WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 - The federal government could increase tax revenues by $311 billion over the next 10 years if it clamped down on hundreds of ways that individuals and corporations elude their obligations, according to a Congressional study issued on Thursday.
The report concludes that the nation's system for taxing overseas profits of American corporations is so flawed that the government would save $55 billion if it simply scrapped the system altogether.
The recommendation comes a few months after Congress passed a corporate tax bill that is expected to reduce taxes on overseas profits by nearly $40 billion over the next decade. The measure was promoted on the idea of reducing the "competitive disadvantage" that American companies said they suffered on the tax front.
The proposal on corporate taxes was one of hundreds aimed at closing what lawmakers call the "tax gap," the gap between taxes owed and taxes collected, in the report prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan Congressional agency that estimates the cost of proposed tax laws.
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