Your Morning Indignation: Tax Shelter Edition

While in college ("at university," to our British readership) I dated a psychology major. Whenever talk turned to her chosen discipline, most of our conversations ended with me saying something along the lines of, "So, this particular study essentially confirmed what we already intuitively knew about people?" Surprisingly, the relationship didn't last.

I mention this only because, largely due to this period of ceaseless exposure to contemporary psychology, I've come to read muckraking financial journalism in much the same way. The events of the past two years have done little to disabuse me of this notion.

Today's example comes from one of my favorite investigative journalists, Jessica Silver-Greenberg of (Bloomberg) BusinessWeek, who looked into what happens to US tax revenue when credit card receipts are shipped offshore. Much like my collegiate ladyfriend, Ms. Silver-Greenberg is working hard to confirm what most of us already suspect.

At a time when the Obama Administration is preparing for a bitter battle with big multinationals over closing arcane tax loopholes, legions of mostly small retailers and service providers are minimizing their U.S. tax bills by sending credit-card receipts to Panama, Nevis, Aruba, the Cayman Islands, and other business-friendly havens. The IRS estimates that $100 billion a year in revenue is escaping U.S. sales and income taxes in this manner.

Full article HERE.