#Taxes & Reforms:

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #28

July 19-26 2024

The EPA announced the award of $4.3 billion in Climate Pollution Reduction Grants. The grants support community-driven solutions to fight climate change, and accelerate America’s clean energy transition. The grants will go to 25 projects across 30 states, and one tribal community. When combined the projects will reduce greenhouse gas pollution by as much as 971 million metric tons of CO2, roughly the output of 5 million American homes over 25 years. Major projects include $396 million for Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection as it tries to curb greenhouse gas emissions from industrial production, and $500 million for transportation and freight decarbonization at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced a plan to phase out the federal government's use of single use plastics. The plan calls for the federal government to stop using single use plastics in food service operations, events, and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035. The US government is the single largest employer in the country and the world’s largest purchaser of goods and services. Its move away from plastics will redefine the global market.

The White House hosted a summit on super pollutants with the goals of better measuring them and dramatically reducing them. Roughly half of today's climate change is caused by so called super pollutants, methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and nitrous oxide (N2O). Public-private partnerships between NOAA and United Airlines, The State Department and NASA, and the non-profit Carbon Mapper Coalition will all help collect important data on these pollutants. While private firms announced with the White House plans that by early next year will reduce overall U.S. industrial emissions of nitrous oxide by over 50% from 2020 numbers. The summit also highlighted the EPA's new rule to reduce methane from oil and gas by 80%.

The EPA announced $325 million in grants for climate justice. The Community Change Grants Program, powered by President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act will ultimately bring $2 billion dollars to disadvantaged communities and help them combat climate change. Some of the projects funded in this first round of grant were: $20 million for Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association, which will help weatherize and energy efficiency upgrade homes for 35 tribes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, $14 million to install onsite wastewater treatment systems throughout 17 Black Belt counties in Alabama, and $14 million to urban forestry, expanding tree canopy in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The Department of Interior approved 3 new solar projects on public land. The 3 projects, two in Nevada and one in Arizona, once finished could generate enough to power 2 million homes. This comes on top of DoI already having beaten its goal of 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects by the end of 2025, in April 2024. This is all part of President Biden’s goal of creating a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged $667 million to global Pandemic Fund. The fund set up in 2022 seeks to support Pandemic prevention, and readiness in low income nations who can't do it on their own. At the G20 meeting Yellen pushed other nations of the 20 largest economies to double their pledges to the $2 billion dollar fund. Yellen highlighted the importance of the fund by saying "President Biden and I believe that a fully-resourced Pandemic Fund will enable us to better prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics – protecting Americans and people around the world from the devastating human and economic costs of infectious disease threats,"

The Departments of the Interior and Commerce today announced a $240 million investment in tribal fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. This is in line with an Executive Order President Biden signed in 2023 during the White House Tribal Nations Summit to mpower Tribal sovereignty and self-determination. An initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization will be made available for 27 tribes in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The rest will be invested in longer term fishery projects in the coming years.

The IRS announced that thanks to funding from President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, it'll be able to digitize much of its operations. This means tax payers will be able to retrieve all their tax related information from one source, including Wage & Income, Account, Record of Account, and Return transcripts, using on-line Individual Online Account.

The IRS also announced that New Jersey will be joining the direct file program in 2025. The direct file program ran as a pilot in 12 states in 2024, allowing tax-payers in those states to file simple tax returns using a free online filing tool directly with the IRS. In 2024 140,000 Americans were able to file this way, they collectively saved $5.6 million in tax preparation fees, claiming $90 million in returns. The average American spends $270 and 13 hours filing their taxes. More than a million people in New Jersey alone will qualify for direct file next year. Oregon opted to join last month. Republicans in Congress lead by Congressmen Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina have put forward legislation to do away with direct file.

Bonus: American law enforcement arrested co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. El Mayo co-founded the cartel in the 1980s along side Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Since El Chapo's incarceration in the United States in 2019, El Mayo has been sole head of the Sinaloa Cartel. Authorities also arrested El Chapo's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. The Sinaloa Cartel has been a major player in the cross border drug trade, and has often used extreme violence to further their aims.

[canisalbus]

Vachete Suomi AU. Vesuri ja Vaski asuvat suuressa kylässä jossain sisämaassa kaukana suurista kaupungeista kuten Turusta. Kirkonkylän pappi, Vesuri, yrittää parhaansa mukaan vakuuttaa kyläläisiä kasvattamaan perunaa, koska se on satoisa ja ravitseva kasvi mutta kyläläiset eivät tahdo luopua nauriista. Vaski on kartanonvoudin poika ja yrittää pitää suhteita yllä kyläläisiin, että he olisivat suostuvaisia maksamaan veroja kuninkaalle eivätkä hyökkäisi hänen isänsä kimppuun.

Loose translation:

Finnish Vaschete AU.

Vesuri (a type of pruning knife/billhook) and Vaski (brass/copper/bronze) live in a big village somewhere inland, far away from the country's populous cities like Turku (Finland's oldest city and former capital located in the southwestern coast). The village priest, Vesuri, is trying his best to persuade the villagers to start farming potato, a high-yielding and nourishing crop, but people are reluctant to give up their turnips (one of Finland's most important staple foods up until 1800's when potato finally took over). Vaski is the son of a local lord of the manor (or maybe you'd call it bailiff? Or even jarl?) and is doing his best to get along with the villagers so that they would continue paying their taxes to the king and wouldn't turn against his dad.

[pupkinpumpkin]

Anytime I replay DAI and I get to that first conversation with Vivienne back at Haven, I take a long inhale Everytime she asks what I think about doing with the mages.

Like I know my Inky has not thought about this too much. She just knows her clan, but I think about it constantly and no answer I am offered is good enough to assuage my long rant that I yell at the computer for like 8 straight minutes before I choose the Mages Should Be Free line and get the inevitable Vivienne Greatly Disapproves

I love Vivienne a lot, I do, even with the differing political views, but Jesus Christ girlie pop never ask me that question again because I will go off Every Single Time

[liberalsarecool]

Some pay 0%.

The system is rigged. Low tax rates on the uber- wealthy created our debts and deficits.

Billionaire welfare is the most inefficient use of tax dollars. It's morally disgraceful.

The only solution is raising their tax rates and eliminating their legislated advantages.

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

This isn't suprising given that this is the most partisan supreme court we've ever seen and it's only getting more blatant, they will bend over backwards to fit the conservative agenda even if it makes them public hypocrites. This is why we need to drastically reform the supreme court at minimum and dissolve it at most, the damage they wreak is unparalleled given that they can't be checked in any meaningful capacity despite what conservative elements may claim. Now's not the time for moderation or reaching across the aisle since time and time again democrats reach their hand out only to get it slapped again and again and again, they have made their choices clear with project 2025 and we can't simply sit idly by as they dismantle our democracy and deny others constitutional rights like the traitors and villains they are!

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[lizagranger128]

Start spreading the word!! Sign a strike card here for the general strike: https://generalstrikeus.com/strikecard

“Research shows that strikes engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.

3.5% of the US population is 11M people. When we have 11M Strike Card signed, we Strike! Sign your Strike Card today.”

[deepbreakfast]

[empirearchives]

Changes to the Tax Collection System in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France

My translation from Le prix de la gloire: Napoléon et l’argent by Pierre Branda.

This part is specifically about the reforms made to the tax collection system. Problems with taxation had been the source of many woes, so it went through major changes.

“The [tax] work of the Consulate mainly concerned the reorganization of tax collection. Until now, this essential element was not administered directly by the Ministry of Finance. The Constituent Assembly had wanted the tax rolls for direct contributions, that is to say the ‘tax slips’, to be established by municipal administrations. Their work was complex, because each year it was necessary to draw up a list of taxpayers, determine each person’s share of tax and send them the amount of the contribution to pay. Poorly motivated (or even corrupt), the municipalities had put little care in the execution of their mission since a large part of the taxpayers had not yet received anything for their taxes of year VIII, or even of year VII or year VI. Also, with two or three years of delay in preparing the rolls, it was not surprising that tax revenues were low (nearly 400 million francs were thus left outstanding). If the sending of tax matrices left something to be desired, the collection of direct contributions was hardly better. The tax collector was also not an agent of the administration: this function was assigned to any person who agreed to collect taxes with the lowest possible commission (otherwise called ‘collecte à la moins-dite’). With such a system, there were numerous inadequacies, often due to incompetence, but also due to the prevailing spirit of fraud. However, in their defense, the profits of the collectors were most of the time too low to provide such a service; also, to compensate for their losses, they were ‘forced’ to multiply small and big cheats. In any case, in such a troubled period, letting simple individuals carry out such a delicate mission could only be dangerous for the regularity of public accounts. In short, the mode of operation of taxation that Bonaparte and Gaudin inherited was failing on all sides and threatened to sink the State.”

“One month after Gaudin’s appointment, on December 13, 1799, the Directorate of Direct Contributions was created with the mission of establishing and sending tax matrices. This administration, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, was made up of a general director, 99 departmental directors and 840 inspectors and controllers. The organization of direct contributions became both centralized and pyramidal, the opposite of the previous system, decentralized and with a confused hierarchy. The work of preparing the rolls, for so long entrusted to local authorities, passed entirely ‘in the hands of the Minister of Finance’ and in this way the taxpayer found himself in direct contact with the administration. The tax system no longer having any obstacles, the beneficial effects of such a measure did not take long to be felt. With ardor, the agents of this new administration carried out considerable work: three series of rolls, that is to say more than one hundred thousand tax slips, were established in a single year. It must be said that the ministry had not skimped on their pay (6,000 francs per year for a director, 4,000 for an inspector and 1,800 for a controller), which was undoubtedly not unrelated to such success.”

“Tax reform was slower. It was not until 1804 that all tax collectors were civil servants. The consular system gradually replaced the collectors of the departments, then of the main cities and finally of all the municipalities whose tax rolls exceeded 15,000 francs. At the end of the Consulate, the entire tax administration was thus entirely dependent on the central government. Subsequently, the one in charge of indirect contributions (taxes on tobacco, alcohol or salt) created on February 25, 1804 and called the Régie des droits réunis was built on the same pyramidal and centralized model. It was the same later for customs.”

“According to Michel Bruguière, historian of public finances, ‘Napoleon and Gaudin can be considered the builders of the French tax administration. [...] They had also developed and codified the essential principles of our tax law, so profoundly derogatory from the rules of French law, since the taxpayer has nothing to do with it, while the administration has all the powers’. Basically, after having clearly understood the true cause of the ‘financial wound’, Bonaparte wanted an effective, almost ‘despotic’ instrument to avoid experiencing the unfortunate fate of his predecessors. As a good soldier, he created a fiscal ‘army’ responsible for providing the regime with the sinews of war. It was also necessary to definitively break the link between private interests and state service in everything that concerned public revenue. The time of the farmer generals of the Ancien Régime or the ‘second-hand’ collectors of the Directory was well and truly over. Napoleon Bonaparte, with his fierce desire to centralize power in this area as in many others, undoubtedly gave his regime the means to last.”

French:

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[thepopoptic]

Ronald Reagan on the Truth About Government Budgeting

Reagan Had It Right

[hauntedtapeworm]

I’m such a Gemini 💝

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #23

June 14-21 2024.

On the 12th anniversary of President Obama's DACA program President Biden announced a new pathway to legal status and eventual citizenship for Dreamers. DACA was an executive action by President Obama which deferred any deportation of persons brought to the US as children without legal status. While DACA allowed Dreamers to work legally in the US for the first time, it didn't give them permanent legal status. Now the Biden administration is streamlining the process for employers to apply for work Visas for Dreamers. With Visas Dreamers will for the first time have legal status, the ability to leave and reenter the US legally, and a pathway to a Green Card and eventual citizenship.

President Biden also announced protections for the undocumented spouses and children of US citizens. The new rule allows the spouse, or step-child of a US citizen to apply for lawful permanent residency without having to leaving the country. It's estimated this will help 500,000 undocumented people married to Americans, and 50,000 children under the age of 21 whose parent is married to an American citizen. Current law forces spouses to leave the United States if they're here illegally and wait and unclear period of probation before being allowed to return, but being allowed back is not assured.

The IRS announced that it'll close a tax loophole used by the ultra rich and corporations and believes it'll raise $50 billion in revenue. Known as a "pass-through" has allowed the rich to move money around to avoid taxes in a move the Treasury is calling a shell-game. Pass-throughs have grown by 70% between 2010 and 2019 and the IRS believes it helped the rich avoid paying $160 billion dollars in taxes during that time. The IRS estimates its crack down on these will raise $50 billion in tax revenue over the next 10 years.

The EPA and Department of Energy announced $850 million to monitor, measure, quantify and reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. Methane is the second most common greenhouse gas, responsible for 1/3rd of the global warming. The funding will focus on helping small operators significantly reduce emissions, as well as help more quickly detect and cap methane leaks from low-producing wells. All this comes after the EPA finalized rules to reduce methane emissions by 80% from oil and gas.

The Biden Administration took steps to protect the nations Old Growth Forests. The move will greatly restrict any logging against the 41 million acres of protected land owned by the federal government. The Administration also touted the 20% of America's forests that are in urban settings as parks and the $1.4 billion invested in their protection through the President’s Investing in America agenda.

The Biden Administration released new rules tying government support for clean energy to good paying jobs. If companies want to qualify for massive tax credits they'll have to offer higher wages and better conditions. This move will push union level wages across the green energy sector.

The Department of Education announced large reductions in student loan payments, and even a pause for some, starting in July. For millions of Americans enrolled in the Biden Administration's SAVE plan, starting in July, monthly payments on loans borrowed for undergraduate will be reduced from 10% to 5% of discretionary income. As the department hasn't been able to fully calculate the change for all borrowers at this point it will pause payment for those it hasn't finalized the formula for and they won't have to make a payment till DoE figures it out. The SAVE plan allows many borrowers to make payments as low as $0 a month toward having their loans forgiven. So far the Biden Administration has forgiven $5.5 billion wiping out the debt of 414,000 people enrolled in SAVE.

The Biden Administration celebrated the 1 Millionth pension protected under the American Rescue Plan. Senator Bob Casey joined Biden Administration officials and Union official to announce that thanks to the Butch Lewis Act passed in 2021 the government would be stepping in to secure the pensions of 103,000 Bakery and Confectionery Union workers which were facing a devastating 45% cut. This brings to 1 million the number of workers and retirees whose pensions have been secured by the Biden Administration, which has supported 83 different pension funds protecting them from an average of 37% cut.

The Department of Energy announced $900 million for the next generation of nuclear power. This investment in Gen III+ Small Modular Reactor will help bring about smaller and more flexible nuclear reactors with smaller footprints. Congress also passed a bill meant to streamline nuclear power and help push on to the 4th generation of reactors

Vice President Harris announced a $1.5 billion dollar aid package to Ukraine. $500 million will go toward repairing Ukraine's devastated energy sector which has been disrupted by Russian bombing. $324 million will go toward emergency energy infrastructure repair. $379 million in humanitarian assistance from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to help refugees and other people impacted by the war.

America pledged $315 million in new aid for Sudan. Sudan's on-going civil war has lead to nearly apocalyptic conditions in the country. Director of USAID, Samantha Power, warned that Sudan could quickly become the largest famine the world has seen since Ethiopia in the early 1980s when a million people died over 2 years. The US aid includes food and water aid as well as malnutrition screening and treatment for young children.

Bonus: Maryland Governor Wes Moore pardoned more than 175,000 people for marijuana convictions. This mirrors President Biden's pardoning of people convicted of federal marijuana charges in 2022 and December 2023. President Biden is not able to pardon people for state level crimes so called on Governors to copy his action and pardon people in their own state. Wes Moore, a Democrat, was elected in 2022 replacing Republican Larry Hogan.

[commonsensecommentary]

“Many of the political battles now tearing our country apart boil down to a relentless pursuit of the money that government rains down upon us like a crazy, rich uncle and the equally assiduous quest for the power needed to keep that spigot of cash blasting.”

[new25us3]

Trump tells a crowd in Las Vegas he is working with Congress on a bill to exclude tips from federal taxes

https://urlhub.pro/01bf53

[eaglesnick]

THE BIG CON: VOTE REFORM, VOTE BIG BUSINESS

A vote for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is essentially a vote for big business and the super-rich.

Reform promises to lift 7 million people from paying tax at the lower end of the pay scale to  “save every worker almost £1500 per year.” Although I am sure this saving for low earners would be very welcome, it is the rich who benefit most from Reform’s income tax proposals.

 At the moment people earning over £50,000 pay a 40% tax rate on earnings above this figure. The Reform Party promise to raise the threshold to £70,000, a saving of £3,588 a year for the 15% richest people in the country.

Reform and the far-right favour business over individual workers.  It is therefore no surprise that Corporations are to receive the biggest tax breaks. Corporation tax will be reduced from 25% to 20% for the first 5 years, and then down to 15% after that.

For year ending 2022/23 corporation tax brought in £79.9billion. Under Reform, corporations would be in receipt of tax breaks worth £47.94billion. In November 2022, State of Tax Justice reported that

…”the world was losing over $483 billion a year in tax to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals using tax havens to underpay tax. That’s equivalent to losing a nurse’s yearly salary to a tax haven every second.” 

The only reason Reform would want to legitimise corporate tax avoidance is because Reform is essentially a political party for the already wealthy. They might throw a few crumbs to the ordinary worker but the real rewards are to go to the rich and powerful.

Many large corporations are foreign owned so  tax breaks for big business are just as likely to go to overseas shareholders as they are to UK owners. Does the British taxpayer really want to be subsidising foreign share ownership by cutting tax revenues?

Richard Tice, leader of Reform until replaced by Nigel Farage a few days ago, is a multi-millionaire who made his money in property development.  Both he and Farage have their own TV shows on GB News, which is bankrolled by the hedge-fund billionaire Paul Marshal and the Dubai based investment company Legartum, founded by New Zealand billionaire Christopher Chandler who made his fortune in Russian gas.

Reform's links to the super-rich goes further. Multi-millionaire Jeremy Hosking has given £2.578,000 to Reform coffers. Is it coincidence he is funding a party that campaigns to scrap UK emission targets when he is “the director of a company with tens of millions of pounds invested in oil and gas” ? (Open Democracy: 22/03/22). I think not.

Another major donor to Reform is the ex-Bullingdon Club member George Farmer. (Other members include David Cameron and George Osborne the architects of Tory Austerity and the liar Boris Johnson who brought us Party Gate). An “ardent supporter of Donald Trump”, Farmer was CEO of the far-right platform Parler, and is married to Candice Owens, a woman who “promotes far-right ideologies”, In 2023 he joined the board of GB News.

The biggest single donor to Reform according to Electoral Commission records is Chris Harborne, handing over £10 million to Brexit/Reform. Harborne owes his fortune to the sale of aviation fuel and technology investments. He gained notoriety when his name appeared multiple times in the Panama Papers. These documents revealed:

 “…off-shore holdings of world political leaders, links to global scandals, and details of  hidden financial dealings of fraudsters, drug traffickers, billionaires, celebrities, sports stars and more”. (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: 03/03/2016)

These wealthy backers of Reform are not spending millions of pounds in order to benefit ordinary workingmen and women. They see these millions as an investment, an investment on which they expect a return for their money.

[ivygorgon]

No free rides for old money! - Pass The Billionaires Income Tax Act! (S. 3367)

I am writing to express my strong support for the proposed S. 3367 bill, which aims to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. This legislation represents a crucial step towards achieving economic justice by seeking to eliminate tax loopholes that have allowed billionaires to defer taxes indefinitely. By doing so, we would be ensuring a fairer distribution of wealth and rectifying a system that has long favored the ultra-wealthy. Additionally, the bill modifies over 30 tax provisions, requiring billionaires to contribute annually. It's time to ensure that those with the most significant influence and wealth contribute proportionately to our society's well-being. Therefore, I urge you to support and pass the Billionaires Income Tax Act.

Billionaires have amassed vast wealth, often at the expense of their employees who struggle to make ends meet on minimum wages. It is only just and equitable that they pay their employees a living wage AND contribute proportionally to the betterment of our society.

Furthermore, if billionaires wield significant influence over our government and policy-making, they should demonstrate their commitment by financially supporting the very system that has allowed them to prosper. No longer should they enjoy free rides on the backs of hardworking taxpayers. It is past time to ensure that billionaires are contributing their fair share to the well-being of our country.

Passing the Billionaires Income Tax Act is not only a matter of fiscal responsibility but also a moral imperative. It is time to ensure that our tax system is fair and equitable for all, not just the wealthy few.

Thank you for considering my views on this important issue. I urge you to stand on the side of fairness and justice by supporting S.3367.

No free rides for old money!

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