INSTITUTE INDEX: Tax cheats for president?

By Sue Sturgis / April 10, 2015

Sen. Rand Paul is among the presidential hopefuls who've gone to bat for tax avoiders. (Paul at the launch of his presidential campaign at the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky on April 7, 2015 by Gage Skidmore via Flickr.)

Number of Congress members who've been more active in the cause of protecting tax cheats than Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who announced this week he's running for the Republican presidential nomination: 0

Year in which Paul, during a congressional hearing on Apple's avoidance of tens of billions of dollars in taxes through foreign subsidiaries and accounting gimmicks, took Apple's side: 2013

Under a corporate tax repatriation holiday proposal promoted by Paul, percentage tax rate that corporations would pay on profits held offshore upon repatriation rather than the 35 percent corporate rate: 6.5

Revenue that would be lost over 10 years if such a tax repatriation holiday policy were enacted: $95 billion

Year in which Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who's also seeking the GOP presidential nomination, co-founded an equity firm that has a tax haven division: 1998

Year in which Cruz, as part of his Senate campaign, failed to publicly disclose his financial relationship with the company: 2012

Year in which Cruz voted against tax haven reform: 2013

Percentage rate to which Hillary Clinton, who's expected to announce Sunday she's running again for the Democratic presidential nomination, wanted to raise the estate tax when she ran in 2008: 45

Year in which Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, shifted ownership of their New York home to a residence trust to shield some of their wealth from estate taxes: 2011

Amount the charitable foundation run by the Clinton family has received from international donors who were clients of a controversial Swiss bank implicated in tax avoidance schemes: $81 million

Estimated amount in profits U.S. Fortune 500 companies are holding offshore in order to avoid paying federal income taxes: more than $2.1 trillion

Amount in federal income taxes these companies are avoiding as a result: up to $600 billion

Unrepatriated income of North Carolina-based Bank of America alone in the most recent fiscal year: $17.2 billion

Of 33 developed countries for which data is available, rank of the U.S. among those with the lowest corporates taxes as a percentage of GDP: 8

Percent of Americans who say they are "bothered a lot" by corporations not paying their fair share in taxes: 64

(Click on figure to go to source.)

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