Letter to Regulators: Letter to the IRS and Treasury on Tackling Systemic Tax Abuses by the Private Equity Industry

The 18 organizations urge the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to prioritize rebuilding its auditing and enforcement capabilities in order to tackle systemic tax abuses, including in particular those by the private equity industry. The private equity industry has generated greater untaxed revenues over the past decades by structuring their funds to avoid taxes and through a strategy of misclassifying certain earnings, exploiting tax loopholes like carried interest, and utilizing complex and opaque business structures to shield earnings from IRS scrutiny. We applaud President Biden’s plans to fund the IRS and tax enforcement more robustly and believe that these needed changes are a strong argument for such additional resources.

a house behind bushes

Letters to Congress: Letter in Support of the Improving Language Access in Mortgage Servicing Act of 2021

The Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) Language Access Task Force and partner organizations sent a letter to the House Financial Services Committee in support for HR 3009, the Improving Language Access in Mortgage Servicing Act of 2021. LEP borrowers face many challenges that impede their full participation in the consumer marketplace, including, specifically, their ability to obtain and preserve ownership of a home. The Improving Language Access in Mortgage Servicing Act will make important strides in improving access to the mortgage market and increasing awareness of the availability of assistance for homeowners who are struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments, which is especially critical during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Letters to Regulators: Letter to the CFPB Urging for Critical Improvements to a Proposed COVID Loss Mitigation Rule

AFREF and 41 organizations sent comments in response to the CFPB’s proposed COVID loss mitigation rule urging the Bureau to make critical improvements to help avoid unnecessary foreclosures and to facilitate streamlined solutions for borrowers facing COVID-19 hardships that will make it possible for them to keep their homes and provide them with the stability they need to recover and rebuild.

Letter to Regulators: The Fed must recognize its own regulatory failures and take action in the wake of Archegos

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund wrote the Fed to express concerns over the blow-up of the Archegos family fund. This incident reveals both the dangers of excessive leverage at private funds, and the failure of banking regulators, including the Federal Reserve, to properly regulate bank interactions with such funds. To address these issues, the Federal Reserve must investigate its own regulatory failures in this case and publicly disclose the lessons learned from this investigation, and must also work with the Financial Stability Oversight Council to address the risks of excessive leverage at private funds.