Over $30 trillion hidden in tax evading offshore accounts
Tax Evaders Beware! Money's Getting Harder To Hide
by Jim Zarroli, NPR
The U.S. government has been working for years to crack down on Americans dodging taxes overseas. In 2009, under intense pressure, the Swiss bank UBS released the names of its American customers.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has acknowledged that he had money in a Swiss bank account until 2010. Romney says he wasn't trying to hide the money, since he reported the account to the government.
Even so, he closed the account at a time when the federal government was in the middle of a major crackdown on offshore tax havens — a crackdown that has made it harder for Americans to hide their money overseas.
The amount of money stashed in offshore tax havens is staggering. A recent report from The Tax Justice Network estimates it's as much as $31 trillion worldwide — and that's just an educated guess.
After all, tax havens are, by their very nature, secretive.
"First of all, you don't have an offshore bank account in your own name," says Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel for federal tax policy at Citizens for Tax Justice. American companies and individuals can hide their money by opening an account in the name of a foreign corporation, she says, making it virtually impossible for the Internal Revenue Service to find it.
(More here.)
by Jim Zarroli, NPR
The U.S. government has been working for years to crack down on Americans dodging taxes overseas. In 2009, under intense pressure, the Swiss bank UBS released the names of its American customers.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has acknowledged that he had money in a Swiss bank account until 2010. Romney says he wasn't trying to hide the money, since he reported the account to the government.
Even so, he closed the account at a time when the federal government was in the middle of a major crackdown on offshore tax havens — a crackdown that has made it harder for Americans to hide their money overseas.
The amount of money stashed in offshore tax havens is staggering. A recent report from The Tax Justice Network estimates it's as much as $31 trillion worldwide — and that's just an educated guess.
After all, tax havens are, by their very nature, secretive.
"First of all, you don't have an offshore bank account in your own name," says Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel for federal tax policy at Citizens for Tax Justice. American companies and individuals can hide their money by opening an account in the name of a foreign corporation, she says, making it virtually impossible for the Internal Revenue Service to find it.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home