Senate panel report comes down heavily on tax havens

[Judi Lynn]

Senate panel report comes down heavily on tax havens
Posted on : Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:02:01 GMT | Author : James Simpson

WASHINGTON: A senate panel investigation has revealed that offshore tax havens used by wealthy U.S. citizens has cost the taxpayers nearly $70 billion a year. Such facilities should be withdrawn, the senate permanent investigations subcommittee told the Congress.

The subcommittee had been holding investigations into various tax schemes available to the rich for years and had identified the lawyers and bankers behind them and the companies that used them.

In its report, the subcommittee named several individual billionaires, who have abused the scheme. The names include Robert Wood Johnson IV, owner of the New York Jets football team and heir to the Johnson & Johnson consumer goods fortune, Sam Wyly and Charles J. Wyly Jr., longtime Republican donors and backers of president Bush, and Haim Saban, a Democratic party fundraiser who made his first fortune promoting Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

The subcommittee's chairman Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman said using offshore jurisdictions to shelter income is unfair. "We need to close these loopholes."
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http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/7891.html

[maddezmom]

1. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2427393