Focus on Closing Shell Companies and Tax Havens
By Maurice Rahming
It
is hard to believe that the second easiest place in the world to run a shady,
anonymous, and often criminal corporation is right here in the United States.
According to a recent academic study, the United States is second only to Kenya
for harboring these shell companies used to launder money and skirt their
taxes.
Much
like the classic sleight of hand game, companies across the country, including
many here in Oregon, are shifting and shuffling ownership and holdings until we
lose track of who or where they are.
Criminal
organizations regularly set up shell companies to launder ill-gotten revenues
and fund their criminal enterprise. In the case of multi-national corporations,
however, what they are doing is not illegal.
That doesn't mean there aren't
victims, though. The elaborate game of deception corporations play costs the
average taxpayer nearly $1,500 annually, close to $4,000 if you own a small
business. They shift, they shuffle, and we pick up the tab.
The leak of the Panama Papers revealed more than 11 million documents from a Panamanian legal team showing the actual devastating toll anonymous shell companies take on the world, signally a time for U.S. action.
Our
own Senator Ron Wyden has commented on the paper's release and says he will
open an inquiry into the tax evasion issues revealed. While we applaud his
efforts, this issue can't be tackled alone. The Main Street Alliance, and our
national coalition partners at FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate
Transparency) call on Senator Merkley and our representatives in Congress to
not only look into the criminal avoidance of taxes but to develop a head on
approach.
We
are calling on our members of Congress to pass a law to stop the creation of
anonymous shell companies that facilitate crimes, of which everyday Americans
are the victim, and call these tax avoiding multinational corporations what
they are, criminals. America shouldn't he one of the easiest places in the
world to form these companies; we can't afford to be.
Roughly
100 media outlets collaborated on the "Panama Papers" investigation,
and they have begun publishing a series of stories based on documents leaked
from the prominent Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. Many of these
secretly owned companies exposed in the papers operate in Nevada or Wyoming,
but recent reporting from the Portland Business Journal suggest that Oregon is
not far off.
These
states act as getaway cars for money launderers, terrorist, and corporate tax
evaders, and it is time to take away the keys. Requiring the collection and
publication of information on who owns and controls these companies would make
it much harder to launder dirty money and leave the rest of us safer.
Small
business owners across the country and our coalition partners urge the House
Ways & Means Committee to eliminate the offshore tax loopholes abused by
wealthy individuals and multinational companies to avoid paying taxes that then
must be made up by individual citizens and small businesses, to the tune of
$150 billion a year.
Some
of the biggest companies in the country -- Apple, Pfizer, Wal-Mart and, of
course, Nike... just to name a few -- shift their profits offshore to a network
of foreign subsidiaries in countries known for their abnormally low corporate
tax rates. Use of such systems allows 358 of the largest 500 multinational
companies in the U.S. to avoid paying their fair share in taxes.
Likewise,
offshore tax haven secrecy enables wealthy Americans to secretly hide their
wealth abroad, away from tax authorities -- sticking the rest of us with the
tab.
The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act -- currently pending in both the House and
Senate -- would end the ability of wealthy individuals to cheat on their taxes
while simultaneously putting an end to the ability of the biggest companies in
the world to indefinitely defer paying the taxes that they owe.
Companies
based and operating in this country benefit from our education system, roads
and bridges, national defense and legal systems and are obligated to support
them through taxes.
Corporate taxes as a share of federal tax revenue has
slipped to 8 percent in recent years, far lower than the share paid by
individual Americans.
When companies pay little or nothing, the rest of us -
including small and other local businesses - pay more. It's time to tell
multinational corporations, wherever they are, to pay what you owe.
Rahming,
co-owner of O'Neill Electric in Portland, Oregon and member of the Main Street
Alliance of Oregon.
