations that are run from the United States from avoiding taxes by claiming status as foreign corporations.
I have introduced similar legislation in the past, and some important provisions from those bills have become law. But much more can and should be done. Cracking down on offshore tax abuse would not only combat rising budget deficits, but also make our tax system fairer to middle-class families.
No one enjoys paying taxes. But almost all of us do. Some pay their taxes simply to avoid trouble, but for most of us, there is something else going on: a sense of civic duty. We understand that, as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, when we pay taxes, we buy civilization.
We know that for our country to remain safe, secure and prosperous, paying our fair share is necessary. It’s wrong that so many use offshore shelters to avoid their obligations, and we can and should do more to put an end to the tax cheating that robs our Treasury, honest taxpayers, and our children’s future.
Carl Levin is the senior U.S. senator from Michigan.
Tags: Sen. Carl Levin
Sen. Levin makes it sound as if corporations and individuals who shelter funds offshore are committing some crime against humanity. They aren’t. What they are doing is availing themselves of opportunities given them by the very legislature that Sen. Levin is a member of. For all of the complaining about tax “loopholes” I must remind the readership that there is in effect no such thing. Our congressmen and senators make it sound as if by some accidental ommission people or corporations are able to avoid taxation. Again, not so. The tax laws were specifically written to allow those advantages.
We hear about how tax breaks should be taken away from large corporations-specifically “big oil”-but name a single legislator that has introduced legislation to do so, Democrat or Republican. We also hear that corporations do not pay their “fair share” of taxes, and how those taxes should be increased. I must ask the readership again, who would pay those taxes? Of course the answer is-the consumer. The corporations would simply increase prices to offset those taxes. Our corporations already pay nearly the highest taxes in the developed world.
If Sen. Levin thinks for a moment that any deficit would be paid by the 100 billion recovered by removing tax havens, he is lying. Those tax collections would be used for more giveaway programs that he and his Democratic cronies have initiated since 2006 and hastened since 2008.
in yea Olde tymes England figured out this Problem,
The king appointed Lords, Earls ,and Barons to collect
Taxes from the poor, he exempted the nobility from
Taxation, as they were the job Creators.
If the surfs, peasants couldn’t afford to pay taxes, He threw them in
Prison, and confiscated their Land, livestock, and children as the
slaves to the nobility.
They didn’t have no Stinking Unemployment insurance, nor
Food stamps, or social security, the poor died off from starvation,
because they failed to become rich like the worthy.
they didn’t need no stinking health Care, as that would have only
prolonged their Self imposed misery.
let em die from not being worthy, isn’t that what you are pushing
mike?
Sam Taylor
Sam your response was nonsensical as usual. You provided not one reason-or excuse-as to why taxes should be raised on anyone. Levin makes one true statement; Most Americans pay their taxes. Those who shelter their money offshore do so at the behest of the United States Government, and for no other reason. Just as the mounting debt and deficit a result of government actions. If the United States Government wanted to reduce that debt and deficit, they could do so with the stroke of a pen. Too many of them would rather whine and complain that the wealthy are taking adventage of the system. Wealthy Americans like Charles Rangel, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and other wealthy Americans who have, or are harboring money and not paying taxes. It is a “do as I say, not as I do” mentality. It is they, who take the feudal approach to the so called little people, assuming that they need the care and feeding of a benevolent government in order to survive. President Obama recently spoke of how Americans have become soft and uncompetetive, and he was right, but not in the way he intended, and it is he and his philosophies that make it so. It is he who wants us to rely on Washington for direction and assistance, not ourselves. Let government be the do all and end all for the people. This writer says NO! Those serfs, despite their oppression at the hands of their masters at least had the freedom to be their own people. It is they who came to these shores to escape that oppression, and it is “us” who are going to take it back. You can have your precious west coast. I was there last weekend, and my nephews told me that my brother and I are legends to them, because we have the freedoms here to do things and be ourselves.
The advantages of living on a flat earth, allows
the Flat Earthers from seeing over the Horizon.
Short Sighted Answers cannot solve long term
problems.
Mike just whom should Our economy benefit?
and Whom has it benefitted since, your readaptation
of Your Trickle Down Economy?
Our Economy fired it’s Customer Base, and
is perplexed why there is no Demand for
their Imported goods.
When did the need to improve the price of Paper,
become the ruling force of our Economy?
When the driving up the price of that Paper,
by Greed has come to the tipping point of
Bankrupting America.
Yet You want to free the same Wall Street
Barons to be less regulated than We had
Before the Depression.
Economic Policies have consequences, and
You are seeing the Results of Reaganomics
and His Voodo Economics.
Yet instead of admitting Your error, You
Entrench Yourself in Denial, becoming
more Conservative in Your beliefs.
Mike the Earth is NOT Flat, and Your problem
is Your short sighted answers cannot
Solve Your Situation.
We must rebuild Our Economy for fairness
for all, and not just for the Few.
or having the Citizenry Your Economic Policies
having the punished since the Reagan Revolution
Pay the Price for Your Sins.
if not It will be the Home of the Wage Slaves with ,
Economic Fairness For Only the Rich, and the,
Privileged Few.
Your notion of “fairness” Sam, is little more than a prescription for misery for all. You want me to “share” my success with the supposed “less fortunate.” Exactly what do I receive in return? In the REAL world, in return for my sharing my “wealth” I would have an employee who is productive and paid a wage. I would also have customers who pass their wealth on to me. There is no “trickle down” effect to a free market driven economy. It is YOU who have made the decision that the rest of the world must have a share in our success via exported jobs, thinking that we must raise the standard of living in the rest of the world-artificially. It is YOUR world that is flat Sam, and there are Americans falling off the edge daily.
Just as the Constitution,
allows You to Bare Your Arms
to anyone you choose.
It does not allow you to arm no Bears.
It is a Document of “FAIRNESS”
The trouble with a Free Market, with no
Regulations, are the Thieves Whom seek
only Profits at any cost.
What You receive back is Fairness, and a
Customer base that can also Support You
In all Your endeavors.
It insures a Bigger fish than You, can come
and Eat You, leaving only Bones upon
the Sea floor.
If you want to insure Your success,
You must want that for all.
For mike it is greed, and selfishness
that created Our economic Situation, that
We face today.
By a very limited View of life.
You have yours because others Lived, and
Died to give You the chance to posses.
NOW IT”S YOUR TURN
You must have a far enough sight to see that.
Sam Taylor
Mike,
you and I have been Arguing this for a long time.
on the guestbook, that I miss, and now here.
it was I that laid Out this very thing We face now, would
Happen with “NAFTA”, “CAFTA”, “SAFTA, and all the
Other “AFTA’S”
I have long posted my disdain of “OUTSOURCING”
and the Stripping Americas Productivity.
Which You defended with Vigor.
So now you blame Me?
It is I whom stood for the Unions, which You hate.
It Is your beloved G.O.P.
whom enacted the Laws that gave America, the
Blow to the Belly, not I mike.