Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON – In a sign of growing anxiety about tax competition that costs governments billions of dollars a year, international economic policymakers are exploring the need for a global crackdown on tax loopholes.

LONDON / WASHINGTON – U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of Minnesota is an educated man. He earned his law degree from Harvard, won a coveted clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and taught the law for more than a decade before joining the bench in 2006.But when Wells Fargo, the retail banking giant, and the U.S. Justice Department squared off in his courtroom last year over the legality of a fiendishly complicated tax scheme known as “STARS,’’ even Schiltz quickly realized he was not equipped to parse the facts.“I fear I may finally have met my match,”...

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...

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Treasury Department is finalizing a regulation (REG-146097-09) that would require that the interest earned on the U.S. bank accounts of non-resident aliens be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as is currently required for U.S. citizens. The proposed IRS regulation has been touted as an important tool in the fight against international tax evasion, money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption, and terrorist financing. However, a small group of legislators have introduced a bill (H.R. 2568) that would prevent the Treasury from taking such action.