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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Budget, Tax

Offshore Tax Havens Cost Average Taxpayer $1,026 a Year, Small Businesses $3,067

With Tax Day approaching, it’s a good time to be reminded of where our tax dollars are going. U.S. PIRG released a new study which revealed that the average taxpayer in 2012 would have to shoulder an extra $1,026 in taxes to make up for the revenue lost due to the use of offshore tax havens by corporations and wealthy individuals. The report also found that the average small business would have to pay $3,067 to cover the cost of offshore tax dodging by large corporations.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

Do better Facebook friends mean a better credit score? | Ed Mierzwinski

"Big Data" has created a new front in the war on privacy. Should a prospective employer be able to "friend" you or use your Facebook password to vet you?  When, if ever, should colleges, employers and lenders be able to look at your Facebook or other social network pages to see if your friends make you a better bet to enroll, hire or grant a loan to than someone with loser friends?

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Report | U.S. PIRG | Budget, Tax

Picking Up the Tab 2013

Tax haven abuse costs the United States approximately $150 billion in tax revenues every year. Even when tax haven abusers act perfectly legally, they force other Americans to shoulder their tax burden. The average U.S. tax filer would need to pay $1,026 in additional taxes to make up for lost revenue from tax havens. To pick up the tab for the taxes avoided by multinational corporations, the average small business in the United States would need to pay an average of $3,067 each in additional taxes.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

Free Cookies-Strings Attached | Ed Mierzwinski

The price consumers pay to access most online content is the tracking of their every click on the World Wide Web by data miners and ad networks. Consumer and privacy advocates are seeking to address such online tracking through Do-Not-Track regulation, which could be considered in the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee soon.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Time to break up the big banks? | Ed Mierzwinski

"Too big to fail, too big to jail." For far too long, that's been the government's attitude toward Wall Street banks. Regulators refuse to hold banks accountable both out of fear of Wall Street's political clout and also a misplaced perception that real enforcement might hurt the economy, even though a lack of enforcement recently wrecked it. But things are changing.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Higher Ed

President Obama Calls for End to Unsustainable Student Debt

In the annual State of the Union Address, President Obama called for an end to unsustainable student debt. Higher education is the right investment for our nation to rebuild its economy. In a time when students and families are struggling to make ends meet, congressional leaders need to be doing more, not less, to keep college accessible and affordable.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Budget, Tax

President Obama Poses Question: “Why Protect Special Interest Tax Breaks?”

Tonight, President Obama rightly called on Congress to close tax loopholes that allow wealthy special interests to shirk their tax burden at the expense of the public. The first loopholes to go should be those that allow corporations and wealthy individuals to use accounting gimmicks to stash their income in offshore tax havens.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Budget, Tax

New Legislation to Close Offshore Tax Loopholes Would Save Taxpayers $200 Billion

The CUT Loopholes Act would close a myriad of the most egregious offshore tax loopholes. This legislation is based on the premise that if a U.S. company earns profits here in the U.S., with the benefit of America’s educated workforce, infrastructure, and large consumer base, it should pay taxes in America, like small businesses and everyday taxpayers.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG and NCLC | Consumer Protection, Financial Reform

New FTC Study Points to Much-Needed Reforms for Credit Reporting Industry

Advocates from the National Consumer Law Center and U.S. PIRG lauded the findings of a Federal Trade Commission study made public today that confirms their own findings that credit reports are riddled with errors. The groups also urged the Senate to confirm a full-term director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to eliminate any uncertainty over the CFPB’s supervisory authority to examine credit bureau operations and order reforms.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Budget, Tax

New Bill Will Stop Companies from Stashing Profits in Tax Havens, Raise $600 Billion in Tax Revenue

Ordinary taxpayers foot the bill for this corporate tax dodging in the form of cuts to public programs, more debt, or higher taxes. This legislation tackles the heart of the problem by ending incentives to shift profits offshore.

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Report | WISPIRG | Budget

WISPIRG Report: Outsourcing Outrages

State leaders have proposed to end the existing requirement for proposals that privatize public functions to show cost-benefit advantages and report on results for Department of Transportation projects over $25,000.  Privatization in other states has sometimes saved the public money, but has often led to huge losses and other problems. Politicians may be enticed by the short-term cash offered by privatization, but citizens of Wisconsin deserve to know that there will not be larger long-term losses.

 

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund, Demos | Democracy

Business Contributions to Super PACs

Contrary to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, for-profit businesses should not be permitted to spend treasury funds to influence elections. First, most businesses are constrained to participate only to maximize private profit, rather than out of regard for the public good. More important, this spending undermines political equality by allowing wealthy institutions to translate economic success into political power.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Democracy

Auctioning Democracy

A new report by U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Demos shows an analysis of the funding sources for the campaign finance behemoths, Super PACs. The findings confirmed what many have predicted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s damaging Citizens United decision: since their inception in 2010, Super PACs have been primarily funded by a small segment of very wealthy individuals and business interests, with a small but significant amount of funds coming from secret sources.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Safe Energy

Too Close to Home

 Among the risks demonstrated by the Fukushima crisis is the threat of water contamination – including contamination of drinking water supplies by radioactive material. In the United States, 49 million Americans receive their drinking water from surface sources located within 50 miles of an active nuclear power plant – inside the boundary the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses to assess risk to food and water supplies.

 

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Democracy, Tax

Representation Without Taxation

Marking the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case – which opened the floodgates to corporate spending on elections – this report takes a hard look at the lobbying activities of profitable Fortune 500 companies that exploit loopholes and work to distort the tax code to avoid billions of dollars in taxes.

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Blog Post | Transportation

A Trillion Fewer Driving Miles? | Phineas Baxandall

Transportation policy needs to focus on whether the youth-trend toward less driving since 2004 is the new normal.

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Blog Post | Health Care

Here’s that Rx refill you didn’t order | Laura Etherton

Is your pharmacy refilling your prescription without your knowledge or approval, and billing your insurance company for the cost? If so, it’s the latest example of waste we shouldn't tolerate in our health care system.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Industry lobbyists pre-launch 2013 assault on financial reform and other financial follies | Ed Mierzwinski

(UPDATED (AGAIN)) Industry lobbyists, under cover of a "bi-partisan" center, have pre-launched their 2013 assault on financial reform. Meanwhile, as the FTC dings fake debt collectors, the CFPB heads to Seattle to presumably announce its authority to supervise or examine "larger" debt collectors. Read more for news of these and other financial follies.

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Blog Post | Transportation

Five Factors Will Determine Whether TIFIA Will Fund Transit | Phineas Baxandall

"TIFIA," the federal transportation loan program was super sized in the recent transportation law. New rules make the program even more of a slush fund for private toll roads, while others provide possibility for long-overdue public transit expansion. This blog appeared in slightly condensed form at StreetsBlog.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

Tips for fixing credit report errors yourself (don't ever use a credit repair doctor) | Ed Mierzwinski

Fox Business reporter Kelly Dilworth has a detailed "how-to" called "10 surefire steps to get errors off your credit reports." Don't go to a credit repair doctor, don't read a bunch of wacky advice on self-help websites, don't do any of that, Do what she says.

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Tools & Resources

  • FIGHT HIGH Rx COSTS
    Prescription drugs cost too much. Brand-name drug companies have been paying off generic drug makers to delay competition and keep prices high, and it's costing us billions. Together, we can stop them.
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  • YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP
    At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.
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  • STOP TAX DODGERS
    Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.
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  • Reclaim Democracy
    The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."
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