HOW CORPORATE TAX EVADERS GET AWAY WITH RILLIONS

摘要

Worried about escalating budget deficits? Want Congress to extend more tax relief to low-income families? You're not the only one. So why is the Bush Administration leaving $200 billion or more of uncollected taxes on the table? Answer: lax enforcement. Start with international tax avoidance and evasion. Anywhere from $70 to $100 billion is lost to the U. S. Treasury every year when corporations and individuals fictitiously book in tax havens income that is actually earned in the U.S. or Europe. Legal tax avoidance often blurs into illegal tax evasion, because America has inadequate tax treaties with offshore havens―reporting may not be truthful, and investigation is often impossible. Last November, departing Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles 0. Rossotti said that of an estimated 82,100 known cases of offshore tax evasion, the IRS has pursued only 17,000 for lack of resources.