The Internal Revenue Service, lawmakers and Americans began paying more attention to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists following its public release of hundreds of names and financial details of offshore account holders in April.
Now, the ICIJ has released a new report, which gives the public access to extensive offshore tax haven records through its new Offshore Leaks Database.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
The system contains hundreds of thousands of records detailing corporations, rather than individuals, that hold sizable assets in popular tax-havens. The consortium gained this information from roughly 2.5 million emails and financial documents it received in 2012, according to the Huffington Post. While lawmakers and the IRS will have ultimate say over whether any of the data in the documents constitute potential tax law violations, the release of the documents may increase the already-intense scrutiny of corporations and their use of certain tax practices to limit their liability.
This is particularly true after a 2012 report from the Tax Justice Network found that untaxed wealth invested in offshore tax havens ranged from $28 to $32 trillion, an amount that is equal to two years’ worth of U.S. economic output.
Several corporations, including Apple, Starbucks, Disney, and Microsoft have made headlines as of late due to lawmakers’ questioning over their taxes, and some – including Starbucks and Disney – have lobbied for more flexibility over their use of certain benefits and deductions. While scrutiny of many big-name firms continues, some analysts predict that new international agreements between several countries and the U.S. may provide more insight and transparency in corporate tax practices, which could potentially lead to more legal challenges of certain tax safeguards. Already, the Group of Eight (G-8) has named tax evasion and tax avoidance a key talking point at this year’s summit, indicating that a heavier emphasis on tax compliance is soon to become a global issue.
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