Obama calls for Congress to combat tax evasion and money laundering

President Obama on Friday called on Congress to take action to fight money laundering and tax evasion.

The president made this plea during a White House press briefing the day after the administration announced new guidance aimed at bolstering financial transparency.

“These actions are going to make a difference,” Obama told reporters at the White House on Friday. “Having said that, we’re not going to be able to complete this job unless Congress acts as well.”

{mosads}Obama urged Congress to pass legislation requiring shell companies to report information about their real owners to the Treasury Department and provide the Justice Department with additional tools to investigation corruption.

He also called on the Senate to approve eight tax treaties that have been awaiting action for years. Obama said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) “has been a little quirky” in blocking new tax treaties.

On Thursday, Treasury unveiled a final rule that requires financial institutions to know the identities of the actual people, or “beneficial owners,” who own and control accounts at the time of their opening. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service also proposed a rule that would require a class of foreign-owned U.S. companies to obtain IRS-issued employer identification numbers for the first time.

The guidance has been in the works for a while, but the issues of tax evasion and money laundering have been in the spotlight recently because of the “Panama Papers,” documents from a Panama-based law firm that creates anonymous shell companies.

Combatting tax evasion has been a priority for the White House since the beginning of the administration, Obama said. The White House wants to make sure “our economy works for everybody,” he added.

The president is ramping up his use of executive actions in his final year in office to cement parts of his economic legacy.

Last month, the administration released new guidance aimed at deterring companies from moving their headquarters overseas to lower their taxes, and the executive branch also finalized strict new rules on retirement investment.

And during his final months in office, Obama is pointing to a record streak of private sector job growth to claim credit for the recovery and push back against critics of his economic legacy.  

The Labor Department reported Friday, however, that the economy only added 160,000 jobs in April — the lowest amount in seven months. The unemployment rate remained at 5 percent, but Republicans criticized the weaker than expected job gains.

Obama said that that the unemployment rate is down significantly from seven years ago. However, the global economy is not growing as fast as it should be and many Americans are still hurting.

He said the Republican-controlled Congress should invest in infrastructure, raise the minimum wage and “pass smart new trade agreements.”