There has not been much talk from Congress about corporate malfeasance and abuses since the eruption of the Enron and WorldCom scandals. But recent reports suggest Washington might finally be going after abusive tax shelters utilized by some major U.S. corporations.

The current target, labeled "lease fleece" by former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards involves major American companies making cash payments to European cities to "lease" a bridge or subway system. Then the American company leases the facility back to the European city, and gets to deduct millions of dollars from its federal tax bill related to depreciation of the bridge or subway.

This particular scam is estimated to have cost the U.S. Treasury more than $1.4 billion over the past decade. The General Accounting Office estimates this and similarly complicated and equally abusive tax shelters have cost taxpayers close to $87 billion in recent years.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., reported that the GAO and the Internal Revenue Service have identified 300 companies that are promoting such abusive tax shelter schemes to corporate or high-income clients.

Taxpayers should not need reminding that when major corporations or wealthy individuals find such unethical ways to evade taxes, it is average, law-abiding taxpayer that picks up the tab.

Instead of arguing about repealing some or all of President Bush's tax cuts, Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry should pick up on Edwards' theme of increasing Treasury revenue by shutting down abusive tax shelters. Making sure that every company, and every individual, is paying their fair share of taxes will not only raise billions of dollars for the federal government, but it will also send the message to average taxpayers that the system is fair - and that cheaters will be caught and punished.

Such abusive tax shelters will not be simple to eliminate; they are generally created and marketed by national accounting or investment banking interests - companies that are well represented lobbyists in Washington.

The "lease fleece" program is reportedly also practiced in the U.S., where major cities, such as Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., have found help for their strapped budgets with the fees paid by major corporations for the right to win big tax breaks by leasing infrastructure back to the cities.

Congress should move quickly to stop such abusive tax shelters, which are entered into for no economic reason other than tax avoidance.

Relevant laws should be strengthened to clearly target illegal, abusive tax shelters. In addition to shutting down abusive shelters and collecting back taxes owed the Treasury, serious penalties should be applied.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has correctly noted that the current $1,000 penalties for both promoting illegal tax shelters and for assisting another person's tax avoidance are "a joke." Thousand dollar fines don't have much deterrent effect when dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars of tax avoidance and million-dollar fees to promoters of tax avoidance schemes.

In addition, some high profile indictments and court cases, along the lines of Martha Stewart, Tyco and WorldCom, might provide added disincentive to those engaged in promoting or participating in such schemes.

Retrieving the money owed the Treasury is an important aspect of crackdown, but maintaining faith in the overall fairness of the system is equally vital. When average Americans see big corporations and the wealthiest of their fellow citizens using illegal or unethical tax avoidance schemes, it leads to a broader acceptance of cheating on their own taxes - an attitudinal shift the IRS says is already happening.

Voters and taxpayers alike should press politicians to get serious about stopping abusive tax shelters. It's something Bush and Kerry can agree on, and something Congress should do - quickly.