The Missing $20 Trillion

It's a well-known secret that many large corporations use tax havens to avoid paying their taxes. It makes them very unpopular, reducing their bills to the countries they serve in.  It is quite admirable of our legislation to attempt to get those companies to pay their dues, but it is a notion that's rather hypocritical, as noted in the article.
         Take for example Mitt Romney, who has holdings in the Cayman Islands, or Jack Lew, who once had interest in a Cayman fund.  The imagery of countries working on cleaning up their own backyards and reforming their tax systems is a powerful and humorous one, considering the sarcasm this article loves to include.
         Of course, the argument is that politicians are hypocritical and are going about this wrong, and the article explains why, by naming several places that are tax havens within countries, such as Delaware and the City of London.  So the point is made that reform should not just focus on isolated islands.  Of course, tugging at the heartstrings and moral values of the readers helps get the point across that everyone should be helping prevent wrongdoing, in this case by being transparent.
         The argument that lowering the tax rate will result in more tax money initially does not make any sense...until the article mentions that having high tax rates only spur tax avoiders.  It's and interesting and convincing logic; lower the tax rate so fewer companies will attempt to avoid them, without completely abolishing the tax, or raising the taxes so high that it actually harms business and thus encourages tax avoidance.