Senator Levin’s War on Taxpayers

In a remarkable display of chutzpah, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan is quoted in the Christian Science Monitor stating that “Tax havens have declared war on honest taxpayers.” This is from a politician who routinely votes for higher taxes and has a rating of “F” from the National Taxpayers Union because he votes against taxpayers 85 percent of the time — a record that puts him below Senators Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Tax havens, by contrast, have helped taxpayers by forcing governments around the world to lower tax rates. Indeed, a prominent British accountant explains in the story that low tax rates are the appropriate way to deal with global competition. Returning to the theme of chutzpah, an OECD bureaucrat (who receives a tax‐​free salary!) actually admits that people should have a right to financial privacy — but only if the term is stripped of all meaning by giving governments unlimited snooping rights:

“Tax havens have declared war on honest taxpayers,” says US Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan, who along with Sen. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois is co‐​sponsoring the “Stop the Tax Haven Act,” introduced last year. … Chas Roy‐​Chowdhury, head of taxation at Britain’s Association of Chartered Certified Accountants… says… “Governments should open themselves up to the wind of global competition and accept that they need to run efficiently to keep tax rates low.” … Perez‐​Navarro [of the OECD] adds that individuals should have the right to a certain banking confidentiality, but that when investigators want to see numbers they should be handed over.