Tag Archives: Tax reform

US

Trump tax returns: Chief Justice John Roberts puts temporary hold on release of records to Congress

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CNN
 — 

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to temporarily put on hold a lower court order requiring the release of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service to a Democratic-led House committee.

The tax returns had been set to be turned over to the House Ways and Means Committee later this week.

Roberts asked for a response by November 10.

The “administrative stay” is temporary in nature and does not always reflect the final disposition of the dispute. It is a move often made when a deadline approaches to preserve the status quo and give the justices more time to act.

In a flurry of Trump related emergency petitions in recent days the justice with jurisdiction over the lower courts have decided to issue such temporary relief.

Justice Elena Kagan, for example issued such a stay on October 26 temporarily blocking a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attacks for phone and text records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.

Justice Clarence Thomas froze an order on October 24 requiring the testimony of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham before a Georgia grand jury.

Roberts supervises the lower court that issued the order in the Trump IRS case, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The congressional effort is one that stands to provide the Democratic-led House the most direct avenue to the long-sought tax information.

The committee chairman Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, first sought the tax returns from the IRS in 2019, and the IRS, under the Trump administration, initially resisted turning them over. The case moved slowly until 2021, when, under the Biden administration, the Justice Department changed its legal posture and concluded the IRS was obligated to comply with the committee’s request. A Trump-appointed judge ruled in the House’s favor late last year and the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to reverse that ruling, most recently with the full appeals court declining last week to take up the case.

A separate legal case concerning the House Oversight Committee’s pursuit of Trump tax information from his then-accounting firm ended in a settlement earlier this year, after a trip to the Supreme Court in 2020. In bringing the dispute with the Ways and Means committee to the Supreme Court, Trump is arguing that lower courts have run afoul of that 2020 case, known as Mazars.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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Obama tells Midwestern voters worried about inflation that GOP is ‘not interested in solving problems’

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CNN
 — 

Former President Barack Obama on Saturday sought to sway voters who are worried about inflation, warning in two key Midwestern states that Republicans seeking control of Congress have no plans to rein in prices and could target social safety net programs.

Campaigning alongside Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Detroit, and later Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes in Milwaukee, Obama acknowledged the economic realities Americans face. But he said handing power on Capitol Hill to the GOP would do little to solve those problems.

“In your gut, you should have a sense: Who cares about you?” he said in Wisconsin.

In a moment that rapidly spread across social media, Obama lambasted Barnes’ opponent, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who is seeking a third term. He cited Johnson’s past comments comparing the management of Social Security to a “Ponzi scheme” and criticized Johnson’s vote for the 2017 GOP-led tax overhaul.

“Some of you here are on Social Security. Some of your parents are on Social Security. Some of your grandparents are on Social Security. You know why they have Social Security?” Obama said. “Because they worked for it. They worked hard jobs for it. They have chapped hands for it. They had long hours and sore backs and bad knees to get that Social Security.”

“And if Ron Johnson does not understand that – if he understands giving tax breaks for private planes more than he understands making sure that seniors who’ve worked all their lives are able to retire with dignity and respect – he’s not the person who’s thinking about you and knows you and sees you, and he should not be your senator from Wisconsin,” the former President said.

Obama is traveling to some of the most important midterm battlegrounds in the days before the November 8 midterm elections. In addition to the stops in Michigan and Wisconsin, Obama also held an event Friday in Georgia. He will visit Nevada on Tuesday and then hold multiple events in Pennsylvania alongside President Joe Biden on Saturday.

All five states feature hotly contested governor’s races, and all but Michigan also have Senate contests that will play a role in determining which party controls the evenly divided chamber.

The former President on Saturday portrayed the modern GOP as unserious and uncompromising, describing the party – with few exceptions – as beholden to former President Donald Trump’s whims.

“Own the libs and getting Donald Trump’s approval. That’s their agenda,” Obama said in Milwaukee.

“They’re not interested in solving problems. They’re interested in making you angry, and then finding somebody to blame,” he said. “And they’re hoping that’ll distract you from the fact that they don’t have any answers of their own.”

Obama’s message mirrored Biden’s insistence that Republicans have not offered proposals to rein in inflation and his warnings that GOP congressional majorities would target popular safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare.

It also echoed what former President Bill Clinton said at a campaign stop for Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in New York on Saturday. Clinton said that the GOP’s midterm slogan should be: “This is a real problem. Let’s vote for somebody who will make it worse.”

The difference is location: Obama is hitting the campaign trail in places other Democrats can’t visit without provoking costly political backlash. Biden, whose approval rating is underwater in CNN polls conducted by SSRS across key midterm states, is largely limiting his role to fundraisers, though he will travel to Pennsylvania – his state of birth – in the election’s closing weekend. Other figures, such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, can energize progressives but have limited appeal beyond core supporters. Obama, though, remains a national Democratic figure who can motivate the party’s base while also appealing to moderate voters.

Obama described inflation as a global challenge that resulted from a coronavirus pandemic that “threw off supply and demand,” as well as Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he said has driven up gas prices.

“When gas prices go up, when grocery prices go up, that takes a bite out of people’s paycheck. That hurts,” Obama said. “But the question you should be asking is: Who’s going to do something about it? Republicans are having a field day running ads talking about it, but what is their actual solution to it?”

“I’ll tell you: They want to gut Social Security, then Medicare, and then give some more tax breaks to the wealthy,” he said. “And the reason I know that’s their agenda is, listen, that’s their answer to everything.”

That theme – that Republicans have lost interest in compromising, keeping the government running or even acknowledging basic realities, including the outcome of the 2020 presidential election – echoed through Obama’s remarks in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Gone were the days of former first lady Michelle Obama’s insistence that “when they go low, we go high.” Obama acknowledged Saturday that his wife is discouraged by today’s political landscape. “I’m usually a little more optimistic,” he said in Michigan.

He contrasted the moment the United States now faces with the early stages of his own political career.

He described losing a 2000 effort to unseat incumbent Rep. Bobby Rush in a Democratic primary – the only time Obama was defeated at the ballot box.

“You know what I didn’t do, though? I didn’t claim the election was rigged. I didn’t try to stop votes from being counted. I didn’t incite a mob to storm the Capitol,” Obama said in Detroit. “I took my lumps. I figured out why my campaign hadn’t connected, and I tried to run a better race the next time, because that’s how our democracy is supposed to work.”

Obama described driving around Illinois as a Senate candidate in 2004, meeting people at diners in conservative areas of the state and having cordial conversations.

He pointed to the example of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, who delivered a gracious concession speech after losing the 2008 presidential election to Obama. And he said that while he didn’t like the outcome of the 2016 presidential race, he stayed up until 3 a.m. to call Trump and congratulate him, and proceed with a peaceful transfer of power.

In Milwaukee, Obama even joked about birtherism – the racist conspiracy theory fueled by Trump that Obama was not born in the United States.

Obama compared himself to Barnes, saying the Senate nominee, who is also Wisconsin lieutenant governor, faces a barrage of Republican ads portraying him as out of touch with the state’s values “just because Mandela’s named Mandela; just because he’s a Democrat with a funny name.”

“It sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? So Mandela,” Obama said, turning to Barnes onstage, “get ready to dig up that birth certificate.”

“Remember when that was the craziest thing people said? That wasn’t that long ago. People were like, ‘Wow, that was some crazy stuff,’” Obama said. “Now, it doesn’t even make the top 10 list of crazy.”

Obama saved his sharpest criticism for Johnson, saying the GOP senator had a “gold medal” in trafficking conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

In remarks earlier this month, Johnson appeared to downplay the violence from the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol and noted that the rioters “did teach us how you can use flagpoles, that kind of stuff, as weapons.” A campaign spokesperson later said the senator’s comments were meant to compare the methods used by racial justice protesters in the summer of 2020 with the January 6 rioters.

In a debate with Barnes in October, Johnson said, “I immediately and forcefully and repeatedly condemned the violence on January 6.”

In Michigan, Obama warned that a “dangerous climate” was developing as a result of incendiary rhetoric in the United States – “when we don’t just disagree with people, but we start demonizing them making wild crazy allegations about them.”

“If elected officials don’t do more to explicitly reject that kind of rhetoric, if they tacitly support or encourage their supporters to stand up outside voting places armed with guns dressed in tactical gear, more people can get hurt,” Obama said.

In a moment Obama used as an exclamation point for his comments about the direction of the GOP, a protester in the audience interrupted him by shouting. That prompted the former President to respond, “So, this is this is what I’m saying.”

“There is a process that we set up in our democracy right now. I’m talking, you’ll have a chance to talk sometime,” he said to the protester. “And this is part of the point that I want to make: Just basic civility and courtesy works, and that’s what we want to try to encourage.”

The protester was quickly drowned out by chants of “Obama!” from the crowd.

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US

Senate Democrats Close In on Passing Climate and Tax Bill

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WASHINGTON—The Senate advanced a climate and tax package past a procedural hurdle in the narrowly divided chamber, as Democrats closed in on passing elements of President Biden’s agenda that have languished on Capitol Hill for more than a year.

After the procedural vote, which was approved 51-50 thanks to a tiebreaking vote by Vice President

Kamala Harris,

lawmakers began an hourslong series of votes on amendments that aren’t likely to change the bill’s contents. Once that process is over, the package could receive a final vote in the 50-50 Senate later on Sunday before it is sent to the House, where lawmakers are scheduled to vote on it Friday.

The legislation, which largely survived a review by the Senate’s parliamentarian, raises more than $700 billion in government revenue over 10 years, with much of that coming from a 15% minimum tax on large, profitable corporations and money generated by enhancing tax-collection efforts at the Internal Revenue Service. Empowering Medicare to negotiate lower prescription-drug prices and imposing a 1% tax on stock buybacks will also add revenue to the government’s budget in the next decade.

About $430 billion of those funds would be dedicated toward incentives for companies and individuals to reduce carbon emissions and an extension of subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The legislation dedicates the rest of the new revenue toward reducing the deficit.

The bill meets “all of our goals: fighting climate change, lowering healthcare costs, closing tax loopholes abused by the wealthy, and reducing the deficit,” Senate Majority Leader

Chuck Schumer

(D., N.Y.) said Saturday. “This is a major win for the American people,” he said.

Republicans say that the bill, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, would do little to combat inflation and contains damaging corporate tax increases that would flow down to households.

Democrats united on their climate and healthcare package after making changes Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) demanded.



Photo:

Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg News

Referencing voters’ worries over inflation, Senate Minority Leader

Mitch McConnell

(R., Ky.) said Saturday that Senate Democrats “are misreading the American people’s outrage for yet another reckless taxing-and-spending spree.”

During the amendment process, Republicans largely targeted the bill’s energy and tax provisions. They also offered an amendment to reinstate a pandemic-era policy known as Title 42, which allows migrants to be turned away at the border without a chance to ask for asylum. The Biden administration has sought to end the policy.

Democrats lined up against the GOP proposals as they sought to prevent any changes that could endanger the bill’s support in the chamber.

Sen.

Bob Menendez

(D., N.J.) said Saturday that he would oppose the legislation entirely if lawmakers voted to add immigration restrictions during the amendment process.

“I urge my Democratic colleagues to stand united and vote no on ALL amendments, regardless of the underlying policy and regardless of which party offers them,” Mr. Menendez said.

As they blocked GOP amendments, Democrats occasionally offered parallel proposals that ran afoul of Senate rules, giving lawmakers the opportunity to vote in support of measures without risking alterations to the bill.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) gave a lengthy speech in the Senate to call on Democrats to expand the legislation’s measures. He said the current bill was inadequate as written.

“What I am asking today is for all 50 Democrats to come together and begin the process of addressing the major crises facing working families,” he said, adding that the bill “has some good features, but also some very bad features.”

In the first amendment of the night, Mr. Sanders introduced an expansion of the drug-pricing provisions, seeking to begin government negotiation for lower prices sooner and apply it to more drugs. It, along with another proposal from Mr. Sanders to broaden the legislation, failed as Democrats joined Republicans to vote them down.

The open-ended amendment process, called a vote-a-rama in the Senate, is the last obstacle Democrats face to pass the legislation, which Democrats are pursuing through a legislative process called reconciliation. Reconciliation allows Democrats to skirt the 60-vote threshold necessary for most legislation in the Senate, but it also requires lawmakers to comply with a special series of rules and undergo the lengthy amendment process.

The Senate’s nonpartisan parliamentarian made a series of rulings on Saturday that found much of the Democrats’ bill complied with reconciliation’s rules.

“I’m happy to report to my colleagues that the bill we presented to the parliamentarian remains largely intact,” said Mr. Schumer said.

Mr. Schumer said the parliamentarian didn’t accept one portion of the bill, related to a requirement that drug companies pay rebates if they raise prices faster than inflation for Medicare and private insurance.

The rebate requirements will only apply to Medicare, and not the commercial market, a setback to Democrats’ efforts to limit drug prices more broadly. A push to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month could face a similar fate as the rebate provision, and Democrats are preparing to try forcing the issue on the Senate floor and putting Republicans on the spot over the sensitive political issue.

After reaching an agreement with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), who has resisted much of Democrats’ broader agenda, after months of failed negotiations, Democrats had to make a series of final changes this week to the bill on Thursday to earn the support of Sen.

Kyrsten Sinema

(D., Ariz.). They agreed to pare back elements of the corporate minimum tax and to drop a proposed tax increase on carried-interest income.

Ms. Sinema hasn’t explicitly committed to supporting the bill, saying she wants to see its final form after the amendment process.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) has resisted much of Democrats’ broader agenda.



Photo:

Rod Lamkey/Zuma Press

If Democrats are successful in passing the bill, its passage would mark a victory for their party just months before the midterm elections, which polls show will be challenging for Democrats in large part because of public concern over inflation.

Beginning in 2026, the bill would for the first time empower Medicare to negotiate the prices of a limited set of drugs selected from among those that account for the biggest share of government expenditures. It would also cap out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 a year, beginning in 2025, and starting next year mandate free vaccines for Medicare enrollees. Under the bill, subsidies enacted last year as part of the American Rescue Plan to help people buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act would be extended for three years, through 2025, at a cost of $64 billion.

On climate change, the bill pumps money into wind and solar projects, along with the batteries to store renewable energy, while also subsidizing technology to capture and store carbon-dioxide emissions. Consumers would benefit from subsidies for certain windows, heat pumps and other energy-efficient products, as well the extension of a $7,500 tax credit to buy electric vehicles.

Builders, homeowners and small businesses could avail themselves of new capital pouring into so-called green banks, which will receive $20 billion to provide low-cost financing for energy-efficient products such as heat pumps, windows, solar panels, insulation and electric-vehicle charging stations.

The most significant climate provisions are tax credits that would channel billions of dollars to wind, solar and battery developments that put clean power onto the grid, according to Rhodium Group, an independent research firm. The group estimated that the bill would cut greenhouse-gas emissions 31% to 44% below 2005 levels in 2030, compared with 24% to 35% under current policy.

Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@wsj.com and Andrew Duehren at andrew.duehren@wsj.com

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World

Colombia presidential race to runoff; leftist vs businessman

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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — In a blow to Colombia’s political class, a leftist former rebel and a populist businessman took the top two spots among the six candidates in the country’s presidential election Sunday and headed to a runoff showdown in June.

Leftist Sen. Gustavo Petro led the results with just over 40% of the votes, while independent real estate tycoon Rodolfo Hernández finished second with more than 28%, election authorities said Sunday evening. A candidate needed 50% of the total votes to win outright and the run-off election.

Voters in the South American country went to the polls amid a polarized environment and growing discontent over increasing inequality and inflation.

Petro has promised to make significant adjustments to the economy, including tax reform, and to change how Colombia fights drug cartels and other armed groups. Meanwhile, Hernández, whose spot in the runoff contest came as a suprise, has few connections to political parties and promises to reduce wasteful government spending and to offer rewards for people who report corrupt officials.

There has been a series of leftist political victories in Latin America as people seek change at a time of dissatisfaction with the economic situation. Chile, Peru and Honduras elected leftist presidents in 2021, and in Brazil, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading the polls for this year’s presidential election. Mexico elected a leftist president in 2018.

“The main problem in the country is the inequality of conditions, the work is not well paid,” said Jenny Bello, who sold coffee near a long line of voters under a typical cloudy sky in the capital of Bogotá. She had to resort to informal sales after months without work because of the pandemic.

This was the second presidential election held since the government signed in 2016 a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC for its initials in Spanish. But the divisive agreement was not a main issue during the campaign, which focused on poverty, inflation and other challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.

Election Day took place peacefully for the most part across the country, which is the third most populous in Latin America. But in the south-central state of Guaviare, three explosions were set off in rural areas far from polling stations, leaving a soldier with shrapnel wounds, said Defense Minister Diego Molano, who added that FARC dissident groups were allegedly responsible. The dissidents operate in the area.

(AP Video/Marko Alvarez)

It is Petro’s third attempt to become president. He was defeated in 2018 by Duque, who was not eligible for reelection.

A victory for Petro would usher in a new political era in a country that has always been governed by conservatives or moderates while marginalizing the left due to its perceived association with the nation’s armed conflict. He was once a rebel with the now-defunct M-19 movement and was granted amnesty after being jailed for his involvement with the group.

He has promised to make significant adjustments to the economy, including a tax reform, as well as changes to how Colombia fights drug cartels and other armed groups.

Petro’s main rival for most of the campaign had been Federico Gutiérrez, a former mayor of Medellin backed by most of Colombia’s traditional parties who ran on a pro-business, economic growth platform.

But Hernández, the former mayor of the north-central city of Bucaramanga, surged in recent polls with promises to “clean” the country of corruption and to donate his salary.

“Now, we enter the second period, and these next few days will be decisive in determining the future of the country,” Hernández said in a livestream after early results showed he advanced to the runoff. He said he remains firm on his commitment to end “corruption as a system of government.”

Historically, Colombia’s early election results are consistent with the final count that authorities give days after the contest.

A Gallup poll conducted earlier this month showed that 75% of Colombians believe the country is heading in the wrong direction and only 27% approve of Duque. A poll last year by Gallup found 60% of those questioned were finding it hard to get by on their income.

The coronavirus pandemic set back the country’s anti-poverty efforts by at least a decade. Official figures showed that 39% of Colombia’s 51.6 million residents lived on less than $89 a month last year, which has a slight improvement from the 42.5% rate from 2020.

Meanwhile, the country’s inflation reached its highest levels in two decades last month. Duque’s administration has justified April’s 9.2% rate for April by saying it is part of a global inflationary phenomenon, but the argument has not tamed discontent over increasing food prices.

“The vote serves to change the country and I think that this responsibility falls a lot on young people who want to reach standards that allow us to have a decent life,” said Juan David González, 28, who voted for the second time in a presidential election.

In addition to economic challenges, Colombia’s next president will also have to face a complex security issue and corruption, which is a top concern of voters.

The Red Cross last year concluded Colombia reached its highest level of violence in the last five years. Although the peace agreement with the FARC has been implemented, the territories and drug-trafficking routes that it once controlled are in dispute between other armed groups such as the National Liberation Army, or ELN, a guerrilla founded in the 1960s, FARC dissidents and the Gulf Clan cartel.

Duque’s successor will have to decide whether to resume peace talks with the ELN, which he suspended in 2019 after an attack killed more than 20 people.

The other candidates on the ballot were Sergio Fajardo, former mayor of Medellín and candidate for the center coalition; Christian leader John Milton Rodríguez, and the conservative Enrique Gómez.

“Corruption in state entities is the main problem in the country,” Édgar González said after voting in Bogotá. “… A very big change is taking place in the country’s politics and if we all exercise the right we are going to achieve that change.”

___

Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.

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