Report: NJ loses $4.49 Billion to offshore accounts

by: Jason Springer

Thu Apr 16, 2009 at 04:00:00 PM EDT

While some were busy teabagging yesterday to make their statmement, a report was released looking at the burden of taxes that is shifted to everyone else by corporations with offshore accounts. Here's the executive summary:

Many of the largest corporations in our country hide profits made in the United States in offshore shell companies and sham headquarters in order to avoid paying billions in federal taxes. The result is massive losses in revenue for the U.S. Treasury - which ultimately must be made up by taxpayers. The debt of a few is transferred to many - and to future generations. The U.S. Senate confirmed in the recently-passed fiscal year 2010 budget resolution that the use of offshore tax havens by large corporations "means that honest taxpayers face a higher burden."

Here's more from the report on the prevalence of offshore tax havens:

The practice of using offshore tax havens has flourished in an era of increasing secrecy and dangerous deregulation. Lobbyists for corporations with offshore tax havens have been able to count on the fact that the missing revenue is never tallied and therefore
appears as though it never existed.
Taxpayers finally have some indication that this era is coming to a close, both here and abroad. According to the GAO, which is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress, over 80% of the biggest U.S corporations maintain revenues in offshore tax haven countries, where there are no or nominal taxes and minimal, if any, reporting. The names on the list are familiar: American Express, A.I.G, Boeing, Cisco, Dow, Hewlett-Packard, J.P. Morgan Chase and Pfizer - among others.

The United States loses $100 billion per year to offshore tax havens. They go on to break down the burden that is transferred to the taxpayers on a state by state level and find that New Jersey is on the hook for $4.49 billion in the shifting of the tax burden to the taxpayers. It's not like the state could use that money or anything. The report recommends the federal government fix the unfair burden by closing the loopholes in the tax code that allow the use of offshore tax havens. Maybe next the protesters can throw tea bags and party outside these offshore tax havens.

Jason Springer :: Report: NJ loses $4.49 Billion to offshore accounts