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Blog Post | Tax

What Do Jon Stewart, Elizabeth Warren, and Barack Obama Have In Common? | Phineas Baxandall

All three of them spoke out this week against corporate tax dodging.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama called for an economy where “everyone plays by the same set of rules” and where companies can’t avoid taxes by shifting profits overseas. That same night, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren went on the Daily Show and called out 30 corporations that a recent Florida PIRG and Citizens for Tax Justice study found paid more to lobby Congress than they did in federal income taxes. When Warren told this to John Stewart on the Daily Show, it made the usually unflappable comedian’s jaw drop. Check out the video!

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Report | Florida PIRG | Financial Reform

Representation Without Taxation

Marking the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case—which opened the floodgates to corporate spending on elections—this report takes a hard look at the lobbying activities of profitable Fortune 500 companies that exploit loopholes and distort the tax code to avoid billions
of dollars in taxes.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Zappos' customers may have been zapped by identity theft; meanwhile big Internet sellers zap small Internet guys, just like the big boxes do to local, independent stores | Ed Mierzwinski

Over at his Red Tape Chronicles, MS-NBC's Bob Sullivan warns that Internet marketer "Zappos says hacker may have accessed info on 24 million customers."

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News Release | Florida PIRG | Consumer Protection

Florida PIRG Applauds Obama for Cordray Recess Appointment

Today, President Obama will take a bold and important step to protect consumers from financial tricks and traps by announcing a recess appointment of his well-qualified nominee, Richard Cordray, to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The appointment bypasses Senate opponents who have pledged to block any director unless the bureau is first weakened in a manner approved by Wall Street.

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Report | Consumer Protection

Trouble in Toyland

The 2011 Trouble in Toyland report is our 26th annual survey of toy safety. In this report, we provide safety guidelines for consumers when purchasing toys for young children and provide examples of toys currently on store shelves that may pose potential safety hazards.

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News Release | Florida PIRG | Budget

Representative Jeff Flake Introduces REAPS Act

Statement of Florida PIRG Federal Legislative Office Director Gary Kalman on the introduction of the Reducing the Deficit through Eliminating Agriculture Direct Payment Subsidies Act

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News Release | Florida PIRG | Tax

Senator Carl Levin Introduces Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act

Statement of Florida PIRG Federal Legislative Office Director Gary Kalman on the introduction of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.

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News Release | Florida PIRG | Budget

House Committee Approves Cut to Agriculture Subsidies

Statement of Florida PIRG Public Health Advocate Elizabeth Hitchcock on the House Appropriations Committee’s vote to approve an amendment to the 2012 Agriculture appropriations bill  to limit agriculture subsidies called direct payments to farmers with adjusted gross incomes lower than $250,000.

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News Release | Florida PIRG | Tax

Off-Shore Tax Havens Cost FL Taxpayers Over $4 Billion a Year

Major corporations and some individuals avoid a total of as much as $100 billion a year in federal taxes by “off-shoring” the profits they make here in the U.S. or by setting up sham headquarters in tax haven countries. As a result, Florida taxpayers are left footing the bill.

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News Release | Florida PIRG | Consumer Protection

New Survey Shows Banks Still Hiding Fees from Consumers

A survey of more than 350 bank branches released today by the Florida Public Interest Research Group revealed that fewer than half of branches obeyed their legal duty to fully disclose fees to prospective customers, while one in four provided no fee information at all.

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Report | Consumer Protection

Big Banks, Bigger Fees

Since Congress largely deregulated consumer deposit (checking and savings) accounts beginning in the early 1980s, the PIRGs have tracked bank deposit account fee changes and documented the banks’ long-term strategy to raise fees, invent new fees and make it harder to avoid fees. 

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Safe Energy

Unacceptable Risk

American nuclear power plants are not immune to the types of natural disasters, mechanical failures, human errors, and losses of critical electric power supplies that have characterized major nuclear accidents such as the one at Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. Indeed, at several points over the last 20 years, American nuclear power plants have experienced “close calls” that could have led to damage to the reactor core and the subsequent release of large amounts of radiation.

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Report | Florida PIRG | Budget

Analysis of HR1

It’s difficult to imagine how cuts to Pell Grants, food safety or clean drinking water come before subsidies to BP or advertising for fast food and underwear. And yet, that’s exactly what the House resolution has done.

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Report | Florida PIRG Education Fund | Health Care

The Cost of Repeal

This report examines the costs and benefits of repeal for the taxpayers, consumers, and businesses of our state. 

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Report | Florida PIRG Education Fund | Transportation

Do Roads Pay for Themselves

Highway advocates often claim that roads “pay for themselves,” with gasoline taxes and other charges to motorists covering – or nearly covering – the full cost of highway construction and maintenance. They are wrong.

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Tools & Resources

  • STOP TAX DODGERS
    Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.
    Learn more
    Take Action
  • YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP
    At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.
    Learn more
    Take Action
  • Reclaim Democracy
    The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."
    Learn more
  • BUILDING A BETTER HEALTH CARE MARKETPLACE
    Now the fight for health care reform is in Florida.
    Learn More

PRIORITY ACTION

Some of the nation’s best-known companies — including GE, Google and Goldman Sachs — have avoided paying the taxes they owe, costing us $100 billion last year.

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