Where is the Money Going?
The Corporate Tax Rate may be 35%, but Oil and Gas Companies Really Pay only 11.7%
The 20 oil companies examined by the group reported a total of $133.3 billion in pre-tax U.S. earnings, but were responsible to pay only $32.1 billion in taxes. The deferred payments option allowed them to pay even less, only about $15.6 billion, which came out to an 11.7% tax rate. And the companies owe the federal government no interest on the deferred taxes, even if it takes decades to pay them back. read more
35% of Americans are in Debt to Collection Agencies
It is estimated that 35% of Americans nationwide are in collections, according to Delinquent Debt in America, a new report from the Urban Institute. Debts in collection can include medical bills and traffic fines, as well as consumer credit accounts.
In some states, nearly half of those with credit files are being hounded by debt collectors. Nevada, “which was hard hit by the housing crisis,” the report says, has a 47% rate, the highest in the country.
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There’s Money to be Made on Flood of Child Immigrants
If some of the youth are required to wear monitoring systems, Geo would win again—a subsidiary of that company is the sole provider of ankle monitor bracelets to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Airlines are also getting a piece of the pie. ICE contracts with charter company CSI Aviation for deportation flights. And as children are flown from detention centers to their families around the country, American Airlines has been the carrier of choice.
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New Super PAC Spends Big Money to Fight Big Money in Politics
If you can fight fire with fire, then why not fight big money with big money in the world of elections?
That’s what a coalition of liberals, Republicans and wealthy donors have decided in creating a super PAC called Mayday, which plans to spend millions of dollars to reduce the influence of big donors in campaigns.
Two of the super PAC’s founders are Lawrence Lessig, co-founder of Creative Commons, and Mark McKinnon, former adviser to President George W. Bush.
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42 Civil Rights Groups Support Telecoms against Open Internet
Numerous civil rights groups have sided with the internet provider industry on the issue of net neutrality after getting lucrative partnerships and financial support from telecommunications companies.
The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC), a law firm for civil rights groups, has worked with many of the firms opposing common carrier status for the Internet.
MMTC raised more than $1 million from telecom companies at fundraising luncheons from 2011 to 2013.
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Minor League Baseball Players Sue Major League Baseball over Low Pay
The typical minor league player earns somewhere between $3,000 and $7,500 a season, which can include spring training and fall instructional leagues, the plaintiffs contend. Compare that to MLB salaries, which averaged $3.3 million last year, with a minimum annual wage of $500,000 in 2014. The big difference is that MLB players are unionized, while their minor league counterparts have been prevented by the league from bargaining collectively. read more
Hedge Funds Accused of Screwing Americans out of Billions of Dollars in Taxes
The two banks “used the options to build special accounts for their hedge fund clients in their own names and claimed they owned the assets when it was, in fact, the hedge fund clients that exercised full control of the assets.”
The structure of the basket options also allowed the hedge funds to borrow up to $17 for every dollar in an account rather than the 50 cents on the dollar that broker-dealers are restricted to according to limits that go back to the 1930s.
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$23.6 Billion Jury Award in Smoking Case Unlikely to Survive Appeal
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is expected to challenge the verdict that featured $23.6 billion in punitive damages. In addition to that sum, the jury granted compensatory damages totaling $16.9 million in the case brought by Cynthia Robinson, the widow of chain smoker Michael Johnson, who died 18 years ago of lung cancer at age 36. read more
Federal Grand Jury Indicts FedEx for Conspiring to Deliver Illegal Drugs (No Officials Charged)
The 15-count indictment says that the company had been warned by the federal government at least six times that it was acting as a drug courier.
The online pharmacies at issue were those that didn’t rely on prescriptions from physicians. Rather, they relied on an online questionnaire filled out by buyers without a doctor ever examining a patient. According to the indictment, the drugs shipped by FedEx included Ambien, Diazepam, Alprazolam (Xanax), and Clonazepam.
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Cyber Attack Insurance Market Expected to Double This Year
Last year, the U.S. insurance industry produced $1 billion in policies covering hacker attacks. By the end of 2014, the figure is expected to reach $2 billion. Despite the clear risks that hackers pose, companies aren’t making the decision lightly to buy the new kind of insurance, which can cost $20,000-$25,000 per $1 million in coverage. read more
FDA Gives Research Grants to Members of Tobacco Advisory Committee
The FDA has come under scrutiny for allegedly playing favorites when it comes to giving out grants.
Complaints have surfaced within the scientific community about FDA funding for research being conducted by members of the agency’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.
In helping to support those efforts, the agency has chosen to reject “several projects deemed by an NIH panel to have greater scientific merit,” conducted by researchers not represented on the committee read more
IRS Backs Off on Screening 80% of Tax-Exempt Charities
In the wake of congressional investigations into the agency’s work, the IRS now will only screen about 20% of all applicants requesting tax-exempt charitable status, even though concerns still exist about groups committing fraud and abusing the tax code for political purposes.
The change will certainly make the workload easier at the IRS. An 80% reduction in reviews will translate into processing up to 50,000 fewer 501(c)(3) applications a year.
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Minimum Wage for Tipped Workers hasn’t Gone Up in 23 Years
When the tipped minimum was last raised, it was set at half the regular minimum of $4.25 an hour. But while the regular minimum has increased somewhat regularly, the tipped wage has not, thanks to efforts by the National Restaurant Association, a lobbying group for restaurant owners. Now tipped workers’ wage is only 29.4% of the regular minimum. If it had been raised to account for inflation alone, the tipped minimum would now be $3.72.
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FTC Sues Amazon for Games Bought by Children without Parental Consent
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) this week sued the company for not providing parental consent barriers to keep kids from acquiring games, as well as digital coins, clothing, clues and other goods related to games purchased through Amazon’s app store. read more
Improper Payments by Federal Government Drop…to $106 Billion a Year
Efforts in Washington to reduce the amount of federal tax dollars being improperly paid out is now down to only $100 billion annually, or so that’s how the Obama administration sees it.
Officials are insisting the news is good, considering the total of improper payments has been going down since 2010, when they peaked at $121 billion.
Such payments can consist of unemployment checks (to the employed), medical payments for elective procedures or tax breaks to those unqualified.
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Companies with Women CEOs Outperform those Led by Men
Fortune magazine reports that only 51 companies in the Fortune 1000 are led by female CEOs. Twenty-four of them run Fortune 500 businesses, which is an all-time high.
No. 7 General Motors is the highest ranked Fortune 500 member with a woman running things: Mary Barra. Under her leadership, GM made $155 billion last year.
Women aren’t seeing the benefit of their management prowess, however. Female CEOs made less than 80% of what male CEOs made in 2013. read more