Financial Transparency Coalition

WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) will tonight present Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) with the organization’s 2011 annual Award for Exemplary Leadership in acknowledgement of his untiring efforts on behalf of financial integrity in the U.S. and abroad. Sen. Levin will accept the award this evening at a gala dinner hosted by GFI in his honor at The Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC.

You probably already know that the Swiss Alps and tiny Caribbean islands aren’t the only places to hide illicit activities behind a veil of banking secrecy. Maybe you know that tax evaders and money launderers are increasingly looking to Asian centers like Hong Kong and Singapore to store their ill-gotten and government-evading dollars. Maybe you even know that some of the best places to hide your black money aren’t in the developing world or on a remote island. They’re in places like Delaware, London, and Nevada. In Delaware and Wyoming, for example, clients can anonymously set up shell corporations (companies...

A few weeks ago, U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), introduced a bill aimed at demolishing the Internal Revenue Service’s plan to discourage money launderers and terrorists from hiding money in the United States. The IRS plan would require American banks to report interest paid to foreign citizens who live outside the United States and who have deposits in U.S. banks. This new requirement would actually put foreigners on level footing with U.S. permanent residents, who under current law, must report their bank deposits to the IRS and pay taxes on the interest they earn. I...

Reuters recently released the second feature in Shell Games, a series "exploring the extent and impact of corporate secrecy in the United States." The first special report in the series, "A little house of secrets on the Great Plains" dealt with shell companies established in Wyoming, generally recognized as a secrecy jurisdiction, and how some have been used to hide illict assets . The newest report, "China's shortcut to Wall Street" details how the reverse-merger process has allowed many Chinese companies to become publicly traded in the U.S., while bypassing many regulatory controls. The article details the process: