Offshore Tax Havens

By Josh Keefe for International Business Times. Next week, 600 congressional staffers, lobbyists and think tank employees, as well as Vice President Mike Pence himself, will get together for an annual tradition that is imbued with extra significance this year: the Tax Foundation’s annual gala, known as “Tax Prom,” brought to you by 61 corporations very interested in seeing their tax bills reduced. The Tax Foundation, a non-profit tax policy think tank founded by Depression-era industrialists, has been holding its annual dinner since 1937, which it calls "tax world’s most celebrated event of the year," on its website. This year's Tax Prom, scheduled for Nov. 16, will honor Pence with a Distinguished Service Award. Last year, the event drew 196 congressional staffers and nine members of Congress, according to the Tax Foundation. Sixty-one companies spent a total of $1.1 million sponsoring Tax Prom, and many of them have huge off-shore holdings, according to the Institute on Taxation And Economic Policy, another non-profit tax policy think tank. Twenty-three Tax Prom corporate sponsors have a combined $800 billion parked offshore in at least 1,075 tax haven subsidiaries, according to an ITEP analysis provided to International Business Times. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that U.S. companies are currently holding a total of $2.6 trillion offshore to avoid paying taxes to Uncle Sam.