Financial security

The U.S. Is Now A Top Global Tax Haven

The United States has become a top tax haven for foreign companies, despite the Obama administration's efforts to crack down on U.S. firms stashing money overseas. 

The U.S. came in third place on the Tax Justice Network's biannual Financial Secrecy Index, behind Hong Kong and Switzerland.

"An estimated $21 to $32 trillion of private financial wealth is located, untaxed or lightly taxed, in secrecy jurisdictions around the world," the report says. "Secrecy jurisdictions," it notes, are also known by the more common term "tax havens," and are countries that "use secrecy to attract illicit and illegitimate or abusive financial flows."

States like Delaware and Nevada have become tax havens, according to the report. They allow anonymous shell companies to operate within their borders, letting foreign companies funnel profits through the U.S. while largely avoiding taxes in their home nations. Economists argue that this type of activity widens the gap between the super-rich and the rest of the world.