By Julia Conley/Common Dreams

The United States is now the second-largest tax haven on the planet, according to an updated international index.
The Tax Justice Network found that the U.S. has surpassed the Cayman Islands as the No. 2 place where corporations can easily stash their money to avoid tax liabilities. Switzerland retained its top place on the list.
“Financial secrecy provided by the U.S. has caused untold harm to the ordinary citizens of foreign countries, whose elites have used the United States as a bolt-hole for looted wealth,” wrote the group in its Financial Secrecy Index.
“This is not a ranking in which the U.S. wants to be number one or even number two,” said Gary Kalman, executive director of the FACT Coalition, which advocates for policies to combat criminal activity in the financial system. “We have one of the strongest economies and one of the most secret. It’s a perfect recipe for attracting the proceeds of crime, corruption, and tax evasion. Internationally, this secrecy facilitates corruption that drains wealth from developing countries.”

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Posted on February 9, 2018

By Organizing Neighborhoods for Equality: Northside

In a press conference Thursday morning, tenants of the Wilson Men’s Hotel, a Single Room Occupancy building in Uptown, demanded City Pads developer Andrew Ahitow cease his eviction of the residents and ensure tenants are a key part of negotiating the relocation process. Last week, all 100+ tenants of Wilson Men’s Hotel were served with 60-day eviction notices.
From the beginning, tenants of Wilson Men’s Hotel have demanded a binding commitment from City Pads for the right to remain in affordable, long-term housing on the North Side. They have also demanded a full relocation plan, which Ahitow offered when he first purchased the building. Ahitow ultimately refused to collaborate with tenants or ONE Northside, a community organizing group working with tenants, and has shown no evidence of moving forward on this viable relocation plan for all tenants.

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Posted on February 8, 2018

By Chicago Votes

Partners and lawmakers will gather Wednesday in the Illinois State Capitol to voice their support for a bipartisan bill, HB4469.
HB4469, sponsored by state Rep. Juliana Stratton, will ensure that the 94 percent of people being held in pretrial detention at Cook County Jail who are eligible to vote, are able to vote.
HB4469 will ensure that individuals awaiting trial are informed of their right to vote and given a voter registration form upon release as part of a re-entry process.
This bill requires IDOC to provide citizens who are released from their custody detailed information about their voting rights. This bill also requires the Cook County Jail to become a temporary polling location and all other jails across the state to establish an absentee ballot distribution and collection process for eligible voters.

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Posted on February 6, 2018

By The Illinois Public Interest Research Group

A new survey released by Illinois PIRG, “Recharge Repair,” found a surge in consumer demand for phone repair following the revelation Apple was slowing phones with older batteries. “Recharge Repair” identifies the barriers to battery replacement and phone repair that added to long repair delays for consumers. The findings support the need for Right to Repair reforms to grant consumers and third parties access to the parts and tools to repair cell phones and other electronics.
“We should be free to fix our stuff,” said Abe Scarr, Illinois PIRG director. “Repairing products that still have useful life reduces needless waste, but unfortunately, companies are making products harder to repair. This survey demonstrates that consumers are looking for more options to repair their phones.”
Among the survey’s findings:

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Posted on February 5, 2018

By The National Fair Housing Alliance

The National Fair Housing Alliance and 19 fair housing organizations from across the country – including those from Evanston, Homewood and Wheaton – filed a housing discrimination lawsuit Thursday in federal district court in Chicago alleging Deutsche Bank and associated firms neglected bank-owned homes in African-American communities while maintaining similar homes in white neighborhoods.
The organizations joining NFHA in filing the complaint include fair housing centers in Wheaton, Evanston and Homewood
NFHA filed this lawsuit on the first day of Black History Month to highlight how neglected bank-owned homes hurt African-American communities. The lawsuit alleges that Deutsche Bank purposely failed to maintain its foreclosed bank-owned homes (also known as real estate owned or “REO” properties) in middle- and working- class African-American and Latino neighborhoods in 30 metropolitan areas, while it consistently maintained similar bank-owned homes in white neighborhoods. The data presented in the federal lawsuit, which is supported by substantial photographic evidence, shows a stark pattern of discriminatory conduct by Deutsche Bank in the maintenance of foreclosed homes.

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Posted on February 4, 2018

By Indivisible Chicago

The Illinois Senate has passed SB2273, which will protect Illinois voter data by pulling state voter data out of the national Crosscheck program. The final vote broke down along party lines 35-17 with three Republicans abstaining. The bill will now head to the House where Representative Ann Williams will be the bill’s chief sponsor.
“This is fantastic news,” said Steve Held, one of the leaders of the Indivisible Chicago team fighting for data privacy protections and voter rights. “It’s heartening to see our legislators move so quickly to protect voters’ privacy. It’s unfortunate that this broke down along a party-line vote at a time when the vulnerability of our voter data and concerns about identity theft have never been clearer; however, we’re hopeful that we’ll see more bipartisan support in the House.”

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Posted on February 1, 2018

By Meredith Kolodner/The Hechinger Report

Many of the nation’s best public universities are enrolling disproportionately few African-American and Latino students.
Flagship universities are the jewels in the crown of public higher education systems – they have sought-after faculty, preeminent research facilities, the most resources and often the highest graduation rates, for all races. They also stand as beacons of affordable excellence for the students of their states. But when it comes to equitably serving the state’s residents, whose taxes fund these top-flight universities, many fall far short of their stated missions. Often there are big differences – defined by race – between who’s graduating from a state’s public high schools and who’s getting into its flagship universities.

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Posted on January 30, 2018

By The Ugo Okere Campaign

Ugo Okere, a 21-year-old community organizer in the Budlong Woods neighborhood and a senior at Loyola, announced his candidacy for alderman of the 40th Ward at an event Saturday evening celebrating millennial political power.
“As a lifelong resident of Budlong Woods, and a millennial inspired by this political moment, the time is now for a new generation of leadership in the 40th Ward and across Chicago” said Okere. “I am running for alderman of the 40th Ward because after 35 years of disconnected leadership, it’s time for a new, progressive change.”
An immigrant from Nigeria, and son of a taxi driver and factory worker, Okere’s family moved to Chicago and settled on the North Side when he was 3 months old. A graduate of Budlong Elementary and Lane Tech High School, Ugo will receive his diploma from Loyola University this spring. Today, Ugo serves on the Loyola University Senate, and is chair of Fuerza del Sol, a youth community organization that works in issues of immigrant rights and violence prevention.

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Posted on January 29, 2018

By Indivisible Chicago

State lawmakers have set a public hearing date for legislation to protect Illinois voter data by pulling state voter data out of the national Crosscheck program. The hearing on SB2273, crafted in partnership between Indivisible Chicago and state lawmakers, is scheduled for Tuesday, 1:30 p.m. in Springfield.
“We urge legislators to move quickly to close this door to protect Illinois voters’ personal data,” said Steve Held, one of the leaders of the Indivisible Chicago team fighting voter suppression. “The news out of Kansas, responsible for protecting this sensitive data, gets worse on a weekly basis. It’s abundantly clear that the Kansas Secretary of State’s office lacks the will and the expertise to secure their systems.”

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Posted on January 26, 2018

By Jon Queally/Common Dreams

Tech giant Apple made international headlines and inspired President Donald Trump to brag overnight about his role in making it all possible after announcing it would pay approximately $38 billion in taxes as it repatriates large sums of overseas cash holdings. But that dollar figure is less than half of what tax analysts say the company should be paying for those earnings.

We estimate that Apple owes about $78.6 billion in taxes on their accumulated offshore earnings (https://t.co/Lnqb4GYXRU), so if they pay $38 billion under the new tax bill (https://t.co/4p1MXgvfTQ), that equals a tax break of about $40.6 billion.

— Richard Phillips, Inc. (@taxjusticewonk) January 17, 2018

With the Trump and GOP lowering the repatriation tax rate from 35 percent down to 15.5 percent, the lobbying by powerful and wealthy corporations – including Apple – is finally paying dividends.

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Posted on January 24, 2018