America loses hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue because major corporations, federal government contractors, and Wall Street insiders fail to pay their fair share of taxes.

In fact, Goldman Sachs paid only a 1% tax rate in 2008 due to “changes in geographic earnings mix,” according to its reports. When companies “change the geography” of their earnings, their headquarters or their subsidiaries – the taxpayers lose.

U.S. PIRG celebrated a major victory for taxpayers in December as it successfully fought to remove a dangerous loophole from an appropriations bill that would have opened up the floodgates for offshore shell companies to contract with the federal government. 

See our letter (PDF) to key U.S. Senators and read about our fight in both the Huffington Post and The Hill.
 
In addition, Congress is considering legislation that would provide some key reforms to make the tax system more fair for average taxpayers. U.S. PIRG and several other consumer, labor and tax justice groups joined forces to let Congress know that the time has come for action against tax cheats and against tax breaks for hedge fund managers. 

The bill will be considered over the next couple of weeks – stay tuned!