US taxation

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      US senators to start debate on breakthrough bipartisan gun violence bill – live

      by

      The Senate doesn’t pass gun control legislation very often, and if approved, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act would be the most significant such bill since 1993.It’s also only a small step compared to what gun control advocates would like to see happen. But Republicans have little political inclination to crack down on firearm access, and thus, this bill represents the best offer Democrats are likely to get — a fact Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is aware of.The proposal would increase background checks on gun buyers under the age of 21, give money to states to implement red-flag laws, tighten gun ownership restrictions on people who abuse previous romantic partners and fund mental health services, among other provisions. It does not raise the minimum age to buy an assault weapon to 21, as some Democrats hoped it would, nor does it come anywhere near restoring the assault weapons ban or outlawing high-capacity magazines, as President Joe Biden has called for.A reminder of what finally spurred lawmakers to act on the contentious subject: the massacre of 21 students and teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the racist killings of 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.The Biden administration is stepping up its efforts to stop Americans from smoking by moving to cut down on nicotine content in cigarettes and banning Juul’s e-cigarettes.The Wall Street Journal reports that the Food and Drug Administration could as soon as today announce its decision against Juul following a two-year review of data provided by the company:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Uncertainty has clouded Juul since it landed in the FDA’s sights four years ago, when its fruity flavors and hip marketing were blamed for fueling a surge of underage vaping. The company since then has been trying to regain the trust of regulators and the public. It limited its marketing and in 2019 stopped selling sweet and fruity flavors. Juul’s sales have tumbled in recent years.
      The FDA has barred the sale of all sweet and fruity e-cigarette cartridges. The agency has cleared the way for Juul’s biggest rivals, Reynolds American Inc. and NJOY Holdings Inc., to keep tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes on the market. Industry observers had expected Juul to receive similar clearance.
      Juul had no immediate comment. The company could pursue an appeal through the FDA, challenge the decision in court or file a revised application for its products.Meanwhile, Reuters yesterday reported that the Biden administration would like to put a maximum cap on nicotine content in a bid to help Americans quit tobacco use and stop getting hooked in the first place:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The proposal comes as the Biden administration doubles down on fighting cancer-related deaths.
      Earlier this year, the government announced plans to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years.
      Nicotine is the addictive substance in tobacco. Tobacco products also contain several harmful chemicals, many of which could cause cancer.
      Tobacco use costs nearly $300bn a year in direct healthcare and lost productivity, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).US to propose limiting nicotine levels in cigarettesRead moreThe city of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota has agreed to pay $3.2 million and change its police training and traffic stop policies in a settlement stemming from the shooting death of Duante Wright last year, the Associated Press reports.The payment will go to the family of Wright, a Black man who was shot by Kim Potter, a white police officer who pulled him over for expired registration tags in April 2021. She was earlier this year sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of first- and second-degree manslaughter.According to the AP:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Wright’s family members “hope and believe the measures of change to policing, policies and training will create important improvements to the community in Daunte’s name,” said co-counsel Antonio M. Romanucci. “Nothing can bring him back, but the family hopes his legacy is a positive one and prevents any other family from enduring the type of grief they will live with for the rest of their lives.”
      The Associated Press left a message Wednesday seeking comment from the mayor’s office.
      The shooting happened at a time of high tension in the area, with former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, standing trial just miles away for the killing of George Floyd, who was Black. Floyd’s May 2020 death prompted a reckoning over police brutality and discrimination involving people of color.
      The fallout from Wright’s death led the Brooklyn Center City Council to pass a series of reforms, including the use of social workers and other trained professionals to respond to medical, mental health and social-needs calls that don’t require police.
      The changes also prohibit police from making arrests for low-level offenses and require the city to use unarmed civilians to handle minor traffic violations.Brooklyn Center approves policing changes after Daunte Wright shootingRead moreThe supreme court has added a second upcoming decision release day to its calendar: Friday. The justices had already to issue their latest opinions on Thursday, and the additional day will give them more time to work through the backlog of cases they have yet to publicly announce rulings on.The court is expected to continue its rightward streak in its upcoming decisions, which could deal with some of the must contentious issues in American society, including abortion, gun access and environmental regulation. Indeed, an unprecedented leak of their draft opinion on an abortion access case before them shows the conservative majority ready to overturn Roe v Wade entirely. They are also viewed as leaning towards rolling back restrictions on carrying concealed weapons and weakening the government’s ability to enforce regulations. For an idea of how a gas tax holiday might work at the federal level, The Wall Street Journal went to Connecticut to see if the state legislature’s decision to suspend part of its gas tax made consumers any happier.It did not:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Connecticut was one of the first states in the U.S. to suspend part of its gasoline tax, but Ana Rodriguez, after refueling her 2017 Toyota Highlander here, said she barely noticed.
      The 35-year-old social worker spent $67 and didn’t leave with a full tank as she usually does.
      “It affects the trust that I have in them,” Ms. Rodriguez said of state lawmakers. “It makes me not want to vote.”
      President Biden is planning to call for a temporary suspension of the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents a gallon, according to people familiar with the matter. If Connecticut’s experience with suspending its own 25-cent-a-gallon tax is any guide, a federal hiatus might not get noticed by consumers or relieve much political heat.
      “Consumers are a very poor gauge because they don’t understand that the wholesale price of fuel may be rising just as the tax holiday was implemented, so it offsets it,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for price tracker GasBuddy.The federal gas tax holiday the Biden administration is set to propose is billed as an attempt to lower prices at the pump, but as Nina Lakhani reports, it may not work:Joe Biden will call on Congress today to temporarily suspend federal gasoline and diesel taxes in an attempt to quell voter anger at the surging cost of fuel.In a speech on Wednesday afternoon, Biden is expected to ask the House to pause the federal taxes – about 18¢ per gallon for gas and 24¢ per gallon for diesel – until the end of September.Biden will also call on states to suspend local fuel taxes and urge oil refining companies to increase capacity – just days after accusing executives of profiteering and “worsening the pain” for consumers.If all the measures Biden will call for are adopted, prices could drop by about $1 per gallon at the pumps, according to senior officials who briefed CNN, although energy experts have questioned the effectiveness of gas tax holidays.Biden to urge Congress to suspend gas tax for three monthsRead moreYesterday’s January 6 hearing gave further details of the fake electors plot Trump pursued to try to throw the 2020 election his way, and The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that the justice department has taken notice of what the committee found:The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack made the case at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that the Trump 2020 campaign tried to obstruct Joe Biden’s election win through a potentially illegal scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.The panel presented a text message sent on 4 January 2021 that appeared to indicate the Trump campaign was seeking to use fraudulent election certificates they would have known were not state-certified to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s win.“Freaking Trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the Senate president,” Mark Jefferson, the executive director of the Republican party in Wisconsin said in the text, seemingly referring to the Trump campaign and then vice-president Mike Pence.Panel makes case that Trump campaign knew fake electors scheme was fraudulentRead moreThe Senate doesn’t pass gun control legislation very often, and if approved, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act would be the most significant such bill since 1993.It’s also only a small step compared to what gun control advocates would like to see happen. But Republicans have little political inclination to crack down on firearm access, and thus, this bill represents the best offer Democrats are likely to get — a fact Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is aware of.The proposal would increase background checks on gun buyers under the age of 21, give money to states to implement red-flag laws, tighten gun ownership restrictions on people who abuse previous romantic partners and fund mental health services, among other provisions. It does not raise the minimum age to buy an assault weapon to 21, as some Democrats hoped it would, nor does it come anywhere near restoring the assault weapons ban or outlawing high-capacity magazines, as President Joe Biden has called for.A reminder of what finally spurred lawmakers to act on the contentious subject: the massacre of 21 students and teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the racist killings of 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.Good morning, US politics blog readers. After days of negotiations, a bipartisan bill to address gun violence has finally been released, and all Democratic senators as well as a handful of Republicans last night approved the start of debate on the proposal. Meanwhile, another set of primary elections gave a mixed verdict on Donald Trump’s ability to influence voters.Here’s what else is happening today:
      Joe Biden is set to propose a three-month holiday in the federal gas tax in a bid to lower pump prices, which have soared in recent months.
      The Uvalde, Texas school where last month’s mass shooting occurred will be demolished, the city’s mayor announced.
      Bill Cosby sexually abused a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy mansion nearly 50 years ago, a civil court found, and awarded her $500,000.
      Yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing dived deeper into the fake electors scheme Trump hoped would allow him to subvert the will of the voters in the 2020 election, and the justice department is investigating whether those involved in the plot should face charges. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Ron DeSantis Disney attack violates Republican principles, GOP rival says

      by

      Ron DeSantis Disney attack violates Republican principles, GOP rival saysAsa Hutchinson of Arkansas appears to have no problem with anti-LGBTQ+ policies but says private business should not be target

      This Will Not Pass review: Dire reading for Democrats
      The “revenge” political attack on Disney by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, for opposing his “don’t say gay” law violates the party’s mantra of restrained government, his counterpart in Arkansas said.Democratic senator Joe Manchin cuts ad for West Virginia RepublicanRead moreDeSantis and Asa Hutchinson could be rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. On Sunday, Hutchinson laid out his position on CNN’s State of the Union.“I don’t believe that government should be punitive against private businesses because we disagree with them,” the Arkansas governor said, referring to the law DeSantis signed last week dissolving Disney’s 55-year right to self-government through its special taxing district in Florida.“That’s not the right approach… to me it’s the old Republican principle of having a restrained government.”Critics have criticised DeSantis for escalating his feud with the theme park giant, his state’s largest private employer, over the “don’t say gay” law, which bans classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades.Many educators believe the law is “hurtful and insulting” and threatens support for LBGTQ+ students in schools. Equality advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against it.“They are abusing their power and trying to scare Floridians and businesses away from expressing any support for that community,” a Democratic state representative, Carlos Guillermo Smith, has said.Hutchinson appeared to have no problem with DeSantis going after the LGBTQ+ community.“The law that was passed is to me common sense that in those grades, those lower grades, you shouldn’t be teaching sexual orientation, those matters that should not be covered at that age,” he said.“[But] let’s do the right thing. It’s a fair debate about the special tax privileges, I understand that debate. But let’s not go after businesses and punish them because we disagree with what they say.“I disagree with a punitive approach to businesses. Businesses make mistakes, [Disney] shouldn’t have gone there, but we should not be punishing them for their private actions.”Disney struck back at DeSantis this week by informing investors that the state cannot dissolve its status without first paying off the company’s bond debts, reported by CNN to be about $1bn.Biden’s top border official not worried about Republican impeachment threatsRead moreThe dispute centers on an entity called the Reedy Creek improvement district, established by Florida lawmakers in 1967 to allow Disney to raise its own taxes and provide essential government services as it began to construct its theme park empire.DeSantis’s law seeks to eliminate all special taxing districts created before 1968. Analysts predict families in two counties that Disney’s land covers could face property tax rises of thousands of dollars each if Reedy Creek is terminated next summer.DeSantis insisted during a Fox News town hall on Thursday that Disney would be responsible for paying its debts. Without providing details, he promised “additional legislative action” to fix the issue, CNN said.TopicsRon DeSantisFloridaUS politicsRepublicansWalt Disney CompanyLGBT rightsUS educationnewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris again earns over twice as much as Joe Biden, tax returns show

      by

      Kamala Harris again earns over twice as much as Joe Biden, tax returns showThe vice-president and her husband reported a gross income of $1.7m while the Bidens made $611,000 Kamala Harris and her husband earned more than twice as much as Joe Biden and his wife did last year, according to copies of their income tax returns released on Friday.Harris and the so-called second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, reported a federal adjusted gross income of about $1.7m in 2021, which was about the same they claimed to have earned the prior year. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Tax the rich: these one percenters want people like them to pay higher taxes

      by

      Tax the rich: these one percenters want people like them to pay higher taxesMembers of the Patriotic Millionaires say the income gap in the US has become a disaster – and it’s time to ‘take that money back’ The sound system played Pink Floyd’s Money as the Patriotic Millionaires assembled in the boutique Eaton hotel in Washington DC last week. After compulsory Covid tests there was a lot of well-heeled hugging and laughter among a crowd that looked like extras from Succession as they sat down at tables stacked with M&Ms stamped with “tax the rich”.This was the first time since the pandemic that the Patriotic Millionaires had assembled together in person. The group, founded in 2010, is made up of high net worth individuals who believe – counterintuitively these days – that the really rich should pay more taxes. And after a dozen often frustrating years some of them now believe change is coming.In the White House, Joe Biden has proposed new taxes on households worth more than $100m. The war in Ukraine has shown that the international community can, and will, crack down on oligarchs. Some of the workers who made fortunes for Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Starbucks’s Howard Schultz have successfully formed unions despite the millions both companies spent fighting them off.“No one was talking about taxing the rich when we started,” said Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director at BlackRock, the largest money manager in the world.Even the conversation seemed ridiculous under Donald Trump, Pearl added. “We have seen a huge change. You have a president talking about taxing the rich, people are talking about wealth taxes – those weren’t even fringe ideas 10 years ago. I’m not saying it’s going to happen and pass into law but there are conversations at the highest levels.”Part of the reason why those conversations are happening is that the situation has got so bad. Speaker after speaker at the one-day conference highlighted how the very, very rich have hijacked the political system around the world, run down wages and exacerbated income inequality, ramming home the title of the conference: Oligarchs vs All of Us: The Fight for Power & Money.Another member, Gary Stevenson, a British trader turned inequality economist, believes things are only going to get worse. Billionaires made fortunes from soaring stock markets, property prices and other assets during the pandemic. Government handouts have largely helped the rich, he argues. “If nothing is done this is going to be a massive disaster,” he said. “However bad you think things are, I guarantee they will get much, much worse.”When the pandemic struck there was talk of it being a great leveler – we were all in this together. In fact, Covid-19 exacerbated economic and racial inequalities. US billionaires received a $1.1tn windfall as their wealth soared to record levels. The billionaire class boomed in Asia and reached record levels in the UK. But as we emerge from the shadow of Covid-19, hoi poloi find themselves struggling with soaring inflation and rising cost of basics such as rent, utilities and food.For Stevenson this enormous explosion of wealth is “end of civilization stuff”. “There is one thing and one thing only that we can do,” he said. “We have got to take that money back.”But are rich – and overwhelmingly white – people the right people to push that message? Abigail Disney thinks so. Disney, the granddaughter of Roy Disney, co-founder of the Walt Disney Company, sees her family as a synechdoche for what has happened to the rest of America.The Disneys were already super-rich by the time Disney, 62, was born but their wealth grew enormously just as the gap between rich and poor has grown. “Money changed my family,” she said, and not for the better. Now, she says, those rich people live in another world and are unable to see what the consequences of rising inequality will be. Hearing that from one of their own breaks that barrier, she believes.“The only people billionaires will listen to are other billionaires and multimillionaires. You need at least the two commas. And if they won’t listen, there are their children and their wives, and they will listen,” she said.While her money opens the doors of power, Disney finds her message also discombobulates ordinary Americans. She is regularly assailed on Twitter for daring to suggest rich people should pay more taxes. The problem is that people have been convinced that “every single person in this country is a billionaire waiting to happen”, in an orchestrated campaign she believes was engineered to protect the wealth of the 1%.The last four decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth. Only problem is it went to those who were already wealthy. https://t.co/anTolPYv5g— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 5, 2022
      Hearing one of the 1% suggest that maybe that dream is a nightmare makes people crazy, she said. “The pushback I get is: ‘You never worked a day in your life! You don’t know anything!’ Well, you are right, you are making my point for me! I should not have this power and influence. Just keep making my point for me,” she said.“For me to be speaking out against my own supposed self-interest has a wow factor that catches the attention. I don’t want to ever stop doing that. We need to model what it looks like to not defend your own self-interest all the time. When you are fine and other people are not, you put aside your own self-interest and stick up for somebody else.”The chance of Biden’s tax cuts making it through Congress are slim. US politicians rely too heavily on the wealthy and some Democrats as well as Republicans will balk at taxing them more. But Disney argues that the debate has changed. After the pandemic, US oligarchs aren’t the heroes they once were and, notably, Republicans have so far steered clear of an all-out attack on Biden’s proposal.“Four years ago if you’d said ‘billionaires tax’ then they would have said you can’t bash billionaires, you’re encouraging class warfare. I haven’t heard a whiff of that,” said Disney. “Let’s not kid ourselves, the other side has tested that and found it isn’t working. That class war rhetoric isn’t working any more. And that’s good news. Because if we don’t ruffle some feathers now, we are going to have a class war. A real one.”TopicsUS income inequalityIncome inequalityUS politicsInequalityUS taxationfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Romney suggests cutting retirement benefits for younger Americans

      by

      Romney suggests cutting retirement benefits for younger AmericansRepublican raises politically controversial idea of cutting future benefits for younger generations before they reach retirement age Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney has addressed the vexing question of how the US copes with its ageing population, suggesting that retirement benefits may have to be cut for younger Americans.In comments to the Senate budget committee on Wednesday, the Republican senator from Utah said that the spiraling costs of retirement programs had to be tackled to bring national debt under control. Romney raised the politically controversial idea of cutting benefits, but only for younger generations before they reach retirement age.Supreme court ruling on Wisconsin maps highlights its hostility to voting rightsRead more“For younger people coming along, we got to be able to find a way to balance these programs or we’re gonna find ourselves in a heap of trouble,” he said. He added that he was not in favour of raising taxes as a way of balancing the books, but was open to adjusting “long-term benefits not for current retirees”.Romney’s remarks, first reported by Business Insider, open a can of worms often avoided by members of Congress given its intense political sensitivities. The programs in question include two of the most popular benefits in the country – social security and Medicare, which make up more than 40% of government spending.The backdrop to the issue is America’s ageing population. By 2034 projections suggest there will be 77 million Americans aged 65 and older – more than the projected 76.5 million under 18s.That means that for the first time in US history older people will outnumber children.That same year, 2034, the trust fund for social security is expected to run out, leaving the US government struggling to make full benefit payments. That looming deadline is a reflection of the intense and rising pressure on social security and Medicare given long-term funding shortfalls.Conservatives have consistently tried to chip away at the programs. Most recently, House Republicans proposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 69 and social security from 67 to 69.But in his Build Back Better plan, Joe Biden sought to protect and even extend the programs, adding hearing coverage to Medicare. The bill passed the House but was stalled in the US Senate.TopicsMitt RomneyUS politicsUS taxationnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden targets America’s wealthiest with proposed minimum tax on billionaires

      by

      Biden targets America’s wealthiest with proposed minimum tax on billionairesTax on households over $100m aims to ensure wealthiest Americans no longer pay lower rate than teachers and firefighters Joe Biden proposed a new tax on America’s richest households when he unveiled his latest budget on Monday.The Biden administration wants to impose a 20% minimum tax on households worth more than $100m. The proposal would raise more than $360bn over the next decade and “would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters”, according to a factsheet released by the White House.‘I make no apologies’: Biden stands by ‘Putin cannot remain in power’ remarkRead moreThe plan – called the “billionaire minimum income tax” – is the administration’s most aggressive move to date to tax the very wealthiest Americans.The tax is part of Biden’s $5.8tn budget proposal for 2023, which also sets aside billions for the police and military as well as investments in affordable housing, plans to tackle the US’s supply chain issues and gun violence.“Budgets are statements of values, and the budget I am releasing today sends a clear message that we value fiscal responsibility, safety and security at home and around the world, and the investments needed to continue our equitable growth and build a better America,” Biden said in a statement.Billionaire wealth grew significantly during the coronavirus pandemic, helped by soaring share prices and a tax regime that charges investors less on their gains than those taxed on their income.“In 2021 alone, America’s more than 700 billionaires saw their wealth increase by $1tn, yet in a typical year, billionaires like these would pay just 8% of their total realized and unrealized income in taxes. A firefighter or teacher can pay double that tax rate,” the White House factsheet notes.Under the plan households worth more than $100m would have to give detailed accounts to the Internal Revenue Service of how their assets had fared over the year. Those who pay less than 20% on those gains would then be subject to an additional tax that would take their rate up to 20%.The Biden administration calculates that the tax would affect only the top 0.01% of American households, those worth over $100m, and that more than half the revenue would come from households worth more than $1bn.The budget also looks set to tackle another issue that some economists have argued contributes to widening income inequality: share buybacks.In recent years cash-rich companies including Apple, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, have used their funds to buy back huge quantities of their own shares, boosting their share price. Last year companies in the S&P 500 bought back a record $882bn of their own shares and Goldman Sachs estimates that figure will rise to $1tn this year.Critics say that the purchases divert money from hiring new staff, raising wages and research and development.Research by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that there is “clear evidence that a substantial number of corporate executives today use buybacks as a chance to cash out”.The Biden proposal would stop executives from selling their shares for three years after a buyback is announced.Biden attempted to impose a 1% tax on share buybacks last year but the proposal failed in Congress. Both Biden’s billionaire tax and the share buyback proposal will also face tough opposition in Congress.TopicsUS taxationBiden administrationUS politicsUS economyJoe BidenUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More