WASHINGTON — The Biden administration, bowing to an aggressive lobbying campaign by the banking industry and pushback from Republicans, has agreed to support a far more limited plan for the Internal Revenue Service to try to crack down on tax cheats.
Senate Democrats are expected to roll out a new proposal on Tuesday that would narrow the scope of information that banks would have to provide to the Internal Revenue Service about customer accounts. Under the new plan, banks would only be required to provide data on accounts with total annual deposits or withdrawals worth more than $10,000, rather than the $600 threshold that was initially proposed. The reporting requirement would not apply to payroll deposits for wage and salary earners or to beneficiaries of federal programs such as Social Security.
The narrowing of the plan comes after a steady lobbying campaign by banks and a rhetorical barrage from Republicans, who argued that the Biden administration’s desire to bolster the I.R.S. to shrink the $7 trillion so-called “tax gap” amounts to an invasion of privacy and government overreach.
Critics of the proposal have incorrectly suggested that the I.R.S. would be tracking information about individual transactions. The administration has said the I.R.S. would not monitor specific customer transactions but would instead use the bank account information to spot discrepancies between what individuals report on their tax returns and what their bank accounts show.
The Biden administration insists that audit rates for those making less than $400,000 would not go up and that the program is focused on collecting unpaid taxes from the rich.
But Republicans, who have expressed distrust of the agency for years, continued to criticize the proposal as an invasion of privacy.
“Whether it’s $600 or $10,000, under this proposal, the intimate financial details of everyone in this room — at a minimum, of every American who has a job — will be turned over on a daily basis to the I.R.S.,” Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, told reporters, despite the proposal’s exemption of payroll deposits. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, warned darkly, “Marx is at the doorstep.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was set in prepared remarks to call the Republican accusations a flat-out “lie” promulgated by lawmakers at the behest of “donors and allies” who “want nothing more than a crippled I.R.S. unable to go after their cheating.” Under the revised plan, banks would not send daily transaction reports but rather “two numbers once per year,” Mr. Wyden will say, “the total amount going into an account, and the total amount going out of it.”
But the campaign has taken its toll. The Treasury Department said that the Biden administration would back the narrower proposal because the I.R.S. already has information about American workers and retirees. While it would give the agency visibility into far fewer bank accounts, Treasury on Tuesday said in a fact sheet that “only those accruing other forms of income in opaque ways are a part of the reporting regime.”
“Today’s new proposal reflects the administration’s strong belief that we should zero in on those at the top of the income scale who don’t pay the taxes they owe, while protecting American workers by setting the bank account threshold at $10,000 and providing an exemption for wage earners like teachers and firefighters,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement.
Today’s Congressional tax compliance proposal reflects the Administration’s strong belief that we should zero in on those at the top of the income scale who don’t pay the taxes they owe, while protecting American workers who do.
— Secretary Janet Yellen (@SecYellen) October 19, 2021
My full statement on the tax compliance proposal: pic.twitter.com/rKOXif3lHg
Mr. Wyden and Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, will unveil the new plan on Tuesday afternoon.
“The main reason Republicans have latched on to this issue as the one to lie about every day is because they know their tax agenda is a political loser,” Mr. Wyden will say, according to his prepared remarks. “The American people overwhelmingly want to ensure mega-corporations and billionaires pay their fair share, so Republicans have largely given up on their tired-trickle down arguments.”
Banks already submit tax forms to the I.R.S. about the interest that customer accounts accrue. But the new proposal would require they share information about account balances so that the I.R.S. can see if there are large discrepancies between the income people and businesses report and what they have in the bank. The I.R.S. could investigate the gaps to see if those taxpayers are evading their obligations.
The Treasury Department has estimated that its original proposal to require banks to report account balances, along with plans to beef up the enforcement staff at the I.R.S., could raise $700 billion over a decade.
In a letter to House Democrats last month, Ms. Yellen urged lawmakers not to water down the information-reporting proposal. Originally, that part of the plan was projected to raise $460 billion over a decade. The Treasury Department estimated that the narrower plan that Congress had been considering could raise between $200 billion and $250 billion over that time.
The Treasury Department believes that those are conservative estimates and that the “deterrent effects” of the policies could still generate $700 billion of additional tax collection in next decade.
WASHINGTON — Facebook agreed on Tuesday to pay up to $14.25 million to settle claims brought by the federal government in the waning days of the Trump administration that the company had discriminated against American workers.
The Justice Department sued the company in December, arguing that Facebook had declined to “recruit, consider or hire” qualified Americans for more than 2,000 positions. Instead, prosecutors accused the company of giving those jobs to foreign workers who held work visas.
The agreement with the Justice Department included payments of $4.75 million to the government and as much as $9.5 million to “eligible victims of Facebook’s alleged discrimination,” according to a news release. The company also separately settled concerns raised by the Labor Department this year over whether it violated labor regulations.
A Facebook spokesman, Andy Stone, said that the company believed it had met the government standards but that the settlements allowed the company to move forward.
“These resolutions will enable us to continue our focus on hiring the best builders from both the U.S. and around the world, and supporting our internal community of highly skilled visa holders who are seeking permanent residence,” he said in a statement.
This is a breaking news article. Check back for updates.
U.S. stocks rose in midday trading on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 up about 0.7 percent. The benchmark index is on track for its fifth-consecutive day of gains and is up nearly 5 percent since its Oct. 4 nadir after a slide in September.
Cryptocurrency prices rose, with Bitcoin reaching $63,300, according to CoinDesk. On Tuesday, ProShares will offer a long-awaited exchange-traded fund on the New York Stock Exchange linked to Bitcoin futures, and Bitcoin has been trading at prices not seen since April.
Price of Bitcoin
A series of companies will publish their quarterly financial performance reports this week. United Airlines and Netflix will report their results Tuesday afternoon.
Johnson & Johnson reported that sales grew 10.7 percent to more than $23 billion in the third quarter compared with the same period last year. Shares of the pharmaceutical manufacturer rose 2.6 percent in midday trading.
Procter & Gamble stock fell about 1.8 percent in midday trading after the company reported it experienced higher commodity and freight costs during the three months ending in September.
Oil prices rose on Tuesday, with West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, gaining as much as 1.5 percent to $83.63 a barrel. Oil futures are at seven-year highs and are up 70 percent this year amid a global energy crunch that is pushing prices higher for other commodities.
Oil prices are at seven-year highs, with the cost of West Texas Intermediate crude, the United States benchmark, up 70 percent this year, at more than $80 per barrel. It’s part of a global energy crunch that is pushing prices higher for all types of fuels, including natural gas and coal, the DealBook newsletter reports.
Price of W.T.I. crude oil
Many Wall Street forecasters believe oil prices are about to peak. Oil usage is up from 2020 but below what it was in 2019, when oil prices were lower than they are now. Analysts at Goldman Sachs last week predicted that the price of a barrel of oil could average $85 for the next few years.
But some traders are betting oil will rise much more. The most widely held option is one that pays out if oil rises higher than $100 a barrel by the end of December. Options trades with strike prices as high as $200 by the end of next year have also been made lately.
Who is right? The question of whether oil prices have nearly peaked or are about to rise much higher rests on what’s driving them up in the first place. Two possibilities:
-
Short-term, pandemic-induced disruptions: Demand for oil — like the market for many goods — is rising faster than producers can ramp up supply (or, in the case of OPEC, are willing to). If that is the case, oil prices are probably near their highs. With China’s economy slowing and the U.S. recovery hitting a weak patch, oil demand is not likely to grow very rapidly in the near future. That should give supply time to catch up, especially as pandemic disruptions fade.
-
A long-term mismatch between supply and demand rooted in climate change: A recent report from the International Energy Agency found that in order for countries like the United States to become carbon neutral by 2050, oil usage must peak by 2025. Yet, based on current investments, green power generation won’t be enough to supplant oil consumption until 2035. This year’s price jump could be the market’s warning sign about future energy crunches and price spikes.
The global economy’s setback from the pandemic is expected to largely stabilize by the end of next year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday, with most major economies returning to a prepandemic growth path by 2025 at the latest.
But the rebound could be delayed if the pandemic drives a retreat from globalization, the organization said, as governments and business leaders begin to question whether global supply chains have been stretched too far. And governments must begin taking action to reduce the towering amounts of debt left behind by stimulus measures.
“Long-run scenarios assume no lingering growth effects” on the global economy beyond 2022, the organization said in a new report on the fiscal outlook through 2060. But that could turn out “to be an optimistic assumption if, for instance, the pandemic ushers in a de-globalisation trend.”
Businesses of all sizes have been facing delays, product shortages and rising costs linked to disruptions in the global supply chain. The pandemic has starkly revealed the dependence that Western nations in particular have on foreign supplies as diverse as medical equipment and semiconductors.
Policymakers in the United States, Europe and other nations are increasingly examining whether production should be brought back home to address national security and public health concerns.
But such a shift, should it takes hold, could wind up hurting economies more than it helps.
“We’re seeing warning signs about globalized production from Covid, the supply chain crisis and also Brexit, which is adding more barriers and more production at home,” said Bert Colijn, a senior economist at ING Bank.
“But it’s a very efficient process that’s been set up, and taking production back to your own country is something that would likely result in a loss of productivity and competitiveness,” he said.
An earlier study by the organization found that re-localizing a production process that is spread across different countries, known as a global value chain, would make those countries less exposed to foreign shocks, but also less efficient and less able to cushion shocks through trade.
Reshoring production could jeopardize productivity and raise costs, said the organization, which concluded that the case for making economies less interconnected was “weak.”
Countries can ill afford to trip up the budding economic rebound from the pandemic as they grapple with repairing large holes in their finances brought on by lockdowns and support programs. Governments borrowed heavily from central banks and spent enormous sums to support businesses and individuals from the economic ravages of lockdowns.
The national debt of major countries will balloon next year by as much as 25 percentage points of their gross domestic product because of pandemic-related effects, the report said. Most central banks have lent the money at ultra-low rates, so the interest payments that governments owe are manageable, assuming they are continuously rolled over, the O.E.C.D. report said.
Even so, nearly all of the 35 countries that are members of the organization, including United States and European nations, will need to rein in spending and start collecting more revenue for national coffers within the next couple of years if they are to stabilize the share of public debt over the long term, the report said.
To get on a more sustainable financial footing, countries need to get more ambitious about lowering pension costs, in part by raising national retirement ages, and introducing labor reforms intended to strengthen employment. Failing to take action would deal a serious blow to the economy’s growth potential in the coming decades, the O.E.C.D. said.
The organization said it was not recommending that governments raise taxes to make up for all the shortfall. But the analysis in the report showed that all O.E.C.D. governments would need to raise taxes to prevent gross government debt ratios from rising over time.
And despite the financial burden brought on by emergency government spending during the pandemic, the direct fiscal impact pales in comparison to looming long-term expenses like funding pensions and health services as societies age, the organization said.
Unless governments start reducing their debt, “population aging and the rising relative price of public services will keep adding fiscal pressure onto O.E.C.D. countries in the decades ahead,” the report concluded.
Supply chain woes caused by the coronavirus pandemic are causing delays, product shortages and rising costs, frustrating businesses large and small. And consumers are confronted with an experience once rare in modern times: no stock available, and no idea when it will come in.
Peter S. Goodman, a global economics correspondent for The New York Times, answered common questions about what’s going on with the supply chain:
4 Questions About the Supply Chain
4 Questions About the Supply Chain
Supply chain issues have made all kinds of products — paint and lumber, certain foods, clothing and electronics — harder to find.
I’ll walk you through what to know →
At the laboratory of Tokamak Energy, in a business park outside Oxford, England, there is a warning on the public address system every 15 to 20 minutes that a test is coming and everyone should stay out of the room with the fusion device, which is 14 feet high with thick steel walls. There is a whirring sound that lasts about a second. Then a monitor shows an eerie pulsing video of the inside of the device as a powerful beam blasts into superheated gas known as a plasma.
During the test, Tokamak’s prototype machine reached 11 million degrees Celsius. The scientists figure they need to reach 100 million degrees Celsius, or about seven times the temperature at the core of the sun. They expect to get there by year’s end.
No one knows when fusion energy will become commercially viable, but rising alarm about global warming is driving private investments. The British government even recently saw the need to issue regulations for fusion energy. READ THE ARTICLE →
Workers and organizers involved in an effort to unionize Buffalo-area Starbucks locations say the company has imported “support managers” as part of a counteroffensive intended to intimidate workers, disrupt normal operations and undermine support for the union.
Starbucks says the additional managers, along with an increase in the number of workers in stores and the arrival of a top corporate executive from out of town, are standard company practices. It says the changes, which also include temporarily shutting down stores in the area, are intended to help improve training and staffing — longstanding issues — and that they are a response not to the union campaign but to input the company solicited from employees.
“The listening sessions led to requests from partners that resulted in those actions,” said Reggie Borges, a Starbucks spokesman.
Many of the ways Starbucks has responded in Buffalo — where union backers seek to become part of Workers United, an affiliate of the giant Service Employees International Union — are typical of employers, reports Noam Scheiber, The New York Times’s labor reporter. The measures include holding meetings with employees in which company officials question the need for a third party to represent them.
But some of the company’s actions during the union campaign are unorthodox, according to labor law experts. “A huge increase in staffing, shutting down stores, it’s all unusual,” said Matthew Bodie, a law professor at St. Louis University who is a former labor board attorney.
A recent visit to a Starbucks near the airport, where workers have filed for a union election, turned up at least nine baristas behind the counter but only a handful of customers.
“It’s insane,” said Alexis Rizzo, a longtime Starbucks employee who has been a leader of the organizing campaign at the store.
Ms. Rizzo said the number of employees in the store made those who predate the union election filing feel outnumbered and demoralized. Starbucks said the additional personnel were intended to help the store after an uptick in workers who were out sick.
The prospect that Starbucks workers in Buffalo could form a union appears to reflect a recent increase in labor activism nationwide. READ THE ARTICLE →
Erin Griffith (@eringriffith) and Erin Woo (@erinkwoo), two of our tech reporters, are covering the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford University to create the blood testing start-up Theranos at age 19 and built it to a $9 billion valuation and herself into the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire — only to flame out in disgrace after Theranos’s technology was revealed to have problems.
Follow along here or on Twitter as she is tried on 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The trial is generally held Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Erin Woo
We’ve spent the morning so far looking at different email chains in which Daniel Young instructed Edlin to change or remove abnormal test results from demo reports. Holmes has been included on many of these emails.
Erin Woo
The jury is seated, and Daniel Edlin is back on the stand. We’re starting again with a recap of Theranos demos. Last Friday, we discussed how they used the “demo app,” which shielded device failures from view, or the “null protocol,” which wouldn’t actually analyze the sample.
Erin Woo
Good morning! I’m in the courtroom in San Jose. We’re starting with Daniel Edlin, a former senior product manager at Theranos (and college buddy of Christian Holmes). Based on pretrial arguments, we’ll have former Pfizer diagnostics director Shane Weber next.
Erin Woo
With that, we're breaking for the weekend. We'll pick up with Edlin on Tuesday.
Erin Woo
We’re looking at an email chain between Edlin, Daniel Young, Michael Craig and others, preparing for a tech demonstration. They decide to go with the demo app, which “shields protocol failures from the client,” Craig wrote. If an error had taken place, it wouldn’t show on the screen that an error had taken place. It would say running or processing, Edlin said.
Two weeks after the debut of Dave Chappelle’s standup special “The Closer” on Netflix, the streaming giant is still grappling with internal backlash as a group of staffers prepare to stage a virtual walkout on Wednesday.
The walkout is the latest episode of employee unrest surrounding the special, leading to the kind of tough news coverage normally aimed at other tech companies like Facebook and Google.
Many Netflix staffers were angered by Mr. Chappelle’s special, criticizing it as transphobic and harmful to transgender people. Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief executives, have been steadfast in their support of Mr. Chappelle in multiple communications with staff, and have argued that his special has been popular with subscribers and would not lead to real world harm.
On Wednesday morning, a rally is scheduled for outside Netflix’s Los Angeles headquarters, as “a kickoff” to the walkout, according to a social media post announcing the protest. The rally will include activists and public figures, and a “list of firm asks” will be sent to Mr. Sarandos, according to the post.
One Netflix staffer, Terra Field, a software engineer who has been outspoken in her opposition to “The Closer,” wrote a blog post on Medium on Monday detailing her “whirlwind” experience since posting a viral thread on Oct. 6 that said Mr. Chappelle’s special “attacks the trans community, and the very validity of transness.”
In the post, Ms. Field, who is transgender, said she was not asking that “The Closer” be removed from Netflix. Rather, she hoped executives would take concrete actions, including to “stop pretending that transphobia in media has no effect on society.” Ms. Field said she hoped Netflix would attach a warning to “The Closer” and other series on the streaming service that have been criticized as transphobic, and to promote “other queer and trans content after people consume that content.”
Of “The Closer,” Ms. Field wrote: “It doesn’t feel good to have been working at the company that put it out there. Especially when we’ve spent years building out the company’s policies and benefits so that it would be a great place for trans people to work.
“A place can’t be a great place to work if someone has to betray their community to do so,” she added.
There have already been several moments of tension between rank-and-file Netflix employees and top executives in recent days. At an emotional companywide meeting on Friday, several staffers asked tough and persistent questions of Mr. Sarandos about the special and the company’s response to the criticism of it. After the meeting ended, Netflix said that it fired a staffer for leaking documents to the news media.
“We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix,” a company representative said, “but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company.”
Nicole Sperling contributed reporting.
"peak" - Google News
October 20, 2021 at 12:06AM
https://ift.tt/3vq6yMI
Democrats will scale back a proposal to require banks to report balances to the I.R.S. - The New York Times
"peak" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2KZvTqs
https://ift.tt/2Ywz40B
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Democrats will scale back a proposal to require banks to report balances to the I.R.S. - The New York Times"
Post a Comment