[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 519 Introduced in House (IH)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 519

  To secure the return to the United States the $179 million overpaid 
into the United Nations Tax Equalization Fund as of December 31, 2009, 
                        and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            February 8, 2011

 Ms. Ros-Lehtinen introduced the following bill; which was referred to 
                    the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To secure the return to the United States the $179 million overpaid 
into the United Nations Tax Equalization Fund as of December 31, 2009, 
                        and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``United Nations Tax Equalization 
Refund Act of 2011''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Approximately $180 million in United States taxpayer 
        funds overpaid to the United Nations remain in the hands of the 
        United Nations because the United States has not requested the 
        return of those funds.
            (2) The funds were paid into the United Nations Tax 
        Equalization Fund (TEF), which is used to reimburse United 
        Nations staff members subject to United States income taxes for 
        the cost of those taxes.
            (3) In recent years, the TEF has taken in considerably more 
        money than it has paid out, with the United States apparently 
        overpaying into the TEF by $52.2 million in the 2008-2009 
        timeframe alone.
            (4) According to the United Nations Financial Report and 
        Audited Financial Statements released on July 29, 2010, ``As of 
        31 December 2009, an amount of $179.0 million was payable to 
        the United States of America pending instructions as to its 
        disposition.''.
            (5) That balance was allowed to accrue notwithstanding 
        United Nations Financial Regulation 4.12, which states that any 
        such surpluses ``shall be credited against the assessed 
        contributions due from that Member State the following year.''.
            (6) Allowing the United Nations to regularly overcharge the 
        United States and to retain those overpayments, or to spend 
        them on wholly unrelated activities, is a disservice to 
        American taxpayers and a subversion of the Congressional budget 
        process.

SEC. 3. REFUND OF UNITED STATES TAXPAYER DOLLARS FROM THE UNITED 
              NATIONS TAX EQUALIZATION FUND.

    (a) Statement of Policy.--It shall be the policy of the United 
States--
            (1) to direct the United Nations to return to the United 
        States the $179,010,326 overpaid into the United Nations Tax 
        Equalization Fund (TEF) as of December 31, 2009, which the 
        United Nations itself has identified as ``payable to the United 
        States of America'';
            (2) to use the voice and vote of the United States to press 
        the United Nations to reform its TEF assessment procedures to 
        reduce the repeated discrepancies between TEF income and 
        expenditures; and
            (3) to annually instruct the United Nations to return to 
        the United States any TEF surplus funds payable to the United 
        States.
    (b) Certification and Withholding.--Until the Secretary of State 
submits to the appropriate congressional committees a certification 
that the United Nations has returned to the United States the 
$179,010,326 identified by the United Nations in its July 29, 2010 
Financial Report as payable to the United States, the United States 
shall withhold $179,010,326 from the United States contribution to the 
regularly assessed biennial budget of the United Nations.

SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act--
            (1) the term ``appropriate congressional committees'' 
        means--
                    (A) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the 
                Committee on Appropriations of the House of 
                Representatives; and
                    (B) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the 
                Committee on Appropriations of the Senate; and
            (2) the term ``United Nations Tax Equalization Fund'' or 
        ``TEF'' means the fund established under the provisions of 
        United Nations General Assembly Resolution 973 (December 15, 
        1955) to equalize to net pay of United Nations staff members.
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