Evaded Taxes: What $300 Million Could Buy, from New Homes, Gas to Health Care

Feb. 20, 2009 — -- As UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, prepares to release the names of Americans suspected of using offshore accounts to evade taxes, ABCNews.com took a closer look at just what those tax dollars could have paid for stateside.

To be sure, the $300 million a year in taxes The New York Times estimates that UBS allegedly helped Americans evade is a drop in the bucket when the Treasury is handing out trillions for various recovery programs. But with more than 400 banks in Switzerland, including Credit Suisse, the other major bank in the country, the sum total all these accounts hidden from US taxation could be much greater.

From providing tens of thousands of students a year's tuition at a university to replenishing the book supply in the Los Angeles, Calif., public libraries, the $300 million in lost taxes annually could have helped strapped cities and towns nationwide, not to mention the deficit-ridden federal government.

According to the Child Nutrition and Policy Center, $300 million goes a long way when it comes to school lunches. Erik Peterson, the spokesman for the organization, says that amount can provide free school meals to all children in U.S. schools for about four days. That's a total of 116 million meals at $2.57 per serving.

How about a house or two for that sum? In Colorado Springs, Colo., the median sales price of an existing single-family home was $187,000 in 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors. That means that $300 million could have paid for 1,604 homes in the picturesque community on the Front Range.

The best-selling car in the country, the Toyota Camry, could have its 18.5 gallon fuel tank pumped full more than 8 million times with $300 million dollars. The average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded fuel is currently $1.96, averaging at about $36.33 per Camry.

The state of Michigan currently has the highest rate of unemployment in the nation at 9.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment office gives $300 in weekly benefits. So the $300 million is enough to pay unemployment compensation for 250,000 jobless Michigan residents for a whole month.