Report: US Loses $100B Yearly to Tax Havens

Campaign defends offshore investments

(NEWSER) - Yet more money trouble for Mitt Romney: His campaign has been put on the defensive by reports that he has millions of dollars stashed in a Caribbean tax haven. Romney has around $8 million invested in a dozen funds based in the Cayman Islands, and another investment worth between $5 million and $25 million listed as having been domiciled in the Caymans, ABC reports. Romney's campaign calls the ABC report "flat wrong" and says Romney is paying the same amount of tax he would if the funds were based in the US. More»

Agency pulls in $2.7 billion

(NEWSER) - Tax evaders are rushing to the IRS, cash in hand, thanks to a partial amnesty program aimed at recovering money in offshore bank accounts. In all 12,000 tax cheats came forward, the agency announced yesterday, bringing in a total of $2.7 billion. “The results we’re seeing today were unthinkable just a few short years ago,” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman tells Bloomberg , chalking it up to stepped-up enforcement efforts. More»

Tycoon started massive Computerland retail chain

(NEWSER) - A charming entrepreneur may have to give up his globe-trotting ways and pay an outstanding $100 million tax bill, the Wall Street Journal reports. Investigators have tracked down William H. Millard, the California tech mogul who founded the once-massive computer retailing chain ComputerLand, in the Grand Cayman Islands. Authorities of another island group say he owes them for time spent on the Pacific island of Saipan, where he enjoyed a stunning 95% tax rebate. More»

'Transfer pricing' sends profits overseas—on paper only

(NEWSER) - Lexapro, one of the world's best-selling antidepressants, is made by an American company and sold exclusively in the US, but the US doesn't see a penny in tax revenue when you buy a bottle. Instead, your money goes around the world as part of a complicated transaction dubbed the “Double Irish,” Bloomberg reports . Corporations routinely use such schemes, which involve converting sales in one country into profits in another—at least on paper. More»

(NEWSER) - UBS will hand over the names of 4,450 of its American account holders as part of a tax evasion settlement, the Wall Street Journal reports, and another 5,000 names will be produced under a special IRS amnesty program. UBS won’t pay a monetary fine. Those being turned over may have a chance to fight the disclosure in Swiss court. The compromise gets around potential Swiss objections to the disclosures. More»