How to get started on passing a resolution in your town: 1) Fill out the form on the webpage; well be in touch

to help connect you with other people in your area. Even if you dont want to lead the fight, please sign up to help out! http://bit.ly/MEresolution 2) Contact your Town Clerk about the requirement for getting an item on the agenda. Some towns require a certain number of signatures and have a deadline by which signatures should be submitted. Usually the number of signatures is just 10% of the number of people who voted in the last election. 3) The sample language below is just our suggestion. Feel free to modify it to suit your town what's important is that your resolution calls for raising revenue by ending corporate tax loopholes. When corporations store money in foreign tax havens, that tax revenue is lost at both the state and the federal level. We need elected officials in Augusta and Washington to do their part to close these loopholes for big corporations, which is why we're asking towns to call on their state legislators as well as our Congressional delegation to be leaders on this issue. 4) Contact supportive Town Councilors or local legislators who are supportive. 5) Collect signatures if necessary, talk to your friends and neighbors, begin building momentum - we will be in touch!

TEMPLATE LOCAL RESOLUTION to Stop Corporate Tax Dodging: Invest in U.S.

The U.S. Congress must act now to raise significant new revenues by closing tax loopholes that allow Wall Street corporations to shift profits and jobs overseas to avoid U.S. taxes. Multinational corporations must be responsible by paying their fair share of taxes at home so that we can rebuild our roads, bridges and neighborhoods, invest in education for future generations and create an American economy that works for all of us.

Whereas, dozens of large, profitable corporations such as General Electric, Verizon and Boeing paid no federal income taxes from 2008 to 2011 by using loopholes that allow them to avoid these taxes; and

Whereas, U.S. multinational corporations are holding $1.9 trillion in profits offshore, much of it in tax havens like the Cayman Islands with little or no corporate income tax, and the U.S. government cannot collect taxes on those profits until they are brought back to the United States, which may never occur; and Whereas, if Congress closed the deferral loophole by requiring companies to pay taxes on their foreign profits, as they do on domestic profits, less any foreign taxes paid on their offshore profits, nearly $600 billion could be raised over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation to make critical investments in the economy; Whereas tax dodging through the use of tax havens is estimated to cost each Maine taxpayer $642 and cost each Maine small business $1,614; Whereas corporate profits are at a 60-year high, while corporate taxes are near a 60-year low as a share of federal revenue, or just 10 percent i;

Whereas the effective tax rate of big profitable corporations is just 12.6 percent, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, far below the 35 percent statutory tax rate; Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Members of Maines Congressional Delegation, including Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, and the Members of Maines legislature should support proposals that (1) Require corporations to pay their fair share of taxes in order to raise a significant amount of new revenue, so that corporations contribute to fixing our economy and to investing in the communities they profit from; (2) End tax loopholes that encourage U.S. corporations to ship profits and jobs overseas; (3) End tax loopholes that let U.S. multinational companies avoid taxes by shifting profits on paper to offshore subsidiaries in tax havens, where they have few, if any employees; (4) Level the playing field on taxes between multinational corporations and small Main Street businesses and between multinational corporations and domestic businesses;

U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Fiscal Year 2013 Budget, Historical Tables, 1934-2017 (Table 2.2) (2012). http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals