Current laws in the United States allow corporations to use offshore havens to avoid paying their taxes and, if it's up to many in Washington, the problem will only grow larger, particularly if the so-called "territorial" tax system is passed. The details of the use of such tax havens were discussed in a conference call with Campaign for America's Future, Americans for Tax Fairness and Citizens for Tax Justice.

The AFL-CIO has long called for an end to tax subsidies for companies that ship jobs overseas. Now, in a new report, Citizens for Tax Justice shows just how much money these loopholes are costing us. The new report finds that U.S. multinational corporations are engaging in a massive amount of tax avoidance, particularly through tax havens in small countries like Bermuda. The corporations report that they "earned" large portions of their profits in tiny, low-tax countries in order to lower their tax rates, despite not having much, if any, actual activity or profit in those countries. Bermuda, for instance, is home to reported profits by American companies that are 1,000% of the country's actual GDP.

A group of corporate CEOs, known as the Reforming America's Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition, sent a letter to Congress asking for the corporate tax rate to be lowered. CEOs from 17 of the largest U.S. companies say, in the letter, that the corporate tax rate of 35% is the highest of any industrialized nation and that it leaves American companies unable to compete.

A new report shows that most of the 30 Fortune 500 companies that paid no federal income tax from 2008 through 2010 were able to keep up their tax dodge two-step in 2011. Those nimble firms include Verizon, GE, Boeing, Wells Fargo, Tenet Health Care and more.

A new report on corporate campaign donations follows the money from 280 Fortune 500 firms and the tax breaks those companies have enjoyed in recent years. And it leads to “the intersection of corporate campaign contributions to members of Congress and the absence of congressional action to close corporate tax loopholes and raise additional revenue from corporate taxes.”

General Electric (GE)  records show that it pays far, far less in taxes than us ordinary taxpayers. So much for the claim that corporate taxes are too high. GE’s Securities and Exchange Commission 10-K filing for 2011 reveals that the company paid at most 2.3 percent of its $81.2 billion in U.S. pretax profits in federal income taxes during the past the past 10 years.

A loophole in our nation’s tax laws allows multinational companies and hedge funds to shelter enormous sums of money from taxes by creating offshore identities and using tax-haven banks.

The strike by some 45,000 Verizon workers, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW), continued into its third day today as workers across the country offer support to the strikers, whose struggle reflects the situation for millions of workers.

Even as millions of U.S. workers can’t find a job and corporate profits are through the roof, House Speaker John Boehner has proposed a change in the tax system that will shrink the job pool even more. Boehner’s suggestion to exempt U.S corporations from paying taxes on offshore profits would give companies even more incentive to move jobs overseas, according to a new report.