Tag: taxes

US To Spend $1.5 Billion Building New Air Bases and Facilities for the Israeli Military

The US is poised to spend over $1 billion on building new air bases and various other types of military facilities, Haaretz reported on Tuesday, citing documents and presentations from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The construction projects include building a facility to accommodate Israel’s new KC-46 refueling aircraft, a facility for CH-53 helicopters, new headquarters for the Israeli army’s Shayetet 13 naval commando unit, ammunition storage, and other projects.

Ongoing US construction projects inside Israel are valued at about $250 million, and the total for all of the projects being planned is $1.5 billion. All of the construction will be funded by US military aid.

Israel receives $3.8 billion in military aid each year, but has received significantly more since October 7, 2023. According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, from October 2023 to October 2024, the US approved at least $17.9 billion in new military aid for Israel to support the genocidal war in Gaza and other Israeli wars in the region.

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Trade Crackdown: 14 Countries Receive Tariff Letters Including Japan, South Korea And Thailand

  • US President Donald Trump announced plans to impose higher tariff rates of 25%-40% on key trading partners and signed an executive order holding off the new duties until Aug. 1.
  • Tariffs on Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Tunisia, would be 25%, South Africa and Bosnia 30%, Indonesia 32%, Bangladesh and Serbia 35%, Thailand and Cambodia 36%, while Laos and Myanmar would face a 40% levy.
  • Meanwhile, Trump suggested the possibility of additional trade negotiations and delays at the White House shortly after he sent out the tariff letters, as he said the notifications were “not 100% firm”. He also said the US is close in making a deal with India.
  • White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said additional letters will arrive in the coming days.

Main takeaways:

  1. the deadline was pushed towards August 1st vs. July 9th;
  2. announced new tariff levels (effective on August 1st) for 14 countries
  3. Trump said that the tariffs on each country would be separate from any “sectoral” tariffs that he imposes;
  4. we should expect more deals/letters coming: Leavitt said Trump will send more letters 

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A Big, Beautiful Financial Weapon Against Illegal Immigration

Buried in the Big, Beautiful Bill is a weapon Trump can use against illegal immigration, disincentivizing working illegally in the United States while at the same time cutting into money laundering by Mexican and other drug cartels.

The weapon is a one percent remittance tax on money sent by aliens in the U.S. home to their country. Small change? By the end of 2023, remittances sent by workers in the U.S., many illegal, to other countries reached approximately $93 billion dollars—about 14 percent of total remittances across the globe. Main recipient countries include India, Mexico, Guatemala, and Venezuela. Mexico currently receives money tax-free. U.S. law makes that possible, and it needs to be changed. The tax is expected to collect $10 billion for the U.S. in revenues.

“Directo a México” is the official remittance program of the Federal Reserve Bank, facilitated through the FedGlobal service, which allows illegal immigrants to transfer money to Mexico’s central bank at no additional fee. Since 2003, after an agreement was signed by George W. Bush, users of U.S. financial institutions subscribed to Directo a México can send payments to any bank account in Mexico at no cost. New Yorkers can see such services advertised in Spanish on the subway; in smaller cities the transfer work is done by Wells Fargo, Moneygram, and check-cashing storefronts. States with large populations of illegal Mexicans, such as California and Texas, rank highest in remittance outflows.

It is a well-used system—in 2022, Mexico received $56 billion in remittances from the U.S., establishing the country’s position as the second-largest destination for such funds worldwide. Remittances from abroad accounted for roughly 4.5 percent of Mexico’s total GDP in 2022 (in some poorer Mexican states remittances comprised 15 percent or more of their GDP) and form the largest single source of foreign income for Mexico, outstripping the income brought in by any other source, including foreign direct investment from the United States, tourism, and manufacturing exports. The total value of remittances increased by roughly 32 percent between 2019 and 2023, rising by an average of five percent per year. Mexico does not just send hundreds of thousands of illegal workers to the U.S.; its domestic economy outright depends on them working in el Norte. Much the same for the other leading countries, such as India, though much of its remittances come from H1-B visa holders.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum knows the value of the program and showed just how desperately her country relies on these remittance payments in a statement that “fanned the flames of the LA riots.”

“Mexican citizens in America work hard to pay their bills. We don’t want this tax to affect the remittances of our countrymen,” Sheinbaum said. “If necessary, we will mobilize. We will not allow them to punish those who help the least fortunate.”

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‘No exceptions’: Trump threatens additional tariffs on BRICS-linked countries

US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose additional tariffs on any country affiliated with the BRICS+ group of emerging economies. 

Trump made the threat early on 7 July in a post on his Truth Social platform. 

“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10 percent Tariff,” the US president said. 

“There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he added. 

Trump’s statement coincided with an ongoing BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

On Sunday, the bloc made a declaration condemning the rise in US tariffs in an indirect swipe at Washington, expressing “serious concerns.”

These measures are “inconsistent with WTO (World Trade Organization) rules” and “threaten to reduce global trade, disrupt global supply chains, and introduce uncertainty.”

In a statement at the summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva slammed NATO’s decision to hike military spending by five percent of GDP annually by 2035. 

“It is always easier to invest in war than in peace,” Lula said, while also condemning the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attended the BRICS summit. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian was initially scheduled to participate before Israel launched a brutal US-backed war against the country in mid-June. 

The BRICS nations condemned the recent US and Israeli strikes on Iran during the summit. 

“We condemn the military strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran since 13 June 2025. We further express serious concern over deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities,” the bloc said, adding that the attacks “constitute a violation of international law.”

As the fate of stalled nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington remains uncertain, US economic sanctions have continued to target Iran. 

A few months before the US-backed war on Iran, a brief trade war erupted between Beijing and Washington. 

Beijing imposed high levies on US-sourced natural gas imports in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Chinese exports. 

China and the US agreed on 12 May to remove most of the tariffs imposed on each other. 

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Man indicted for allegedly committing almost a quarter of all Arizona ACCCHS fraud

Multiple Arizona residents are among the more than 300 people charged in a nationwide “takedown” of health care schemes, including one accused of being responsible for billing the state for 22% of all AHCCCS “sober living” fraud. 

Farukh Jara Ali is accused of submitting about $650 million in “false and fraudulent claims” to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and personally receiving $24.5 million as part of the alleged fraud.

Ali is the owner of a company called ProMD Solutions, which 12News has previously covered in connection with the AHCCCS “sober living” fraud scandal.

ProMD Solutions is listed as the statutory agent for multiple businesses accused of fraud. 

In 2023, a man identifying himself as Mark Stanley, a Vice President with the company, told 12News via Zoom that ProMD Solutions was a billing company that also provided turnkey solutions for behavioral health businesses. He denied any billing fraud on ProMD’s part. 

ProMD Solutions’ website lists an address in Irvine, CA. But a search of the address reveals it to be a strip mall with a third-party mailbox store. In reality, prosecutors say Ali was running the business from Pakistan. 

In court documents, prosecutors state that Ali had contracted with 38 purported healthcare providers to bill the state for $650 million, of which AHCCCS paid $564 million.

According to the indictment, other behavioral healthcare businesses began a scheme to offer bribes and kickbacks to sober living homes, allegedly offering higher amounts for patients who could use the American Indian Health Plan.

Native Americans were widely targeted by the sober living scheme.  In many cases, they were promised drug and alcohol rehab that they never received. 

The bribes were allegedly in exchange for sending the sober living residents to these behavioral health providers. Prosecutors allege Ali and the business owners conspired to falsify treatment notes to justify billing for services that were never rendered. 

According to the indictment, ProMD Solutions was the company responsible for doing the actual billing, with Ali taking 5% off the top. Prosecutors say he made just under $25 million. Prosecutors believe he bought a $3 million golf course home in Dubai using at least some of that money. 

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New York Supreme Court reinstates all employees fired for being unvaccinated, orders backpay

A New York state Supreme Court ordered all New York City employees who were fired for not being vaccinated to be reinstated with back pay.

The court found Monday that “being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting COVID-19.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams claimed earlier this year that his administration would not rehire employees who had been fired over their vaccination status.

NYC fired roughly 1,700 employees for being unvaccinated earlier this year after the city adopted a vaccine mandate under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Many of those fired were police officers and firefighters.

FDNY-Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro and FDNY-Uniformed Fire Officers Association President Lt. James McCarthy condemned Adams earlier this year after the mayor allowed an exception to the vaccine mandate for athletes and performers, even as firefighters were still being fired over their status. The pair called on the city to expand the exception to all New Yorkers.

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DOGE Team Terminates 256 Wasteful Contracts Worth $14.3 Billion – Including $850k USAID Contract for “Resilience Adviser” in Somalia

Although they are not making as many headlines as earlier this year when they were first introduced, the DOGE Team is hard at work and continues to save money for American taxpayers.

Earlier this week DOGE announced they had eliminated another $14.3 billion in bogus contracts, including international contracts tied to USAID.

The DOGE team terminated one contract tied to USAID worth $850,000 for a “resilience adviser” in Somalia.

Let’s hope the DOGE team digs deeper into that slush fund. Where do you suppose the money really went?

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US Support For Israel Comes At A Staggering, Multifaceted Price

When asked about the cost of their government’s support of the State of Israel, some Americans will say it’s $3.8 billion a year — the amount of annual military aid the United States is committed to under its current, 10-year “memorandum of understanding” with Israel. However, that answer massively understates the true cost of the relationship, not only because it doesn’t capture various, vast expenditures springing from it, but even more so because the relationship’s steepest costs can’t be measured in dollars.

Since its 1948 founding, Israel has been far and away the largest recipient of American foreign assistance. Though the Ukraine war created a brief anomaly, Israel generally tops the list every year, despite the fact that Israel is among the world’s richest countries — ranked three spots below the UK and two spots above Japan in per capita GDP. Driving that point home, even when using the grossly-understating $3.8 billion figure for US expenditures on Israel, America gave the Zionist state $404 per person in the 2023 fiscal year, compared to just $15 per person for Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries on Earth and America’s third-largest beneficiary that year.

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Feds seize $1M OC home at center of corruption scandal

The U.S. government has seized a home in unincorporated Tustin at the center of the corruption scheme involving former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do. The home was purchased by Do’s daughter Rhiannon Do for a little more than $1 million in 2023.

The downpayment came from taxpayer money awarded to a nonprofit led by Rhiannon Do. That money was supposed to be used to feed needy seniors.

The backstory: Andrew Do was sentenced to five years in prison last month for accepting bribes disguised as payments to his two adult daughters, including the $385,000 downpayment for Rhiannon Do’s home in unincorporated Tustin.

The forfeited assets: As part of Do’s sentencing, Judge James V. Selna found that he had an interest in the Tustin home, another property, and $2.4 million in bank accounts. Selna ordered the immediate transfer of the assets to the federal government.

What happens now? Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said the Tustin home would be “sold just like any other property,” and the money will be returned to Orange County.

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German MPs demand more money for Ukraine – Bild

A group of German lawmakers from the Green Party has called on Chancellor Friedrich Merz to urgently increase military aid to Ukraine, saying Berlin must contribute more in light of a slowdown in US arms deliveries, according to a letter obtained by Bild.

The letter, signed by Bundestag deputies Robin Wagener, Sara Nanni, Sebastian Schafer, and Anton Hofreiter, criticized the federal government’s recently announced increase in military assistance from €7.1 billion to €8.3 billion as insufficient.

The lawmakers pointed to the US decision to pause certain weapons shipments to Kiev as a critical factor, arguing that Berlin should raise the figure to at least €8.5 billion and commit to maintaining that level through 2029.

The Green MPs, who have been among Kiev’s most vocal supporters in the Bundestag, reportedly said the government still has room to maneuver within the approved budget framework, and argued that the constitutional limits on debt spending could be sidestepped through special exemptions.

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