Here’s one contributor to the deficit Republicans don’t want to talk about. Loopholes in our tax laws allow multinational companies and hedge funds to shelter enormous sums of money from taxes by creating offshore identities and using tax-haven banks. This practice costs nearly $100 billion in taxes each year, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, introduced yesterday by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), would close these loopholes and strengthen the government’s ability to collect taxes that are due.

“People are sick and tired of tax dodgers using offshore trickery and abusive tax shelters to avoid paying their fair share,” Levin told a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday.

This bill offers powerful new tools to combat offshore and tax shelter abuses, raise revenues, and eliminate incentives to send U.S. profits and jobs offshore.  Its provisions, which can help stop the $100 billion per year drain on the Treasury, will hopefully be part of any deficit reduction package this year, but should be passed in any event.

The bill is supported by a wide array of small business, labor, and public interest groups, including the AFL-CIO.

Kelly Conklin, owner of Foley-Waite Associates, a custom woodworking company in Bloomfield, N.J., issued this statement, on behalf of the Main Street Alliance, a national network of state-based small business coalition and a supporter of the bill.

The abuse of tax havens by big corporations tilts the playing field against small businesses and, in fact, any business that’s doing the right thing and paying its fair share of taxes. It’s time to say enough is enough. If you want to fly the American flag outside your corporate headquarters, you should be paying your way. That’s what this bill is about.

  Read a  detailed summary of the bill here.