Senator Obama outlined his plans at a town hall meeting in Iowa earlier this week, where he promised to rectify a perceived imbalance in the tax code that he believes favors the wealthiest companies over the interests of working taxpayers.

"I'm in this race to take those tax breaks away from companies that are moving jobs overseas and put them in the pockets of hard working Americans who deserve it, and I'm the only candidate in this race to introduce a middle-class tax cut that will give 95% of working Americans a break," Obama declared.

"We don't need any more tax breaks for the wealthiest corporations who didn't need them and didn't ask for them - it's time to give a break to working folks so that we put the American Dream within the reach of every American once more. That's why I'm running for President," he added.

Obama's plan would provide relief for the middle class and seniors by eliminating federal income taxes for those making less than $50,000 a year. The plan also includes a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $1,000 for America's working families, a new universal mortgage interest credit that would benefit low and middle-income homeowners, and proposals to simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans can do their taxes in less than 5 minutes, supposedly saving taxpayers up to 200 million total hours in completing tax forms, and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

However, core components of Obama's five-point tax plan are proposals to close corporate 'loopholes', crack down on "international tax havens", close the carried interest loophole, and increase the dividends and capital gains rate for the top bracket. These will effectively pay for his personal income tax cuts.

Obama says that he intends to punish any company which has dealings offshore, and to create a new blacklist of tax havens which refuse to share information with the US, to be known as the 'International Tax Evasion Watch List'. He said that "economic pressure" should be brought to bear on those territories that refuse to comply.

"Our tax code is riddled with loopholes and special tax breaks that benefit Washington special interests," states Obama's tax plan.

It continues: "There are corporate carve-outs that serve no national purpose; tax breaks that allow companies to stash their profits overseas; a government that’s paralyzed when dealing with offshore tax haven countries; an overloaded tax code that’s too complicated for ordinary folks to understand, but just complicated enough to work for someone who knows how to work the system."

"When big business doesn’t like something in the tax code, they can hire a lobbyist to get it changed. But nobody lobbies for working people. Instead of honoring that core American value – opportunity for all – we’ve had a system in Washington where our laws and regulations have carved out opportunities for the few," it concluded.