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Close Corporate Tax Loopholes

PERVASIVE TAX AVOIDANCE — Across the country, some of the nation’s best-known companies—including GE, Google and Goldman Sachs—have avoided paying the taxes they owe, costing taxpayers $100 billion last year.

LOOPHOLES COST TAXPAYERS $100 BILLION LAST YEAR

No company should be able to game the tax system to avoid paying what it legitimately owes. And, yet, establishing shell companies in offshore havens for the purpose of tax avoidance is becoming more the rule than the exception for at least 83 of the nation's top 100 publicly traded companies. GE, Google, Goldman Sachs and dozens of others have created hundreds of phantom entities with nothing more than a clever tax attorney and P.O. box.

Official estimates of how much we lose in tax revenue are between $70 billion and $100 billion per year. That's money that is shouldered by average taxpayers, either through additional taxes today or additional debt to be paid by the next generation. It’s not illegal, but it’s not right. The result? The average taxpayer paid $434 more this year to cover the $100 billion that GE and others that use offshore tax havens skipped out on. And small businesses and companies that don’t use these schemes have to struggle to compete with those that do. 

Meanwhile, the state legislature and Congress are considering deep cuts for essential public programs — from education, to health care, to clean air and drinking water. They’re asking us to tighten our belts and make sacrifices, while giving the tax haven crew a free ride. We are pushing for common-sense changes that simply say that if corporations are based here and generate profits here, then they should, like all of us who earn income here, pay the taxes they owe.

Issue updates

News Release | ConnPIRG Education Fund | Budget

New Report: Connecticut Receives a “B” in Annual Report on Transparency of Government Spending

Connecticut received a “B” when it comes to government spending transparency, according to Following the Money 2012: How the States Rank on Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data, the third annual report of its kind by the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG).

> Keep Reading
Report | ConnPIRG Education Fund | Budget

Following the Money

The ability to see how government uses the public purse is fundamental to democracy. Transparency in government spending promotes fiscal responsibility, checks corruption, and bolsters public confidence. In the past few years, state governments across the country have made their checkbooks transparent by creating online transparency portals.  These government-operated websites allow visitors to view the government's checkbook to see who receives state money, how much, and for what purposes.

> Keep Reading
Report | U.S. Public Interest Research Group and National Taxpayers Union | Budget

Toward Common Ground

To break through the ideological divide that has dominated Washington this past year and offer a pathway to address the nation’s fiscal problems, the National Taxpayers Union and ConnPIRG joined together to identify mutually acceptable deficit reduction measures. This report documents our findings.

> Keep Reading
News Release | Tax

House Committee Approves Cut to Agriculture Subsidies

Statement of U.S. PIRG Public Health Advocate Elizabeth Hitchcock on the House Appropriations Committee’s vote to approve an amendment to the 2012 Agriculture appropriations bill  to limit agriculture subsidies called direct payments to farmers with adjusted gross incomes lower than $250,000.

> Keep Reading
Report | Tax

Tax Shell Game: How Much Did Offshore Tax Havens Cost You in 2010?

Tax havens are countries with minimal or no taxes, to which U.S.-based multinational firms or individuals transfer their earnings to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Users of tax havens benefit from access to America’s markets, workforce, infrastructure and security, but pay little or nothing for it—violating the basic fairness of the tax system.

> Keep Reading

Pages

News Release | ConnPIRG Education Fund | Budget

New Report: Connecticut Receives a “B” in Annual Report on Transparency of Government Spending

Connecticut received a “B” when it comes to government spending transparency, according to Following the Money 2012: How the States Rank on Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data, the third annual report of its kind by the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG).

> Keep Reading
News Release | Tax

House Committee Approves Cut to Agriculture Subsidies

Statement of U.S. PIRG Public Health Advocate Elizabeth Hitchcock on the House Appropriations Committee’s vote to approve an amendment to the 2012 Agriculture appropriations bill  to limit agriculture subsidies called direct payments to farmers with adjusted gross incomes lower than $250,000.

> Keep Reading
Media Hit | Tax

CT News Junkie: Report: Connecticut Failing on Spending Transparency

The second annual “Following the Money” report by the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group gave the state failing marks on government transparency due to its lack of internet information on government spending.

> Keep Reading
News Release | Food, Tax

Obama Budget Proposes Important First Cuts to Ag Subsidies

Statement of ConnPIRG Federal Public Health Advocate Elizabeth Hitchcock on the President’s proposed 2012 budget, which includes more than $1 billion in cuts over five years to agriculture subsidies that are achieved by reducing the cap on Department of Agriculture direct payments and tightening eligibility standards.

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News Release | Democracy, Financial Reform, Tax

Foreign Funds in American Elections

This week we learned that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce could be using money from foreign corporations to fund attack ads in our elections. According to reporting released by Think Progress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, collects hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign owned businesses, including companies owned by foreign governments. The Chamber has already run more than 8,000 attack ads and according to the Washington Post, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “vows to spend $75 million or more on November's midterm election cycle.”

> Keep Reading

Pages

Report | ConnPIRG Education Fund | Budget

Following the Money

The ability to see how government uses the public purse is fundamental to democracy. Transparency in government spending promotes fiscal responsibility, checks corruption, and bolsters public confidence. In the past few years, state governments across the country have made their checkbooks transparent by creating online transparency portals.  These government-operated websites allow visitors to view the government's checkbook to see who receives state money, how much, and for what purposes.

> Keep Reading
Report | U.S. Public Interest Research Group and National Taxpayers Union | Budget

Toward Common Ground

To break through the ideological divide that has dominated Washington this past year and offer a pathway to address the nation’s fiscal problems, the National Taxpayers Union and ConnPIRG joined together to identify mutually acceptable deficit reduction measures. This report documents our findings.

> Keep Reading
Report | Tax

Tax Shell Game: How Much Did Offshore Tax Havens Cost You in 2010?

Tax havens are countries with minimal or no taxes, to which U.S.-based multinational firms or individuals transfer their earnings to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Users of tax havens benefit from access to America’s markets, workforce, infrastructure and security, but pay little or nothing for it—violating the basic fairness of the tax system.

> Keep Reading
Report | Budget

Toward Common Ground: Bridging the Political Divide to Reduce Spending

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) and National Taxpayers Union (NTU) have joined together to propose a list of 30 specific recommendations to reform our future spending commitments. If enacted in their entirety, these changes would save taxpayers over $600 billion in total by 2015, the target date for the Fiscal Commission to reduce our publicly-held debt-to- GDP ratio to a more sustainable level of 60 percent.

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Some of the nation’s best-known companies — including GE, Google and Goldman Sachs — have avoided paying the taxes they owe, costing us $100 billion last year.

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