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Senate Studies Offshore Tax Havens



A Senate committee is studying the issue of offshore tax havens and their impact on the US tax system. IRS chief Mark W. Everson was called to testify yesterday on the issue.



The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing, entitled Tax Haven Abuses: The Enablers, The Tools and Secrecy, is just one of many hearings by the committee on the subject of tax evasion through offshore-based entities and tax planning schemes.



The hearings will present case studies on the usage of offshore trusts and corporations to avoid US taxes, securities and and money laundering laws. Witnesses include the IRS, securities firms, banks, law firms, taxpayers, trust protectors and tax and securities experts.



The committee believes that offshore havens draw billions of dollars of revenue from the US Treasury each year.



Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) have tried to pass an anti-offshore bill through the Senate to combat what they call abusive tax shelters and uncooperative offshore tax havens used by businesses and individuals to dodge payment of their US taxes.



Although several bills have been unsuccessful, many provisions have made it to law through attachment to other pieces of legislation. These provisions include stronger penalties for failing to report interests in foreign financial accounts, civil fines for tax practitioners who violate specified standards of practice, stronger penalties for failing to register or provide to the IRS required information regarding a potentially abusive tax shelter and stronger penalties for failing to maintain a list of participants in potentially abusive tax shelters.



Tax avoidance now occurs on a massive global scale, said the US branch of the Tax Justice Network. Assets held offshore, beyond the reach of effective taxation, are already estimated to equal one-third of total global assets.



According to a Tax Justice report using statistics from Merrill Lynch/Cap Gemini'ss World Wealth Report and the Boston Consulting Group'ss Global Wealth Report, 16.2% of the private wealth of North Americans is held offshore. This equals $1.6 trillion.



We think that the US Congress and the President should take steps to stop the use by Americans of secret companies and bank accounts set up in tax havens to facilitate evasion of US taxes, the group said.



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