March, 09 2017, 10:30am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Clark Gascoigne,Phone: (202) 813-0290,Email:,cgascoigne@thefactcoalition.org
New Bill Takes Aim at Offshore Tax Avoidance
FACT Coalition Statement on the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act
WASHINGTON
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. The Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act was welcomed by the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition (FACT Coalition), a non-partisan alliance of more than 100 state, national, and international organizations working toward a fair tax system that addresses the challenges of a global economy.
The bill was filed following the publication of a thorough analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) -- a member of the FACT Coalition -- revealing widespread tax avoidance by Fortune 500 companies in recent years.
Clark Gascoigne, the deputy director of the FACT Coalition, issued the following statement:
"The Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act offers a pragmatic, enforceable response to the problem of offshore tax avoidance -- a problem that costs U.S. taxpayers an estimated $135 billion per year. This bill ends the incentive to game the tax system without creating a litany of new problems and unintended consequences.
"In contrast, the recent House tax reform blueprint attempts to end the offshore gaming of the tax code but, in practice, it merely changes the nature of the gaming by incentivizing companies to shift the location of sales rather than the location of profits. It is a gift to creative tax planners.
"Instead of engaging in a fairly radical and untested policy exercise to upend the international corporate tax system, a better approach would be to fix and simplify the current one.
"The comparatively simple reforms in this legislation would curb the gaming of the tax code and ensure that wholly domestic and small businesses can compete more fairly with multinationals."
The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition is a non-partisan alliance of more than 100 state, national, and international organizations working toward a fair tax system that addresses the challenges of a global economy and promoting policies to combat the harmful impacts of corrupt financial practices.
(202) 827-6401LATEST NEWS
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"Trump's ongoing meme grift squats at the crest of his mountain of conflicts, corruptions, and debasements of the presidency," said one watchdog.
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U.S. President Donald Trump used his social media accounts on Monday to promote a scheduled private dinner for the top holders of the $TRUMP meme coin, effectively soliciting purchases of the crypto token that now accounts for a substantial portion of his net worth.
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"Those responsible for upholding the law, from federal prosecutors to members of Congress, can only ignore this at the expense of their own personal legacies."
The watchdog group Public Citizen said Monday that Trump's promotion of the private dinner for investors in his meme coin "is a crime with no immunity."
"Federal criminal law (18 U.S.C. § 201; 5 C.F.R. § 2635) forbids the president from soliciting gifts; as this is not a presidential act, he does not enjoy immunity from prosecution," the group noted, alluding to the U.S. Supreme Court's sweeping immunity decision last year.
Bartlett Naylor, Public Citizen's financial policy advocate, said in a statement that "Trump's ongoing meme grift squats at the crest of his mountain of conflicts, corruptions, and debasements of the presidency."
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This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates...
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An internationally acclaimed digital news outlet in El Salvador said Monday that the administration of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is preparing to arrest a number of its journalists following the publication of an interview with two former gang leaders who shed new light on a power-sharing agreement with the U.S.-backed leader and self-described "world's coolest dictator."
"A reliable source in El Salvador told El Faro that the Bukele-controlled Attorney General's Office is preparing at least seven arrest warrants for members of El Faro," the outlet reported. "The source reached out following the publication of an interview with two former leaders of the 18th Street Revolucionarios on Bukele's yearslong relationship to gangs."
"If carried out, the warrants are the first time in decades that prosecutors seek to press charges against individual journalists for their journalistic labors," El Faro added.
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While the pact between Bukele and gang leaders is well-known in El Salvador, El Faro—which has long been a thorn in the president's side—was the first media outlet to air video of gangsters acknowledging the agreement.
As El Faro reported:
At the heart of the threat of arrests is irony: El Faro was only able to interview the two Revolucionarios because they escaped El Salvador with the complicity of Bukele.
One, who goes by "Liro Man," recounts that he was taken to Guatemala, through a blind spot in the Salvadoran border, by Bukele gang negotiator Carlos Marroquín; the other, Carlos Cartagena, or "Charli," was arrested on a warrant in April 2022, early in the state of exception, but quickly released after the police received a call at the station and backed off.
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