Financial Transparency Coalition

On Tuesday this week, six-term Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) announced he would not seek reelection next year. The decision will end his thirty-six year long and influential career in the Senate; one which included over a decade as the top democrat in the Finance Committee and a co-authorship of the 2010 health care law. In his planned retirement, Senator Baucus will join other senior Democratic senators, including Senator Carl Levin (MI) and Senator Tom Harkin (IO). In the wake of Senator Baucus’ announcement, the pundits, commentators, and even some Democrats have been calling his legacy “mixed.” Democrats are quick to...

Summary: Recent events have highlighted the growing use of foreign financial institutions, foreign trusts, and foreign corporations by U.S. individuals to evade U.S. tax. In order to prevent this tax evasion, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2009 would provide the U.S. Treasury Department with significant new tools to find and prosecute U.S. individuals that hide assets overseas from the Internal Revenue Service.

Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D?Mont.), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D?NY), senior Senate Finance Committee member John Kerry (D?MA) and Ways and Means Select Revenue Subcommittee Chairman Richard Neal (D?MA) today unveiled a comprehensive proposal to clamp down on tax evasion and improve taxpayer compliance by giving the IRS new administrative tools to detect, deter and discourage offshore tax abuses.

US Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and US House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel today introduced legislation aimed at curtailing offshore tax evasion. From Reuters:

Under the proposed bill, foreign banks would be forced to disclose information about American customers, or face a 30 percent tax on their income from U.S. financial assets.

The legislation would crack down on shell companies by requiring a foreign corporation to give the U.S. Treasury the names of Americans who own more than 10 percent of its shares.