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☆ A bigger tax break for parents and companies is getting closer to becoming a reality
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-10 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewThere might be welcome tax news for parents and businesses soon — if legislators are finally able to wrangle a deal. "We've made a substantial kind of progress," Wyden told Semafor. AdvertisementRyan Carey, a spokesperson for Wyden, told BI last week that discussions were "ongoing" and "productive." At the same time, Democrats have been pushing for some renewal of pandemic-era expansions to the Child Tax Credit that expired in December 2021. Wyden told Semafor that he'd want the package in front of President Joe Biden by January 29, when filing season begins.

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☆ It's not just JD Vance: Republican senators are open to criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Sen. JD Vance introduced a bill to criminalize providing certain treatments to transgender minors. Other Republican senators told Insider that they're open to the idea as well. Asked about potentially harmful effects on transgender people who are already receiving care, Vance conceded that the bill is largely a messaging device for now. "But it doesn't have any effect on the capacity of people to receive this care if they're adults. While the bill has the support of 46 mostly hard-right House Republicans, Vance just has one official co-sponsor in the Senate: Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

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☆ Republicans are holding the American economy 'hostage' over the debt ceiling after rejecting Biden's offer of $3 trillion in deficit cut proposals, House Progressive Caucus says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-24 | by ( Ethan Dodd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Republicans have refused to raise the debt ceiling without reducing the deficit. The US could default on its debt in less than a week unless Congress raises the debt ceiling. House Democrats blame this "reckless hostage taking" on Republicans. House Democrats have flipped the switch. House Democrats are blaming their Republican colleagues for rejecting Democratic proposals to reduce the deficit.

Congress is sparring again over raising the debt ceiling, and time is running out to avoid a default. Here's what the debt ceiling is and why it's so dangerous for the US economy. If that sounds familiar, you already know a fair deal about the "debt ceiling." The debt ceiling was introduced in 1917 to encourage the government to slow its borrowing. McCarthy and his GOP colleagues have been adamant that any debt ceiling raise should be tied to their own priorities, particularly in the form of spending cuts.

☆ There are whispers on Capitol Hill of a rare bipartisan effort to overhaul Social Security as the program is set to go broke in less than 10 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A group of senators is considering a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to prevent Social Security insolvency, Semafor reported. A SWF is a government-backed investment fund, and its profits would be used to pay Social Security benefits. In this case, such investments would be used to fund Social Security payments. The goal is, members of the group told Semafor, for Social Security to be solvent for 75 more years, at least. "Although the final framework is still taking shape, there are no cuts for Americans currently receiving Social Security benefits in our plan.

☆ Any future tax breaks for big corporations must also come with restarting monthly checks to parents, 58 members of Congress say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

In a letter, 58 members of Congress said any corporate tax breaks should be coupled with extended credits for families. The expanded Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit both drastically decreased poverty during the pandemic. However, monthly CTC checks to parents wound down last year amid disagreements in Congress. That includes bringing back more generous monthly Child Tax Credit checks and extending the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, a suite of new tax measures that drastically reduced poverty after being included in President Joe Biden's initial stimulus package. However, Congress failed to renew the child tax credit when negotiations over the Build Back Better Act stalled, leaving some families struggling after the monthly checks ended in December 2021.

☆ House Republicans want to cancel Biden's push to make it easier for the IRS to go after tax cheats and send out refunds more quickly
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The IRS funding is meant to pursue tax cheats, shorten phone wait times, and issue refunds faster. House Republicans broke with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in rolling out their policy platform. McConnell has opted to keep the focus instead on Biden's handling of the economy without specifying what Senate Republicans intend to do if they recaptured the upper chamber. House Republicans' intention to repeal IRS funding echoes their earlier efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act under President Barack Obama throughout the 2010s. A group of Senate Republicans led by Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho sent a letter to the tax agency on Thursday urging them to prioritize improving taxpayer services.

☆ Trump and Biden's pandemic stimulus helped Americans get wealthier at the fastest rate this century
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Jason Lalljee | Joseph Zeballos-Roig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Global wealth increased at its fastest rate this century last year. Wealth in the US grew the fastest, likely due to the impact of pandemic stimulus under Trump and Biden. When year-on-year exchange rate movements are accounted for, average wealth grew by 11.3%, the researchers found, and total global wealth grew by 12.7% in 2021. It's the fastest rate achieved this century, the report said, and "almost certainly the fastest rate recorded at any time in history." But that's likely to be the most help Americans will be getting in a while, the report notes.

☆ Manchin bemoans the 'strange bedfellows' of Bernie Sanders and the Senate GOP teaming up to oppose his plan to streamline construction of fossil fuel projects
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Manchin bemoaned the bipartisan opposition that's brewing against his energy bill. "What I'm hearing is that this is like revenge politics," Manchin said Tuesday. Democratic leaders want to overhaul the permitting process for fossil fuel and clean energy projects. "I've been around a long time in state politics and federal politics," Manchin said at a Tuesday press conference. That Democrat-only bill poured $433 billion into clean energy tax credits, healthcare subsidies and imposed a minimum tax on profitable corporations.

☆ Biden declared the pandemic 'over.' It could jeopardize student debt relief and more cash for Covid testing.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Republicans may also seize on Biden's remarks to challenge his effort to issue student debt relief. It could threaten student debt relief and future coronavirus-related health funding. The remarks suggesting that the emergency has ended may jeopardize twin goals of the Biden administration on student debt relief and coronavirus aid. Part of Biden's legal rationale for providing $10,000 in student debt relief per borrower rests on the lingering pandemic. But some supporters of debt relief don't see it quite that way.

☆ Housing prices have hit a 30-year high, but don't expect Congress to help anytime soon
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-17 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Alcynna Lloyd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It seems unlikely that Congress will step in anytime soon to provide housing relief for Americans. But that was only a brief reprieve from a housing market crisis brewing in the US for decades. Soaring housing and rent prices made up a large portion of the increases in the latest inflation report released on Tuesday. "There's all this chaos in the housing market," Williams said. "The combination of higher mortgage rates and the slowdown in economic growth is weighing on the housing market," Sam Khater, Freddie Mac's chief economist, told Insider.

☆ Biden's stimulus may have helped pay for Ron DeSantis' political stunt flying migrants to Martha's Vineyard
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Biden's stimulus may have helped pay for DeSantis' political stunt to fly migrants to Massachusetts. Ron DeSantis finance a political stunt to fly migrants to a wealthy, liberal-leaning slice of Massachusetts. The stunt from DeSantis sparked outrage from immigration advocates and Democrats who called it a cruel political stunt that amounted to human trafficking. The Florida governor has devoted much time trying to troll Democrats, such as by threatening to send migrants to Biden's home state of Delaware. States and cities were eligible for $350 billion in federal relief under Biden's stimulus law.

☆ Trump nearly torpedoed his own stimulus package to get revenge on Mitch McConnell after the 2020 election, book says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Trump grew enraged at McConnell for not backing up his lies that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump had grown furious at McConnell for accepting the results of the 2020 presidential election and declaring it a settled matter. The long-running political brawling between McConnell and Trump shows no signs of fading anytime soon. Trump has repeatedly attacked McConnell and urged GOP senators to depose him as the chief Senate Republican. McConnell, for his part, has only sporadically criticized Trump, and said he would endorse him if Trump were the 2024 Republican nominee.

☆ The US is moving one step closer to letting Americans file their taxes online for free directly to the IRS, cutting out private companies like TurboTax and H&R Block
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The US is moving closer to setting up a free federal tax-filing system. The US is inching closer to modernizing how Americans file their taxes and breaking the grip that private tax-prep companies, like TurboTax and H&R Block, have over the process. Within the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed with only Democratic votes last month, $15 million was set aside for the Treasury Department to study a free federal tax-filing website. That's resulted in a massive backlog of unprocessed tax returns that the IRS is still trying to clear out. The Inflation Reduction Act is set to ease some of that pain, with Democrats directing $80 billion toward the IRS.

☆ Democrats want to bring back Biden's child tax credit soon — and a new report shows it was a huge success in fighting child poverty
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-14 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Madison Hoff | Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The expanded child tax credit helped slash child poverty by roughly half, and some Dems want to bring it back. "This was a historic achievement to reduce child poverty by a record amount driven by the expansion of the child tax credit." He added that given the expanded child tax credit has expired, "the challenge now is for the Congress to extend it." Some Democrats want to bring back the expanded child tax creditThe enhanced child tax credit provided up to $300 monthly checks per kid to parents for six months. Without measures like the expanded child tax credit, poverty likely increased in 2022.

☆ Senate Republicans want Congress to step in and prevent a nationwide rail strike that could hammer the economy
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-14 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Joseph Zeballos-Roig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Two Senate Republicans want Congress to step in and avert a shutdown of the nation's railroads. The US Chamber of Commerce estimates a rail shutdown would cost the economy $2 billion a day. A strike could prove expensive, with the business-friendly US Chamber of Commerce estimating a shutdown would cost the economy $2 billion a day. "We need action immediately to avoid a rail shutdown and the economic impacts that would fall on businesses and consumers," Drake said. "This is an issue that can and should be worked out between the rail companies and the unions, not by Congress.

☆ Bernie Sanders blocks Republican proposal to override workers and stop a railroad strike: 'It is time for Congress to stand on the side of workers for a change'
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-14 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Joseph Zeballos-Roig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Senator Bernie Sanders blocked a Republican resolution to avert a rail strike and override workers. Sanders said that workers deserve paid sick leave, which is the demand holding up agreements. John Drake, VP of transportation, infrastructure and supply chain policy at the Chamber of Commerce, told Insider in a statement that he "welcomes" the Republican resolution. Sanders, Wicker, and Burr sparred over the workers' demands, with Sanders emphasizing that workers should get paid for time out sick — and a say in their contract. Sanders noted that rail workers would be entitled to no sick days, either paid or unpaid, under the current set of recommendations from the presidential panel.

☆ Parents and lower-income Americans could get thousands more on their tax returns this year
▼ + stars: | 2022-02-10 | by ( Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Families can expect to receive up to $1,800 per child starting in March from the child tax credit. Lower-income families are also eligible to get extra cash through the Earned Income Tax credit. Eligible parents will still be able to claim more money from their child tax credits. Millions of adults are also newly eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a tax credit that primarily targets lower and medium-income Americans. The expanded child tax credit expired in December after negotiations over the Democrats' big spending bill fell apart.

The federal tax deadline, when tax returns and payments are due, will move to May 17. The extension automatically applies to individual federal tax returns and payments for 2020 normally due on April 15. "Under titanic stress and strain, American taxpayers and tax preparers must have more time to file tax returns." The IRS moved the tax deadline back in 2020Last year the IRS moved the tax deadline from April 15 to July 15 to give taxpayers and preparers more time to file and pay during widespread coronavirus shutdowns. After winter storms knocked out power in several states in February, the IRS extended the federal tax deadline for residents and business in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma to June 15.

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