World travel is an enriching experience. Especially when it comes to money. The United States’ biggest companies send their Benjamins to the Cayman Islands and other tax havens to avoid paying Uncle Sam.
Such a deal. Right?
Not for small businesses here in our square state, says a recent report from the Colorado Public Interest Research Group.
Small business owners in Colorado would have to pay $3,165 extra each year to make up for the taxes lost when multinational corporations put their money into offshore accounts.
“Small business owners are hit twice by the effects of tax dodging by large multinational corporations,” the report reads. “Since they almost never have the kind of subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands or armies of tax lawyers and accountants to exploit tax haven loopholes that their multinational rivals do, small businesses are routinely placed at a competitive disadvantage in the market place. In addition, small businesses, like average taxpayers, end up picking up the tab for offshore tax avoidance in the form of higher taxes, cuts to public services, or increases to the federal debt.”
The state and federal governments lose $110 billion to multinational corporations’ tax loopholes, according to the report.
Colorado state representatives Brittany Pettersen and Mike Foote have cosponsored a new bill, HB15-1346, to force big companies to pay up in Colorado.
“When large corporations hide money in offshore tax havens, hard-working, middle-class Coloradans are left to foot the bill,” Foote said in a CoPIRG press release. “This is about tax fairness and making sure that multinational corporations pay their fair share just like the rest of us.”
