Senate Finance Subcommittee Hearing Today on Tax Gap from Noncompliance and Offshore Tax Evasion (5/11/21)

Today, the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight holds a hearing billed as: Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion, here.  The link is to the video when the hearing starts.  The hearing is scheduled to start at 2:30 pm EDT.  

The witness list is:

Barry Johnson
Acting Chief, Research And Analytics Officer, Internal Revenue Service
United States Department of the Treasury
Washington , DC

Doug O’Donnell
Deputy Commissioner, Services & Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service
United States Department of the Treasury
Washington, , DC

The Honorable J. Russell George
Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration
United States Department of the Treasury
Washington , DC

Nina E. Olson
Executive Director
Center for Taxpayer Rights
Washington , DC

Charles O. Rossotti
Former Commissioner (1997-2002)
Internal Revenue Service
Washington, DC

I assume that there will be written submissions by the witnesses and, if so, I will identify and link them.

• George's submission here.

I picked this item up from NYT's DealBook daily email today.  Here is a copy and paste of the discussion:

How to collect a trillion dollars

Today, the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Taxation will hold a hearing on offshore tax evasion. “The tax gap is a massive problem, especially the part driven by ultrarich individuals and corporations stashing income overseas,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the subcommittee chair, told DealBook. That gap “could be as much as a trillion dollars,” he said. “That’s trillion with a ‘T.’” This money would help fund President Biden’s spending plans, which also run into the trillions.

It’s difficult to quantify just how much money goes uncollected each year, officials say. Corporate tax collections in the U.S. are “at historic lows and well below what other countries collect,” according to a recent Treasury report. U.S. multinational companies can be taxed at a 50 percent discount compared with their domestic peers, an incentive to shift profits abroad. “Bermuda, a country of merely 64,000 people, shows 10 percent of all reported U.S. multinational foreign profit,” the report explained.

• The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported that at least 55 major corporations paid no federal taxes on 2020 profits; collectively, they made almost $40.5 billion and would have paid $8.5 billion at the 21 percent federal tax rate.

“The Biden administration is serious about stopping tax cheats and so are we,” Whitehouse said. The hearing, which features I.R.S. and Treasury officials, will discuss legislation to end corporate tax breaks that incentivize profit shifting, a proposed $80 billion investment in I.R.S. enforcement, a new approach to international tax diplomacy and proposed changes to the tax code.