Financial Transparency Coalition

This week TIME Magazine opened polling to their readers to weigh in on their nominations for Person of the Year. Generally, I think their picks are pretty good, although sometimes their nominations are a little off the mark (Roger Goodell, really?). Anyway, the nominations got me to thinking what a Transparency Person of the Year would look like. Keeping with TIME’s definition, this would be someone who influenced the news, for better or worse, on issues related to financial transparency. Here are my picks. CARL LEVIN. I’m going to go with the most obvious one first. If I did this...

In The President’s Framework for Business Tax Reform, which the White House released earlier this week, President Obama advocates lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28 percent. This move is not surprising. Last month, President Obama brought up a basic minimum corporate tax in his State of the Union address. But the tax cut is not alone. Alongside this cut, Obama advocates cutting corporate tax loopholes. This element is not to be overlooked. There are far too many corporate tax loopholes—which are deductions, credits, and other tax expenditures that benefit certain activities—and they often result in very different marginal...

In his State of the Union address less than a month ago President Obama brought up a basic minimum corporate tax. He noted that “companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas” and that American companies should not be allowed to use these mechanisms to avoid paying their fair share. But in order to change this status quo, legislators need to close the loopholes that allow companies to drive down their effective tax rates far below the official rate. This needs to happen. There are far too many corporate tax loopholes—which are deductions, credits, and other tax expenditures...

WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) today applauded the introduction of a bill, which would close several major tax loopholes and curtail abusive tax haven secrecy.