SCSBCC joins Senator Carl Levin in announcing the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act

Yesterday morning Frank Knapp of the SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce joined Senator Carl Levin in a Washington, DC press conference to announce the introduction of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. Below are Mr. Knapp’s comments that he made yesterday to the Washington press corp.  Click here to view video.
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I’m Frank Knapp, President, CEO and co-founder of the SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce.

While our members are in South Carolina, small businesses across this country, from California to Washington, DC understand that while they are paying their taxes, many US-based, multinational corporations are not. That’s not fair and it makes us angry.

When multinational corporations don’t pay their taxes, when they use offshore tax havens to cheat, small business have to pay more in taxes.


Frank Knapp (l) and Senator Carl Levin at the
July 12, 2011 Press Conference

Elected leaders like to say how small business is the engine of our economy and they look to us to create most of the new jobs.

Well, we’re tired of subsiding government services for multinational corporations that rely on our courts, our national defense, our infrastructure, and our education system, all of the essential government services that these multinational corporations want and need to be successful.

Small businesses want tax parity with these corporate giants.

We can compete with our goods and services with any multinational corporation but not if we don’t require them to pay their taxes.

These multinationals and their highly paid advocates warn us that creating the transparency needed to spot illegal tax evasion and avoidance, better defining US profits and increasing penalties for offshore tax cheating would somehow hurt our country’s economy.

We’re not talking about any new taxes the money these multinationals are investing in American jobs. We only want the taxes they owe on money squirreled away in post office boxes in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda, profits that aren’t being invested in our economy.

The SC Small Business Chamber is from South Carolina, but this issue resonates with every small business across the nation. Today we are America’s Small Business Chamber and we are patriotically proud to support Senator Carl Levin’s Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.