US Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and US House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel today introduced legislation aimed at curtailing offshore tax evasion.  From Reuters:

Under the proposed bill, foreign banks would be forced to disclose information about American customers, or face a 30 percent tax on their income from U.S. financial assets.

The legislation would crack down on shell companies by requiring a foreign corporation to give the U.S. Treasury the names of Americans who own more than 10 percent of its shares.

Any American owning more than $50,000 in foreign assets would be required to declare accounts to the Treasury, and a 40 percent penalty would be imposed on understatements of foreign assets by American taxpayers.

To give tax authorities more time to go after tax cheats, it would extend the statute of limitations to six years, from current three years, for major tax evasion cases.

To find out more about the legislation, to read the official press release, and to read President Obama and Secretary Geithner’s statements on the legislation, click here…

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