Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported how targets of a Senate investigation have showered Washington with campaign contributions, in an apparent attempt to buy some love and avoid sanctions. In July, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report alleging that two European-based banks, USB of Switzerland and LGT of Liechtenstein, served as tax havens for wealthy Americans, costing the federal treasury up to $100 billion a year.

The Post article states that officials with the banks have given more than $2 million this year, $98,000 in June alone, to congressional and presidential campaigns. USB spends close to $1 million a year on lobbying and is traditionally a big campaign giver. But so far this cycle the Swiss bank’s contributions have surpassed what it gave in the whole 2006 election cycle. The Post quotes a bank spokesperson as saying the bank’s giving is in no way related to the Senate investigation. The article didn’t say, however, whether it was said with a straight face.

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It’s one thing when the information about who your neighbors give campaign contributions to is public, but it’s quite something else to know what every citizen earned and what they paid in taxes. Don’t panic it hasn’t happened here in the U.S. but the Italian government published it all. And yup, the government’s web site was taken down after a formal complaint from the country’s privacy watchdog.

The release of the information was one of the last acts of the outgoing centre-left government and has shocked many tax-shy Italians. . . . But it was also hugely popular, and within hours the site was overwhelmed and impossible to access.

The finance ministry described the move as a bid to improve transparency.

The transparency ploy has generally been regarded as an end of term sour grapes move.

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If, like me, you’re tired of hearing about landings at Tuzla, sermons from Jeremiah Wright and the other assorted nonsense that candidates for the White House feed us (I don’t blame reporters–they have to cover the story put in front of them), here’s a pleasant diversion. John O. Fox, who wrote an exhaustive (but not at all exhausting) critique of the federal income tax called If Americans Really Understood the Income Tax, has released his 10 Tax Questions the Candidates Don’t Want You to Ask. Each question serves as a primer on federal tax policy, with links to references, data sources, and easy to understand explanations.

Fox asks about the McMansion tax break, why the tax code ensures that the poor get the poorest childcare, and the tax treatment of pensions. He proposes some of his own solutions to the questions he raises — it would be nice to hear how congressional and presidential candidates would do the same.

He also offers some wonderful quotes on taxes throughout, including this one from former IRS Commissioner Sheldon Cohen: “The tax code,
once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of life: greed, politics, power, goodness, charity.” Indeed, and Fox’s site proves it.

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Earlier this month, Texas released a state spending database. The database, “Where the Money Goes,” allows citizens to search state spending by agency and recipient. The Houston Chronicle, makes the point that the bill that created this database was “modeled after federal legislation passed last year.” The Coburn-Obama bill’s teeth went all the way down to state level.

Texas is now one of six states this year that have created a database or adopted laws that require a spending database to be created. The Kansas state legislature also mandated such a database, modeled after the federal database, which Stateline says was inspired by FedSpending.org, a project of Sunlight grantee OMB Watch. Minnesota, Oklahoma, Hawaii, and Missouri also have databases in the works to launch in 2008.

The movement to bring this kind of transparency to the states is being led by a coalition called “Show Me the Spending." Their site provides information on the coalition as well as a very convenient map that allows you to keep track of what is going on in all 50 states.

According to the Show Me the Spending Web site, there are partial databases in seventeen other states and legislation being offered in Nebraska, South Carolina, and Georgia. This is great news for transparency. This is a great example on how the federal government can lead the states in creating an open and accountable environment. It will be interesting to see how the states create their databases, and if they will take the lead on more transparency measures in the future.

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