Transparent Obfuscation: PricewaterhouseCoopers & ExxonMobile Tout Total Tax Confusion

August 30, 2006 01:47 PM | | Bookmark and Share

A fellow from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the big accounting, lobbying and corporate public relations firm, called me the other day to talk about a PwC project called the “Total Tax Contribution framework,” which he described as “an effort to enhance transparency in corporate tax reporting.” He buttered me up by citing my long history in exposing corporate tax avoidance, and then asked if he and some of his colleagues could sit down with me for an hour or so and talk about the project. To further interest me, he added that the idea had already been tried out in the United Kingdom, and had proven to be very popular there.

I was wary. So I asked him to e-mail me some background materials. The next day, I received two colorful brochures, designed to pitch the “Total Tax Contribution framework” to PwC’s corporate clients. A quick look confirmed my suspicions. Amazingly, PwC is trying to get corporations to pretend their tax bills are bigger than they really are, by counting not just their actual taxes, but also taxes they don’t pay, such as those paid by their customers, workers, suppliers and so forth!

PwC’s materials suggest that such misinformation might be usefully employed by companies in things such as phonybaloney “corporate responsibility reports” and “PR and marketing campaigns.” The brochures offer PwC’s help in doing so, presumably for a hefty fee.

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Senate Rejects Cynical Attempt to Gut the Estate Tax

August 4, 2006 02:06 PM | | Bookmark and Share

Citizens for Tax Justice congratulates the U.S. Senate on its decision to reject the effort to hand a new $62 billion a year estate tax break to a small group of America’s wealthiest families. A sufficient minority of Senators has said “no” to another expensive tax giveaway to the rich at a time when our nation is sliding deeper and deeper into debt.

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Congress Poised to Extend IRA “Savings Incentives” for Wealthy

August 1, 2006 04:07 PM | | Bookmark and Share

The latest budget-busting tax cut passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 28 is likely to be considered by the Senate this week. The bill, HR 4, would make permanent so-called “savings incentives” tax breaks that benefit higher-income families who need the least help in trying to save—and reduce federal revenues by billions of dollars at a time when deficits remain worryingly large.

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