*Latin America seeks integration, yet divided in terms of trade. *Pacific Alliance advocates free trade, foreign investment. BOGOTA, May 23- A Latin American bloc that includes Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Chile on Thursday agreed to eliminate tariffs on most goods to promote free trade between the countries and increase exports to Asia.
WASHINGTON, May 23- A tax on carbon dioxide emissions could help the United States mitigate climate change while significantly increasing government revenue, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this week.
SAN FRANCISCO/ DUBLIN, May 23- Apple has operated almost tax-free in Ireland since 1980, welcomed by a government keen to bring jobs to what was then one of Europe's poorest country, former company executives and Irish officials have said. Apple must have seemed attractive to Ireland and to Cork.
COLUMBUS, Ohio-- Democrats in the Ohio Senate suggested Wednesday that budget writers take millions of dollars from a proposed income tax cut for higher wage earners and direct it to schools instead, as work intensified on the state's spending plan.
WASHINGTON, May 22- For years, Apple Inc kept a low profile in Washington as it grew into one of the most valuable companies in the world.
WASHINGTON, May 22- Three congressional hearings during the past week have allowed lawmakers to vent their anger at the U.S. tax agency for its targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny, but the sessions have yielded few answers about who was responsible.
BREAKTHROUGH: The European Union's leaders took a major step in tackling tax-dodgers Wednesday by pushing to end bank secrecy across the bloc's 27 members by year-end.
*Irish government calls Senate report "wrong and misleading". Ireland has been forced to defend its corporate tax rate after the Senate said on Monday that Apple paid little or no tax on tens of billions of dollars in profits channelled through Irish subsidiaries and that it had negotiated a special corporate tax rate of less than 2 percent. 1/ 2 ID: nL2N0E20Y1 3/ 8.
ROME/ MILAN, May 22- Milan prosecutors are investigating the chairman of Italian steel group Riva for tax evasion and police have seized 1.2 billion euros of cash from a tax haven, judicial sources said on Wednesday. Emilio Riva, whose company controls Europe's largest steel plant in southern Italy, is being probed along with his brother Adriano, the sources said.
*Ireland takes rare aim at multinationals' tax rates. Bruton's call for an international clampdown on aggressive tax planning by large corporates is a rare negative shot at a sector that Ireland has courted for decades and underscores the high stakes for Dublin, which faces pressure to act alone.
DUBLIN, May 22- Ireland's finance minister said on Wednesday the country did not want to become the' whipping boy' for what he called a flawed U.S. Senate report into the level of corporate tax Apple Inc pays in Ireland.