Tag: taxes

So Much For Billionaires: Joe Biden’s IRS Is Now Coming For Waiters’ And Waitresses’ Tips

The Biden administration’s lip service about new IRS enforcement only being targeted toward the country’s wealthiest appears to be just that: lip service.

Instead, while we have been distracted with rhetoric about billionaires paying their fair share, the Biden Administration’s IRS is actually looking to stock its coffers with the tips of waiters and waitresses across the country. This newly planned targeting of middle-class Americans was proposed this week.

Earlier this week the IRS proposed a new procedure to “improve tip reporting compliance”, as they so brilliantly put it. Fox News reported:

As part of the program, which wouldn’t go into effect until after a multi-month public comment period, the IRS could withdraw liability protection related to “rules that define tips as part of an employee’s pay” from employers that don’t cooperate.

The program can’t go into effect until it makes it through a multi-month comment period, Fox News reported.

Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., the chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax, told Fox this week: “Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Now, the IRS is going after middle-income families and working moms and dads who are just trying to make ends meet and put food on the table.” 

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By Shooting Down Balloon, the Expensive, Useless F-22 Fighter Finally Won a Dogfight

When it officially entered military service in 2005, the U.S. Air Force hailed the F-22 Raptor as an “exponential leap in warfighting capabilities.”

American taxpayers ultimately paid $67 billion to buy 187 of the planes, which had been in development since 1986 “to project air dominance, rapidly and at great distances” with technical capabilities that “cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft.”

On Saturday, the F-22 scored its first-ever victory against an airborne adversary when it shot down…a balloon.

There may not be a better metaphor for the costly grandiosity of the American military than the use of a multi-million-dollar fighter jet to dispatch an unarmed, unmaneuverable opponent. But the fact that the F-22 had never won a dogfight before its decisive victory over what may or may not have been a Chinese spy balloon is a nice illustration of why the United States has the world’s most expensive military by a massive margin.

In short, it’s because the Pentagon buys lots of expensive toys that have no use.

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Amid Spy Balloon Controversy, Biden Admin Approves $2.1 Billion Aid Package to Defend Ukrainian Skies

As national attention was captured by a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the United States, the Biden administration has approved another $2.1 billion military aid package to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense arsenal.

The package includes $425 million in arms and equipment drawn from existing U.S. stockpiles, as well as $1.75 billion in Ukraine Assistance Security Initiative (UASI) funds, which Ukraine can use to purchase new weapons—particularly those related to air defense—from manufactures contracted with the U.S. Department of Defense.

In Friday’s announcement, the Pentagon said the package includes “critical air defense capabilities to help Ukraine defend its people.”

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Planned New FBI HQ Is Twice the Size of the Pentagon

The federal government is proceeding with plans to build a new FBI headquarters complex twice the size of the Pentagon building. 

Riveted into the colossal new project are woke regulations to ensure that the FBI center will comply with diversity, equity, LGBTQ+, and climate change political goals. 

The plan, unveiled last September, has received little attention. For years the FBI has sought to vacate its present headquarters, a brutalist concrete bunker on stilts and occupying two city blocks between the White House and the Capitol. 

Plans for the new FBI headquarters specify that it will be built on one of three sites in suburban Virginia and Maryland. Those sites are large parcels of 58, 61, and 80 acres. 

That means, at minimum, the new FBI headquarters complex would be twice the size of the Pentagon building. Covering about 29 acres plus a five-acre courtyard, the Pentagon, until recently, was the largest office building on earth.   

The Kremlin in Moscow —a walled fortress containing the administrative offices of the Russian central government, the official presidential residence, massive auditoriums, an arsenal, a museum, four palaces, three cathedrals and several churches—is just over 66 acres in area. 

The General Services Administration, which administers federal properties, has selected the three sites. The 58-acre property in Springfield, Virginia, GSA says, is “federally owned land under the jurisdiction, custody, and control of GSA.” 

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Hunter Biden’s Metabiota Labs Received Tens of Millions of Dollars in DOD Contracts – Experimented with Bat Viruses in at least One Biolab

According to USASpending.gov, a database of spending by the US federal government, the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded tens of millions of dollars in contracts to Hunter Biden’s Metabiota labs.

Metabiota is a San Francisco-based health startup known for tracking epidemics. The company is mentioned on the Hunter Biden laptop.

Hunter Biden’s investment firm, Rosemont Seneca, invested $500,000 in Metabiota, and the company went on to raise several million more from investment giants like Goldman Sachs.

The firm has biolabs in several countries, including Ukraine, where Hunter played an important role in the company’s activities.

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IRS Targeting Fantasy Sports (and much more) with New Tax Code Change: “Most Americans are about to get run over, and they have no idea.”

The IRS continues to be in the news cycle due to a continuous back and forth about how much power it will continue to have, and whether or not it will be weaponized even further against the average American. Even with the current delay of the onerous attempt to hit gig workers with a $600 threshold for reporting, they forge ahead, empowered by an $80 billion investment under the Inflation Reduction Act and some new code changes.

First it was reported that a new IRS alert went out to explain that there would be a new question to answer regarding “digital assets” and how to stay in compliance. Failure to answer accurately could spark and audit and attendant consequences.

“All taxpayers must answer the question regardless of whether they engaged in any transactions involving digital assets,” the agency cautioned.

It is a legal requirement to accurately report all income, including income from digital assets, on federal income tax returns. Failure to do so could result in non-compliance with tax laws and possible penalties. – Source:  The Epoch Times

Now there is a new target for tax oversight: your friendly fantasy sports league. Clearly not intending to wage war against billionaire tax cheats as advertised, this latest code change is set to “cause a sizable increase in audits and taxes on Americans, especially those using transaction services like Venmo and PayPal for fantasy sports, according to tax experts,” reports Fox News.

One tax expert, Bruce Willey, even likened it to being put in the path of an oncoming truck.

“Most Americans are about to get run over, and they have no idea. If they’re not prepared for it, things could get pretty ugly for people,” he said.

The same previously mentioned mechanism for gig workers is finding its way into fantasy sports for those who use online apps as their payment systems. Additional scenarios and specifics were described by BakerHostetler Nationwide Tax Chair Jeff Paravano. As one should quickly see, it’s vague, extremely burdensome on all parties involved, and will likely do nothing except drive up the numbers of audits and extortion that will result.

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Recipient of $200M Federal Grant to Help Build Electric Vehicle Batteries in U.S. Must Pay $33.5M Fine for Pollution Overseas

Fires associated with EVs – including bikes and trucks – continue to be reported in the U.S. as well as worldwide.  Of course, there are numerous other issues associated with EVs – some of them environmental.  Nevertheless, the Biden Administration continues to promote EVs as environmentally friendly as well as fund their manufacturing, maintenance, and operation in the U.S.  We can only hope that some of the federal funding provided for a future EV battery plant in St. Louis, MO will be spent to prevent a situation like what already happened in Israel.

From St. Louis Today:

Company planning St. Louis expansion hit with $33 million fine for pollution overseas

The Israeli company planning an expansion to help build electric vehicle batteries in St. Louis reached an agreement last month to pay a $33.5 million fine for pollution in Israel — the largest such penalty in the country’s history, according to some reports.

ICL Group — which makes a range of chemicals, fertilizers, and industrial products — announced that the Dec. 14 settlement agreement between one of its subsidiaries and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority resolves issues sparked in 2017, when an evaporation pond wall collapsed at one of its fertilizer plants in southern Israel.

The incident spilled over 26 million gallons of highly acidic water across more than 12 miles of the surrounding desert and watershed, causing contamination and, according to Israeli news reports, killing a third of a local herd of rare ibex — a kind of wild goat known for long, curved horns.

In the aftermath, Israel’s Ministry of Environment launched a criminal investigation into the plant’s owner and ICL, its parent company.

“All the plants and animals in the valley during the tsunami of acid were probably highly damaged, probably dead,” said Oded Netzer, an ecologist for the ministry, Reuters reported in 2017. “In the long term, there will be soil damage and large functional ecological problems.”

Through the new settlement, ICL’s subsidiary agreed to pay for restoration of the contaminated area and other things, such as legal expenses. The financial impact on ICL “is not expected to be material,” the company said in a recent summary posted to its website.

ICL did not respond to requests for an interview.

Chair of California’s Reparations Task Force Says Black People are Really Owed $1 Million Each

A few weeks ago, I reported that a nine-member California Reparations Task Force has estimated that black state residents could receive more than $223,000 each in reparations for the enduring economic effects of racism and slavery.

To put that amount in perspective, it has been estimated that it would cost around $569 billion to compensate the 2.5 million black Californians. That total is more than California’s $512.8billion expenditure in 2021 – which included funding for schools, hospitals, universities, and other civilization-essential services.

Now, the chair of California’s Reparations Task Force has said that black people are really owed $1 million each for “harms.”

Speaking with the Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Kamilah Moore said her task force found that California’s redlining housing practices targeting black Americans between 1933 and 1977 has had a direct effect on today’s homeless community.

Dubbing housing discrimination as one of the ‘five state sanction atrocities’ against black people, the panel initially recommended to California lawmakers that the state pay up $223,200 to each black resident.

Moore previously said economists on the panel estimated that black Californians descended from slaves were owed $1 million per person in reparations.

. . . . Prior to the task force’s first public meeting last month, Moore discussed the group’s work with economists on how to put a value on the ‘atrocities’ that impacted the black community.

‘They came up with $127,000 per year of the life expectancy gap between Black and white Californians,’ Moore said during a panel at Harvard. ‘That comes to just under $1 million for each Black Californian descended from slaves.’

Moore noted that ‘California can’t pay all that,’ so the task force will be spending the next six months hammering out an adequate value and payment method to recommend to state lawmakers.’

So, I guess the $223,000 each is a compromise we should be grateful for.

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Gavin Newsom’s Wife Rakes in Cash Charging California Public Schools To Screen Her Woke Movies

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) wife has charged the state’s public schools as much as $1.5 million to screen her documentaries on “gender justice” and “corporate exploitation.”

“First Partner” Jennifer Siebel Newsom has raised nearly $1.5 million from film licenses and nearly $1.7 million from sales since 2012, according to the watchdog group Open the Books. Her nonprofit, the Representation Project, charges schools an average $270 to license documentaries like The Great American Lie, which says sexism causes economic inequality, and Fair Play, about women who want to do less housework. While the group does not specify how much it earned from schools, Open the Books says it could easily account for all or nearly all her $1.5 million in streaming revenue.

Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit could pose an ethical problem for her husband as he considers a presidential run. The Representation Project drew criticism in 2019 for accepting $358,000 in donations from the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), the utility company responsible for some of the state’s worst wildfires. PG&E is listed as an associate producer on two of Siebel Newsom’s films and hosted a screening of her first movie, Miss Representation, in 2011, when Newsom was mayor of San Francisco.

PG&E isn’t the only Newsom donor with ties to the Representation Project. The governor and his wife for years have raised money from the same donors and corporations—he for his political campaigns and she for her nonprofit.

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