White House Takes Aim at Offshore Tax Dodges

(NEWSER) - Offshore tax havens may not be fair, but they’ve been around for decades. So why is President Obama taking them on now, Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich asks in Salon. It’s not to try to keep jobs here, as the White House claims; the move might even drive jobs away. It’s far more likely this is a sly strategic move in the universal health-care fight. More»

Brown enlists Obama to help crack down on offshore facilities

(NEWSER) - Ahead of the G20 financial summit in London this April, Gordon Brown is pushing ahead with a major diplomatic effort to crack down on international tax havens that cost governments $150 billion a year. The British PM has held talks with fellow world leaders, including Barack Obama, reports the Guardian. While Obama has taken an interest in the Cayman Islands, Brown is pressing Switzerland to close its many loopholes. More»

Items include bringing jobs back to US, tax credits for small business

(NEWSER) - Because Congress loves being bossed around like nothing else, President Obama will today unveil a "to-do list" of priorities, which have historically had bipartisan support, and which he says will "help restore middle class security." "At this make-or-break moment for the middle class, we need to create an economy built to last," the White House said in a statement. More»

Corporations account for just 8% of tax breaks

(NEWSER) - Tax loopholes and write-offs for corporate jets and special interests may fill political talking points, but tax breaks for families—particularly the middle-class families that President Obama says he wants to protect—far exceed corporate giveaways, reports the Washington Post . In fact, corporations accounted for just 8% of $1.08 trillion in federal tax breaks last year (and corporate jets accounted for just 0.03%), while the middle class scarfed up the majority of the rest, in tax breaks that have doubled over the past 25 years. “The big money is in the middle-class subsidies,” says one economist. “You’re not going to balance the budget by eliminating ethanol credits. You have to go after things that really matter to a lot of people.” More»

New book says Obama's team routinely undermined him

(NEWSER) - In March 2009, in the throes of the financial crisis, Barack Obama told Tim Geithner to focus on a proposal to dissolve Citigroup—but the Treasury Secretary ignored him and never developed a plan, according to former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind’s new book Confidence Men. In the book, which was obtained early by the AP and the New York Times , Suskind writes that Obama’s “authority was being systematically undermined or hedged by his seasoned advisers.” More»