Summary: Recent events have highlighted the growing use of foreign financial institutions, foreign trusts, and foreign corporations by U.S. individuals to evade U.S. tax. In order to prevent this tax evasion, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2009 would provide the U.S. Treasury Department with significant new tools to find and prosecute U.S. individuals that hide assets overseas from the Internal Revenue Service.
The Energy Security Through Transparency (ESTT) Act takes important steps towards reversing the resource curse by revealing payments made here and abroad to governments for oil, gas and minerals. The resource curse describes a phenomenon in which countries with rich natural resource endowments often end up with high rates of poverty, corruption, conflict, and poor governance rather than prosperity. Good governance in extractive industries contribute to a better domestic investment climate for U.S. businesses, increase the reliability of commodity supplies, promote greater U.S. energy security and thereby strengthen our national security.
A bill to ensure that persons who form corporations in the United States disclose the beneficial owners of those corporations, in order to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States corporations for criminal gain, to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing, and punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other misconduct involving United States corporations, and for other purposes.
Summary and full text of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act of 2009 (S. 506, H.R. 1265), as introduced by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX).