Source: Politico
CORPORATIONS: TAX DODGERS OR TAX OPPRESSED? Two reports out today take competing views on corporate taxpayers.
The Public Interest Research Group uses data gleaned from annual shareholder reports to highlight the pervasive use of offshore affiliates in countries considered tax havens. It takes Pfizer, Microsoft and Citigroup to task, among others.
The group says 82 of the top 100 biggest publicly-traded companies use offshore tax havens to book profits, and that corporate profit shifting saps $110 billion annually from federal and state coffers.
“Many of America’s wealthiest individuals and largest corporations use tax loopholes to shift profits made in America to offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands, where they pay little to no taxes,” the group says.
The business-backed National Center for Policy Analysis will be briefing congressional staffers and others on what they see as the need for corporate reform, arguing that “flow of capital is highly sensitive to tax rates and the most important effect of these flows is the change in wages paid to skilled and unskilled labor.”
Laurence Kotlikoff, Tax Analysis Center director; John C. Goodman, president & CEO, National Center for Policy Analysis; and William W. Beach, chief economist (Republican) on the Senate Budget Committee will present the findings at B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, 12:30-1:30 p.m.