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politics

Can both parties find common ground on immigration?

April 16, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

Maria Elvira Salazar

Two members of Congress on opposite sides of the political aisle talked to the business community Tuesday about what they are doing to help pave a path to citizenship for the nation’s immigrants, including millions of employees of all skill levels.

Representative Kathy Manning (D-North Carolina) and Representative Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) spoke about their efforts to provide such an avenue for “law-abiding, tax paying” immigrants during a virtual Common Grounds forum hosted by the U.S. Chambe of Commerce, the world’s largest business advocacy organization.

The virtual series was started this year to routinely bring together one Republican leader and one Democratic leader to find common ground on issues important to businesses and the nation’s economy. The hope is that, over a cup of coffee, the meetings will “brew bipartisanship” among the divided parties to find solutions that are in the best interest of the nation and economy.

Immigration reform is a key goal of the U.S. Chamber and its members, including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Path to citizenship essential to new economy 

Manning and Salazar are each working on new comprehensive immigration reform packages, the Democrats’ U.S. Citizenship Act and the Republicans’ Dignity Plan. Meanwhile, the House already passed two bills last month that call for protections for Dreamers and farmworkers. Manning and Salazar voted in favor of each.

Rep. Manning said the House Democrats newest package is “the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that we have been hoping for since the last comprehensive immigration bill passed — and that was in 1986.”

“When you think about how our economy has changed, how society has changed, how the world has changed since 1986, it makes you realize how long overdue our immigration reform is,” Manning said.

Rep. Salazar said reforms for immigrant employees and their families are essential for sustaining the American economy, which is roaring back to life.

“We have to change the way we encounter the whole immigration world,” Salazar said. “We have to allow for those people who have merit and will be good for the marketplace or whatever business owners in America need at this hour.”

New to Congress, both Harvard educated   

Both Manning and Salazar are new to Congress. Both are Harvard educated. And both are members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congress has not found the will to find common ground on a comprehensive reform package. But the two said they are willing to try.

Despite gridlock on immigration, both parties’ reform packages are similar in many respects.

The Democrats’ U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021

Manning is working with colleagues on the 353-page U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which was introduced to both houses in February by the Biden administration and Democrats.

If passed, it would create the largest legalization program in U.S. history, providing an avenue for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants to become citizens and expedite the process for farmworkers.

Among the highlights:

Temporary legal status Undocumented individuals who have been in the U.S. for five years could apply for green cards if they pay their taxes and pass criminal and national security background checks. Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and immigrant farmworkers who meet specific requirements would be eligible for green cards immediately. After three years, all green card holders who pass additional background checks and demonstrate knowledge of English and U.S. civics could apply to become citizens.

Stimulate the economy The bill includes a number of measures designed to stimulate the economy such as making it easier for graduates of U.S. universities with advanced STEM degrees to stay in the United States and improve access to green cards for workers in lower-wage sectors. The bill also provides dependents of H-1B visa holders work authorization, creates a pilot program to stimulate regional economic development, gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the authority to adjust green cards based on macroeconomic conditions, and incentivizes higher wages for non-immigrant, high-skilled visas to prevent unfair competition with American workers.

Smarter border controls Funding would be allocated for technology and infrastructure to deploy technology to expedite screening and enhance the ability to identify narcotics and other contraband at every land, air, and sea port of entry. This includes high-throughput scanning technologies to ensure that all commercial and passenger vehicles and freight rail traffic entering the U.S. at land ports of entry and rail-border crossings along the border undergo pre-primary scanning. It also would authorize funding for plans to improve infrastructure at ports of entry to enhance the ability to process asylum seekers and detect, interdict, disrupt and prevent narcotics from entering the U.S.

Funding to assist and negotiate with Central America The bill funds a $4 billion four-year inter-agency plan to address the underlying causes of migration in the region. It would include increasing assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras conditioned on their ability to reduce the corruption, violence and poverty that causes people to flee their home countries.

The Republicans’ Dignity Plan  

A few weeks ago, Salazar and other congressional Republicans presented a similar comprehensive package that is in the working stages. It places more emphasis on border security.

In presenting the package, Salazar stated that dignity and redemption must be part of the solution for immigration reform, particularly for hardworking immigrants who have been waiting for years, even decades, for a road to citizenship.

Among the highlights in the Dignity Plan are:

Border security New funding to enhance border security including “an impenetrable border infrastructure system” that would include enhanced physical barriers and new technology to secure ports of entry.

Immediate protection for Dreamers The bill would provide immediate legal status for Dreamers, young adults who were brought to the country as children by their undocumented parents or relatives. The bill provides a 10-year path to a renewable legal status if they have not committed any crimes.

Asylum reform The package calls for cracking down on fraud and abuse within the asylum program and improving processes for accepting individuals fleeing natural disasters, war and other crises in their home countries. In turn, it would enhance  enforcement of immigration laws to “ensure criminals are removed immediately.”

Legal status for non-felons The proposal also would pave the way for non-felon immigrants to gain legal status and expand visas for agricultural workers. Funding to assist immigrants to attain English language proficiency is also included.

Mandatory E-Verify The bill would require companies to implement E-Verify in hiring all employees to certify that they are not undocumented citizens. Arizona is one of at least 10 states that require E-Verification for employment.

Employers urged to contact elected leaders 

In concluding the forum, Manning and Salazar said business leaders and employers can help get reforms passed by contacting their local and federally-elected officials.

“I think the best way to help is to gather your stories and call your members of Congress and call your senators, particularly call your senators, and tell them what your experience is,” Manning said.

Originally Appeared On: https://chamberbusinessnews.com/2021/04/14/uschamberimmigration/

Filed Under: BUSINESS, politics, US

US man sues police for wrongful facial recognition-based arrest

April 15, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

A man in the US has sued the Detroit Police Department for arresting him after he was falsely accused of shoplifting based on a faulty facial recognition match.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Robert Williams, The Verge reported on Tuesday.

Williams’ experience was the first case of wrongful arrest due to facial recognition technology to come to light in the US, according to the ACLU.

“I came home from work and was arrested in my driveway in front of my wife and daughters, who watched in tears, because a computer made an error,” Williams said in a statement.

“This never should have happened, and I want to make sure that this painful experience never happens to anyone else.”

After a shoplifter allegedly stole several watches at a Shinola store in Detroit in 2018, Detroit police officers tried to identify the thief by using a blurry image from the store’s surveillance camera video and feeding it through facial recognition technology.

The lawsuit cites studies that show that facial recognition technology is poor at accurately identifying Black people, especially in cases like this one when the photo is grainy, the lighting is poor, and the suspect is not looking at the camera.

Williams was held for 30 hours in a Detroit detention centre where he was forced to sleep on a raised cement slab due to overcrowding.

“We know that facial recognition technology threatens everyone’s privacy by turning everybody into a suspect,” said Phil Mayor, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Michigan.

“We’ve repeatedly urged the Detroit Police Department to abandon its use of this dangerous technology, but it insists on using it anyhow.”

The lawsuit seeks damages and policy changes to stop the abuse of facial recognition technology.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.wionews.com/technology/us-man-sues-police-for-wrongful-facial-recognition-based-arrest-377636

Filed Under: politics, TECH/SCIENCE, US

Arrests and deportations of immigrants in US illegally drop under Biden with shift in priorities

April 7, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

The number of people arrested and deported for being in the US illegally has dropped under President Joe Biden after his administration narrowed its enforcement focus to those who may pose a threat or have criminal backgrounds, marking a shift from the policies under the Trump administration.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Biden administration has sought to prioritize its focus on immigrants who pose a threat to national security, border security and public safety. The change was prompted by an executive order signed by Biden shortly after he took office.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the dip in arrests and deportations.

In March, ICE arrested 2,214 undocumented immigrants, down from 6,679 in December, Trump’s last full month in office.

Earlier this year, the agency rolled out tailored enforcement guidelines in a return to Obama-era measures based on a priority system instead of the more aggressive approach taken under the Trump administration. The guidance tries to “focus resources on the most pressing national security and public safety and border security challenges that we are facing,” a senior ICE official told CNN on Tuesday.

The guidelines appeared intended to restrain an agency emboldened under the last administration, establishing strict parameters for ICE officers, particularly in the event that an undocumented immigrant is encountered who’s not being targeted.

“If everyone’s priority, then no one’s a priority, so we do need to make some choices about where to focus our resources,” the ICE official said, pointing to the limits on those resources.

The ICE official said the changes have boiled down to “a lot more arrests of serious criminals than grandmas” and other so-called collateral arrests — immigrants encountered by authorities who aren’t the target of the arrest.

The Trump administration made headlines for ICE operations that targeted families and a large-scale workplace immigration raid. Now, under Biden, ICE field offices have been directed to coordinate their operations and obtain preapproval for enforcement and removal actions that don’t meet the criteria of priority cases.

ICE acting Director Tae Johnson, when rolling out the new guidelines earlier this year, said doing so would help “better coordinate our efforts, achieve consistency in our operations and inform the development of the secretary’s new enforcement guidelines.”

The change in policy has met mixed reviews from the workforce, the ICE official said.

“There are of course, officers who are not as fond of this approach as others are. And others are very appreciative of the change and are implementing it enthusiastically,” the ICE official said.

Succeeding with the new approach, the ICE official said, will take communication from the top to the field, repetition and a change in tone and messaging — something the agency is working on “every day.”

Deportations have also dropped under the Biden administration. Last month, the agency deported 2,886 people, down from 5,838 in December and 10,353 last October.

There are also fewer immigrants in ICE custody, which the ICE official attributed to Covid-19 restrictions. As of March, the average daily population in ICE detention for the current fiscal year was 15,914. In fiscal year 2020, the average daily population was 33,724 and in 2019 it was 50,165.

On Inauguration Day, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would pause deportations for 100 days, with some exceptions, but a federal judge in Texas blocked the moratorium, delivering a blow to one of Biden’s first immigration actions.

The administration argued that the pause would allow DHS time to review the agency’s policies. Meanwhile, the agency’s enforcement priorities remained in place and arrests and deportations slowed significantly.

The ICE official said Tuesday that there was a “lack of focus” at ICE during the Trump administration, adding that there are downsides to public safety when law enforcement agencies don’t have a clear focus and allocation of resources.

“What we are trying to accomplish is, focus ICE’s resources on items that are really truly public safety threats, national security threats and that help reinforce, help establish a strong border security,” the ICE official said.

DHS is expected to issue department-wide guidance on enforcement and removals later this year. As part of that process, ICE is working with its agents in the field and state and local partners to assess the current interim guidance, the ICE official said.

Originally Appeared On: https://kyma.com/cnn-us-politics/2021/04/06/arrests-and-deportations-of-immigrants-in-us-illegally-drop-under-biden-with-shift-in-priorities/

Filed Under: politics, US

Netanyahu asked to form new government, but faces long odds | World

April 6, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s president on Tuesday handed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the difficult task of trying to form a new government, giving the embattled Israeli leader a chance to extend his lengthy term in office.

But with the newly elected parliament deeply divided and the prime minister on trial for corruption charges, Netanyahu had little to celebrate.

He now has up to six weeks to lure his political foes into a coalition, an effort that appears to have slim odds of success. At the same time, those opponents will be working to form an alternative government that could end his 12-year reign.

In a meeting with members of his Likud party, Netanyahu struck a statesmanlike tone, saying he would be the prime minister of all of Israel’s citizens, Jewish and Arab, religious and secular.

“We will take care of everyone,” he said, vowing to “take Israel out of the cycle of recurring elections and to establish a strong government for all citizens of Israel.”

President Reuven Rivlin turned to Netanyahu in the wake of Israel’s fourth inconclusive election in the past two years.

In a post-election ritual, Rivlin had consulted Monday with each of the 13 parties elected to the Knesset, or parliament, in hopes of finding a consensus on a candidate for prime minister. But neither Netanyahu, nor his main rival, Yair Lapid, received the endorsement of a majority of lawmakers.

As he announced his decision Tuesday, an anguished Rivlin said no candidate had the support needed to form a majority coalition in the 120-seat Knesset. He also noted that there are many misgivings about Netanyahu remaining in office while on trial.

Yet he said there was nothing in the law preventing Netanyahu from continuing as prime minister and said he believed that Netanyahu had a better chance than his rivals of cobbling together a coalition.

“This is not an easy decision on a moral and ethical basis,” Rivlin said. “The state of Israel is not to be taken for granted. And I fear for my country.”

Netanyahu did not attend Tuesday’s announcement, as is tradition, and later Rivlin did not appear with Netanyahu in the usual photo of the new parliament’s swearing-in — moves local media interpreted as a show of the president’s unhappiness with the situation.

Netanyahu now has an initial period of 28 days to put together a coalition, a period that Rivlin could extend for an additional two weeks.

Netanyahu has received the endorsement of 52 lawmakers, more than his rivals, but still short of the 61-seat majority needed to form a government.

Securing the support of nine more lawmakers will not be easy. Netanyahu will use his formidable powers of persuasion, coupled with generous offers of powerful government ministries, to court his potential partners.

Netanyahu will likely require the backing of Raam, a small Arab Islamist party. Raam’s leader, Mansour Abbas, has left the door open to cooperating with Netanyahu if he aids Israel’s Arab sector, which has long suffered from crime, discrimination and poverty.

But one of Netanyahu’s allies, the Religious Zionist party, has an openly racist platform and refuses to serve in a government with Arab partners. Netanyahu could appeal to the rabbis who serve as the party’s spiritual guides in hopes of changing minds.

Netanyahu will also likely need the support of Yamina, a religious nationalist party led by former ally turned rival, Naftali Bennett, who also has been cool to an alliance with Arab parties.

Bennett, a former aide to Netanyahu, promised Tuesday to negotiate in “good faith,” but made no promises to his former mentor.

Netanyahu’s last hope will be to try to lure “defectors” from other opposition parties. For now, however, Netanyahu’s opponents have vowed to stand firm, especially after the painful experience of the previous government.

Following elections last year, Netanyahu and his main rival at the time, Benny Gantz, agreed to an “emergency” government to confront the coronavirus crisis. Their partnership was plagued by infighting and collapsed in half a year, triggering the March 23 election.

“The chances of Netanyahu to form a government, as it seems right now, are quite low,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.

Looming over the negotiations will be Netanyahu’s corruption trial, which resumed this week with testimony from the first of a string of witnesses to testify against him.

Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals. He denies the charges and this week compared the case to “an attempted coup.”

Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, acknowledged Tuesday that the law left Rivlin “no choice,” but nonetheless said that tapping Netanyahu was a “shameful disgrace that tarnishes Israel.”

Lapid has offered an alternative: a power-sharing arrangement with Bennett that would see the two men rotate between the prime minister’s job. They are expected to hold intense negotiations in the coming weeks.

Plesner, a former Knesset member, said the partnership between Bennett and Lapid has “a reasonable likelihood of materializing.”

Lapid would be able to deliver his key campaign promise of ousting Netanyahu, while Bennett, whose party has just seven seats, would be the first to be prime minister.

“For both of them, it’s a very lucrative deal,” Plesner said.

Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Israel’s Hebrew University, said that Netanyahu’s opponents who share his hard-line ideology, including Bennett, would prefer to see him fail before banding together against him.

“Otherwise, they would’ve been thought of, from their own right-wing base perspective as traitors,” she said.

The new parliament takes office at a time of deep polarization in Israeli society. Last month’s election was seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s divisive leadership style, and the result was continued deadlock.

Netanyahu’s supporters view him as a global statesman who is uniquely suited to leading the country. His opponents accuse him of pushing the country through repeated elections in hopes of producing a parliament that will grant him immunity from criminal prosecution.

In a sign of those divisions, about 100 protesters hoisted LGBT pride flags and a mock submarine in a noisy demonstration outside the Knesset as the new parliament was sworn in. The pride flags were aimed at the pro-Netanyahu Religious Zionists, whose members are openly homophobic, while the submarine points to a graft scandal involving the purchase of German subs.

As the new Knesset was sworn into office, Rivlin appealed for unity. It was the last time Rivlin will address such a gathering, and the outgoing president, who leaves office this summer, appeared emotional.

“If we do not learn and find a model of partnership that will allow us to live here together, out of mutual respect for each other, out of commitment to each other, and genuine solidarity, our national resilience will be in real danger,” he said.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.berkshireeagle.com/us-politics/netanyahu-asked-to-form-new-government-but-faces-long-odds/article_bb1e453a-cf19-5dcc-944a-7a1f2dded6cf.html

Filed Under: politics, US

MLB Pulls All-Star Game From Atlanta, Georgia, in Response to Voting Law

April 6, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

The league said it was finalizing details about new locations for this year’s All-Star Game, which was scheduled for July 13, and the draft. Before the announcement, baseball had faced the unsettling prospect of celebrating an All-Star week dedicated to the former Atlanta Braves great Hank Aaron, a Black pioneer of the game who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, against the backdrop of a Georgia elections overhaul widely seen as targeting Black voters.

Mr. Kemp, who has been forcefully defending the law in television appearances this week, criticized the decision to move the All-Star Game and tried to pin the blame on state Democrats for their vocal criticism of the voting restrictions.

“Today, Major League Baseball caved to fear, political opportunism, and liberal lies,” Mr. Kemp said in a statement, calling out Mr. Biden and Stacey Abrams, the titular head of the state’s Democrats. He continued: “I will not back down. Georgians will not be bullied. We will continue to stand up for secure, accessible, fair elections.”

Georgia Democrats had not called for a boycott of the game, but were building pressure on Major League Baseball and Georgia-based corporations to oppose the state’s voting law.

Ms. Abrams, who ran against Mr. Kemp for governor in 2018 and may challenge him again next year, said Friday that she was “disappointed” league officials had pulled the All-Star Game but that she was “proud of their stance on voting rights.”

For now, the fallout from baseball’s decision is more political and civic than financial. The impact on the Georgia economy of losing the All-Star Game is minimal, said Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College, because most of the tickets would be sold locally and many of the typical festivities would most likely be canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But, Professor Zimbalist said, Major League Baseball is taking a risk with a move that could alienate conservative fans. After the country’s top professional basketball and football leagues embraced the Black Lives Matter movement last year, they faced organized boycotts from conservatives, though the effort ultimately had little effect. And baseball’s fan base is older and whiter than basketball’s or football’s.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/mlb-all-star-game-moved-atlanta-georgia.html

Filed Under: politics, US

Testing an Opaque Security Power, Michigan Man Challenges ‘No-Fly List’

April 6, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

“For over two years, I’ve tried to get off the no-fly list, but the government won’t even give me its reason for putting me on the list or a fair process to clear my name and regain my rights,” Mr. Chebli said in a statement released by the A.C.L.U. “No one should suffer what my family and I have had to suffer.”

The Justice Department had no immediate response to the lawsuit. But it has defended the legality of the government’s terrorism watch lists and its related practices in litigation over the past decade, arguing that the procedures are lawful and reasonable given the national security interests at stake.

Mr. Chebli’s case is a sequel to a major lawsuit by the A.C.L.U. during the Obama administration that challenged government procedures for reviewing whether it was appropriate to put someone’s name on the no-fly list. In 2014, a federal judge in Oregon ruled that those regulations were inadequate and violated Americans’ Fifth Amendment right to due process.

In response, the government promised to overhaul the Traveler Redress Inquiry Program to ensure that Americans would be told if they were on the list and given a meaningful opportunity to challenge the decision. (It also removed seven of the 13 original plaintiffs in that case from the no-fly list. Several remaining plaintiffs pressed on, but that judge, and later the appeals court in San Francisco, upheld the revised procedures as applied to them.)

Citing Mr. Chebli’s inability to obtain information about the government’s evidence about him or to challenge it in a hearing before a neutral decision maker, the new lawsuit said that the revised procedures are both unconstitutional and that they violate statutory law, including a federal law that protects religious liberty, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, because he is unable to travel to Mecca for the required Muslim pilgrimage.

“More than two years ago, Mr. Chebli filed an administrative petition for redress, but the government has failed to provide any reason for placing him on the no-fly list or a fair process to challenge that placement,” it said. “As a result, Mr. Chebli has been subjected to unreasonable and lengthy delays and an opaque redress process that has prevented him from clearing his name.”

Beyond the Oregon case, the new lawsuit takes its place among a constellation of related litigation that has tested the limits of the government’s terrorism watch-listing powers and individual rights.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/politics/no-fly-list-lawsuit.html

Filed Under: politics, US

What happens when women run the economy? We’re about to find out | National politics

April 6, 2021 by Staff Reporter

“When you’re different from the rest of the group, you often see things differently,” said Rebecca Henderson, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of “Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire.”

“You tend to be more open to different solutions,” she said, and that is what the situation demands. “We’re in a moment of enormous crisis. We need new ways of thinking.”

Empathy, stability

Over the past half-century, 57 women have been president or prime minister of their countries, but institutions that make economic decisions have largely been controlled by men until recently.

Outside the United States, there’s Christine Lagarde at the helm of the European Central Bank with its 2.4 trillion euro balance sheet, Kristalina Georgieva at the International Monetary Fund with its $1 trillion in lending power, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the World Trade Organization — all jobs held by men a decade ago.

Overall, there are women running finance ministries in 16 countries, and 14 of the world’s central banks, according to an annual report prepared by OMFIF, a think tank for central banking and economic policy.

The limited measures available suggest women have a better track record of managing complicated institutions through crisis.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/what-happens-when-women-run-the-economy-we-re-about-to-find-out/article_335f5b09-faee-5820-9a22-41fac4d87eca.html

Filed Under: BUSINESS, politics, US

Biden told big multinational corporations to “get real” about paying taxes. Here’s what he plans to do

April 6, 2021 by Staff Reporter

Biden is proposing big taxes on business

President Biden’s measure would raise $2.7 trillion over 15 years, nearly half of which — $1.2 trillion — would come from increasing the statutory corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. While this would put business taxes at only half the peak rate levied in the 1960s, it would still be the biggest tax hike on business in U.S. history that’s not related to funding war. Unsurprisingly, businesses have launched an “all-out war” over the tax hikes, and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Monday called for reducing the rate to 25 percent, 10 points below the Obama administration rate.

Here’s what really bothers businesses: Biden isn’t just changing the statutory rate, or what businesses are supposed to pay in theory, but also the effective rate, or what they would actually pay. Because of a variety of deductions, offshoring, exporting and creative accounting techniques, businesses now pay an estimated effective rate of just 9.7 percent. Increasing the rate would require a lot of changes.

Taxing multinational companies is complicated and politically fraught

As Martin Hearson and I explain in a forthcoming article in Perspectives on Politics, taxing multinationals — which earn money in a variety of jurisdictions, each with its own taxes — is complicated. There are two basic approaches. The first, advocated by pro-tax advocates, is called “formulary apportionment” and allocates taxing rights across jurisdictions according to some objective measure such as share of sales. The second, “transfer pricing,” gives corporations practical discretion over where they report accruing global income, thus allowing them to lower their taxes by reporting in the low-tax jurisdictions.

To understand this, imagine a world where a big multinational such as Apple made 60 percent of its sales in California, 30 percent in Oregon and 10 percent in Ireland. Under a standard formulary apportionment approach, Apple would owe California income taxes on 60 percent of its income, while Oregon and Ireland would get dibs on 30 percent and 10 percent respectively. Moreover, Apple would owe the U.S. federal income taxes on 90 percent of its profits, accounting for its sales in the two states. Under transfer pricing, in contrast, Apple could use complicated licensing and royalty schemes to report 100 percent of its profits in low-tax Ireland, depriving California, Oregon and the United States of their shares.

Currently, U.S. businesses can use transfer pricing to lower their reported income, letting them reduce their tax bills at the U.S. government’s expense. Since the 1970s, the share of U.S.-based multinational corporations’ profits reported in non-U. S. jurisdictions has soared 300 percent. Some companies avoid paying income tax altogether through a combination of tax havens, accounting tricks and lax Internal Revenue Service enforcement.

In 2017, President Donald Trump made an already complicated and corporation-favoring tax system more so. He lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent (where it had been for a generation) to 21 percent. And through what economist Kimberly Clausing, who’s now with the Biden administration, calls “America Last” provisions, he increased the offshoring bias of the tax code, including by allowing companies to deduct the first 10 percent return on foreign assets. The cost of this giveaway: $1.9 trillion.

It will be harder for corporations to play games with taxes

The Biden plan is intended to bring the effective rate closer to the statutory rate, while discouraging U.S. business from offshoring activities and jobs.

For starters, the U.S. would charge American companies a minimum 21 percent rate on profits in each country where they earn income, making it less attractive to book profits in tax havens like Ireland. If Ireland doesn’t charge at least 21 percent, companies like Apple would owe the United States the difference. While not quite a formulary method, surveilling how and in which countries corporations report income takes a step in that direction, reducing incentives to report income in tax havens in the first place. And if other countries adopted global minimum tax rates, as Yellen suggests, the incentives would be lowered even further.

That’s not all. The plan also blocks U.S. corporations from claiming tax havens as their residence, eliminates the Trump deductions for offshoring assets, offers a tax credit for bringing jobs into the United States and promises to give the IRS far more resources to go after tax cheats. Finally, the plan requires that very large multinational companies pay at least a 15 percent effective tax rate on U.S. income, preventing them from using accounting schemes to pay nothing at all.

Corporate taxes are now politically visible

Multinational tax arrangements are difficult for ordinary people to understand — they typically fall under what political scientist Pepper Culpepper calls “quiet politics,” political questions that only specialists pay attention to. However, by focusing on how the United States taxes multinationals, Biden has made the topic visible to more ordinary citizens. It will be interesting to see what happens if Biden succeeds in moving away from the current, complex system that companies can manipulate to a simpler system, one giving more clout to nonprofits, advocacy groups and other observers unable to hire armies of economists and lawyers, as corporations have done.

Conceivably, this shift could allow citizens to debate new questions. If the United States can raise rates to 28 percent, why not 35 percent, as some in Congress, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), want? If the federal government can collect taxes on tax haven income, why permit U.S.-based corporations to move their profits offshore in the first place? If they succeed, Biden’s taxation proposals may reshape U.S. politics.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/05/yellen-wants-make-us-businesses-pay-taxes-money-they-make-abroad-getting-there-is-hard/

Filed Under: BUSINESS, politics, US

Hasina pitches for policy support to expand US-Bangladesh trade

April 6, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

Bangladesh buys considerable amount of industrial raw materials and consumer items like cotton, soybean, and wheat from the United States, the prime minister said.

“All these items enjoy zero tariffs in Bangladesh. It is important that both countries provide adequate policy support to further expand bilateral trade,” Hasina said at the virtual launch of the US-Bangladesh Business Council on Tuesday.

Bangladesh’s sustained economic growth, rapidly expanding domestic market and growing connectivity with a vast regional market of 4 billion people makes it a promising destination for US business and investment, said Hasina.

“We are constantly improving our physical, legal and financial infrastructures to facilitate foreign investment. My government is establishing 100 `Special Economic Zones’ for rapid industrialisation. We are offering one dedicated Special Economic Zone for American companies to establish manufacturing facilities.”

She thanked her ICT Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy for his support in the planning and implementation of the government’s vision of a ‘Digital Bangladesh’.

The prime minister highlighted Bangladesh’s capability of using technology to improve transparency in governance and spur economic development.

“Today, Bangladesh exports more than $1 billion worth ICT products to over 60 countries, the US being the top export destination.

“According to the USAID’s Comprehensive Private Sector Assessment 2019 for Bangladesh, the ICT industry is expected to grow nearly five-fold to reach nearly $ 5b by 2025.

“Bangladesh is now developing 28 Hi-tech parks for ICT industries with local and foreign investment. We are offering one Hi-Tech Park for ICT investment by US companies.”

The launching of the US-Bangladesh Business Council reflects the growing interest of the US business community about investment and doing business in Bangladesh, said Hasina as she hoped that it will help expand economic partnership between the two countries.

Originally Appeared On: https://bdnews24.com/business/2021/04/06/hasina-pitches-for-policy-support-to-expand-us-bangladesh-trade

Filed Under: BUSINESS, politics, US

William Evans, slain Capitol Police officer, to lie in honor in US Capitol next week

April 6, 2021 by Staff Reporter

 

Evans, an 18-year veteran of the Capitol Police, died while protecting the Capitol from an individual who brandished a knife after ramming his vehicle into a police barricade along the perimeter of the Capitol. Another officer was injured in the attack.

“The United States Congress joins all Americans in mourning the tragic death of one of our Capitol Police heroes, Officer Billy Evans,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement. “In giving his life to protect our Capitol and our Country, Officer Evans became a martyr for our democracy. On behalf of the entire Congress, we are profoundly grateful.”

“It is now the great and solemn privilege of the House of Representatives and the Senate to convey the appreciation and the sadness of the Congress and Country for the heroic sacrifice of Officer Evans with a lying-in-honor ceremony in the US Capitol,” Pelosi and Schumer said in their statement.

Acting US Capitol Police Chief Yogananda D. Pittman reflected on the day of Evans’ death how difficult a time it has been for the Capitol Police force, who remain understaffed and overworked since the violent insurrection on the Capitol on January 6.

“This has been an extremely difficult time for US Capitol Police after the events of Jan. 6 and now the events that have occurred here today. So I ask that you keep our US Capitol Police family in your thoughts and prayers,” Pittman said on April 2.

Capitol Police Union Chairman Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement Saturday that the Capitol Police is staffed below its authorized level by 233 officers and could face larger staffing shortages as officers retire in the coming years. Papathanasiou noted the shortage is exacerbated by the continued injuries of several officers in the January 6 attack.

Evans is the second Capitol Police officer to die in the line of study this year. Capitol Police Officer, Brian D. Sicknick, died a day after the Capitol riot on January 6 “due to injuries sustained while on-duty,” the Capitol Police said in a statement. Two officers also died by suicide after responding to the riot.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/politics/william-evans-slain-capitol-police-office-lie-in-honor/index.html

Filed Under: politics, US

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