LIBERADIO(!)

In all the Tea Party national news coverage both yesterday and today I didn’t see one sign stating “Close the Off-Shore Corporate Tax Havens.” Nor did I see a sign at the protest at the Tennessee State Capitol that read, “Close the FONCE Loophole.” Pity, really, and The Institute for Southern Studies shows us why:

Guess who’s not paying their taxes?

Estimated value of assets the IRS believes to be held in offshore tax havens, countries with nominal taxes and minimal reporting requirements: $5 trillion

Number of countries that aggressively market themselves as tax havens: at least 40

Percent of the biggest U.S. corporations that utilize tax havens: 80

Number of U.S. companies that maintain post office boxes in one 5-story building in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven: over 18,000

Number of tax havens used by Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America: 115

Number of Bank of America tax havens in the Cayman Islands: 59

Estimated annual cost of offshore tax havens to U.S. taxpayers: $100 billion

Estimated annual cost of offshore tax havens to U.S. taxpayers in the 13 Southern states*: $28,712,758,673

Estimated annual cost of offshore tax havens to U.S. taxpayers in Texas alone: $8,653,820,259

Number of people working in Iraq for Houston-based KBR who were listed as employees of two shell companies that exist only as computer files in a Cayman Islands office: 21,000

Under the arrangement, which KBR admits it created to avoid payroll taxes, amount in unemployment assistance those employees are entitled to collect should they lose their jobs: $0

Proportion of U.S. corporations that paid no income taxes between 1998 and 2005, due largely to the use of offshore tax havens and other tax dodges: 2/3

Estimated amount of money that would be generated for the Treasury if the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (S. 681) were approved by Congress: $100 billion

* AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV

(All sources on file with the Institute for Southern Studies. For details, e-mail sue@southernstudies.org.)