What an election, what a turnout. God bless America. It's almost enough to renew my faith in democracy.
This is Barack Obama's comprehensive tax plan, and here's a summary. It will be interesting to see how this pledge on tax havens is going to be met:
Cracking down on international tax havens: According to a recent Congressional investigation, offshore tax abuse costs this country up to $100 billion each year*. Barack Obama has been a leader in the Senate on designing efforts to crack down on tax havens by requiring greater disclosure of financial transactions in tax secrecy jurisdictions. As President, Obama would work with Congress to enact meaningful legislation to ensure that the Treasury and IRS have the tools they need to close down the use of international tax havens for improper tax avoidance or tax evasion. This will save the United States tens of billions of dollars each year.
*Obama cited a report of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, August 2006.
There's a lot more to the tax issue than this, and of course tax and the economy are not the only issues. But it is interesting that among the Big Four accountancy firms, nearly twice as many US employees were reported to be contributing to Obama's campaign than to McCain's.
