Rich Americans hide "billions" offshore thanks to tax loophole, Senate panel finds

A gaping hole in U.S. tax laws is allowing the rich to stash billions offshore in foreign bank accounts, according to lawmakers.

While the law requires Americans to report any foreign bank accounts and pay taxes on all income earned, not all of them do, and a 12-year-old law designed to crack down on offshore tax evasion is easy to circumvent, members of the Senate Finance Committee said in a report on Wednesday. 

"As a result, wealthy taxpayers continue to use schemes involving offshore entities and secret bank accounts to successfully hide billions in income from the IRS," the report said.