Report: 50 Largest U.S. Corporations Hiding $1.4 Trillion in Offshore Tax Havens

According to a new report from the anti-poverty charity Oxfam, systemic abuse of the global tax system has allowed an “opaque and secretive network” of 1,608 subsidiaries owned by American corporations like Apple and General Electric to hide $1.4 trillion in offshore tax havens.

The report, entitled “Broken at the Top,” analyzes the financial state of the 50 largest U.S. corporations. Cumulatively, Oxfam found, from 2008 to 2014, those corporations paid $1 trillion in taxes globally, received $11.2 trillion in federal subsidies (and received $337 billion in tax breaks), made $4 trillion in profit, and spent $2.6 billion on lobbyists.

“Their lobbying appears to have offered an incredible return on investment,” the report reads. “For every $1 spent on lobbying, these 50 companies collectively received $130 in tax breaks and more than $4,000 in federal loans, loan guarantees and bailouts.”

Spent differently, the $111 billion raised from closing offshore tax haven loopholes wouldoffer more than enough revenue to avoid all of the cuts to both defense and non-defensespending passed in the “sequester” as part of the 2011 Budget Control Act.58 These cuts hada disproportionate effect on programs serving low income people.

If the $111 billion were instead spent on fighting global poverty, the US could quadruple itsfunding for poverty-focused foreign aid.

“Yet again we have evidence of a massive systematic abuse of the global tax system,” Robbie Silverman, senior tax adviser at Oxfam, told the Guardian. “We can’t go on with a situation where the rich and powerful are not paying their fair share of tax, leaving the rest of us to foot the bill.”

(Disclosure: Gawker Media benefits from offshore tax havens.)

According to Oxfam, just 62 people hold the same amount of wealth as 3.6 billion—half of the world’s population.