US President Joe Biden has warned that Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine might bring the world closer to “Armageddon” at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Biden said, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they’d been going.”
Biden said that the prospect of getting defeated in Russia-Ukraine war could make Putin use nuclear weapons. If in case the 70-year old takes this step, it would be the biggest risk faced since US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off over missiles in Cuba.
Biden added that it was no joke when Putin talked about using tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, because his military is underperforming according to him.
Zelenskiy in a video address on Thursday said that Kyiv’s forces recaptured more than 500 square kilometres (195 square miles) and dozens of settlements in Kherson in October. Putin had proclaimed the annexation a week ago, but Ukraine has already recaptured the main Russian bastion in northern Donetsk, along with a swath of west bank territory in Kherson.
Putin called on hundreds of thousands of reservists after losing the territories. The move sent thousands of men fleeing the country to escape the draft. A suspected Russian missile demolished an apartment block in Zaporizhzhia yesterday. However, Ukraine still controls the city, which is the capital of a province claimed by Russia.
Bodies were carried out of the rubble, Reuters journalists witnessed. Zelenskiy in an online address accused Russia of targeting the same spot twice to kill responders.
In its defence, Russia said it does not target civilians. Russian news agency, RIA reported that four civilians were killed and three injured by a Ukrainian missile that hit a bus in the Russian-controlled city of Kherson.
It’s been seven-month since Putin forces invaded Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Kyiv’s forces are swiftly recapturing more territory.
Sept. 29, 2022 — The Biden administration has announced $8 billion in public and private commitments toward fighting hunger and improving nutrition in the United States.
“This goal is within our reach,” President Biden said Wednesday during the first White House summit on hunger in 50 years. “In America, no child should go to bed hungry. No parent should die of disease that can be prevented.”
The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Healthcomes as food costs are rising, supply chain issues remain from the pandemic, and food-related ailments continue. The administration announced a “bold goal” of ending hunger by 2030 and increasing healthy eating and physical activity.
Among the key proposals:
Expand free school meals to 9 million more children by 2032
Allow more people to get food stamps
Help with transportation for people who don’t live near grocery stores and farmers markets
Increase money for nutrition programs helping seniors
Reduce food waste, since a third of all food in the United States goes to waste, the White House says.
Many of the efforts need congressional approval. Biden can take some action through executive order.
The Washington Post reported, “The pervasiveness of diet-related diseases creates broader problems for the country, White House officials said, hampering military readiness, workforce productivity, academic achievement and mental health.”
The newspaper also reported that the U. S. Department of Agriculture says that 10.2% of U.S. households were “food insecure” in 2021. That means they didn’t have enough food to meet everyone’s needs.
CNN said that more than 100 organizations have committed to help pay for Biden’s initiatives, including hospitals, health care associations, tech companies, philanthropies, and the food industry.
At least $2.5 billion will go to start-up companies focused on finding solutions to hunger and food insecurity, according to the White House.
PHOENIX, July 8, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– The following is an open letter from the CSPOA:
The CSPOA strongly agrees with Kinney County, Texas Sheriff Coe, Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County, Arizona, and Protect America Now (PAN), and other like-minded organizations, that securing our border is essential to our National Security and to the health and safety of American Citizens, not only in the border regions but throughout America.
We support Sheriff Coe’s efforts to step in and fill the gap left by overworked Border Patrol and ICE personnel, who are tied up elsewhere because of the open-border policies of the Biden Administration. As Fox News reported, when recently faced with apprehended illegal aliens and no Border Patrol personnel available to turn them over to, Sheriff Coe personally drove them to the border and sent them back.
According to Sheriff Coe, “We are under siege – being literally overrun – we are doing the best we can to hold on to what we have here in Kinney County, to protect our citizens and their property that is under an all-out assault.”
And in a press conference earlier this week, Sheriff Coe, along with several other sheriffs and other elected officials in the border area, including the mayor of Uvalde, Texas, laid out the solid case that the border crisis is causing so much damage to America and that more needs to be done. They called on Texas Governor Abbott to take further action and “request that the Governor of Texas, as Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the State, declare the existence of an invasion on its border with Mexico and take necessary actions to preserve and protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Texas …”
These courageous leaders, in solidarity with one another and with all Americans, spoke forcefully about the abject failure of President Joe Biden’s administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to fulfill their Constitutional duties to control our southern border and solve this crisis. They further request the Governor of Texas “act under the constitutional authority granted him … and immediately prevent and/or remove all persons invading the sovereignty of Texas and that of the United States …”
CSPOA and our member sheriffs on or near the border applaud these elected leaders and are working with them to put pressure on a neglectful federal government to step up to the plate and do their duty. It is the opinion of the CSPOA that their failure to do so amounts to impeachable offenses.
ARLINGTON, Va., April 4, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– The American COMPETES Act of 2022 was passed by the House of Representatives in February 2022 to cover scientific research, economic competitiveness and various other matters related to CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR MANUFACTURING, PRE-EMINENCE IN TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMIC STRENGTH (COMPETES). After recent breakthroughs in the fusion energy industry, Kronos Fusion Energy highly encourages the support of this act.
On March 23, 2022, the US Senate voted 66-33 on a motion to proceed to consider this Bill. There is a very important Amendment for the fusion energy industry that was sponsored by three House members who are thought leaders in developing strategies to create high-paying American jobs for the fusion energy industry.
Priyanca Ford, founder of Kronos Fusion Energy Inc, urged the U.S. Senate to consider fusion energy to be a bipartisan issue, “Fusion Energy is the cleanest and most efficient energy source in the universe that will lead mankind to a new golden age. [Ford] urges the U.S. Senate to support the Fusion Energy Amendment and to pass the COMPETES Bill quickly, to help to jumpstart the American fusion energy industry’s quest to become the global leader in jobs creation for fusion energy”.
Representative Don Beyer (D-VA), the Chairman of the House Fusion Energy Caucus, Representative Lori Trahan (D-MA), the sponsor of the Fusion Amendment to the Energy Act of 2020 that created the fusion energy milestone program, and Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy in the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology sponsored the Fusion Energy Amendment that will help to foster the rapid growth of the United States fusion energy industry.
Michael Pierce Hoban, managing partner at Kronos Fusion Energy Inc, commented on why this amendment is important to the U.S. fusion energy industry, “This amendment grows the funding for the Department of Energy’s proposed milestone-based public-private partnership program for fusion energy from $325 million over five years to $800 million. It also increases authorized funding for a new materials program from $200 million to $400 million over the coming five years.”
The U.S. Senate is now considering whether to concur with the house amendment on fusion energy and whether to pass the COMPETES Bill so that a completed bill can go to President Biden for signature.
Information on Kronos Fusion Energy can be found below.
President Joe Biden speaks about the March jobs report in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, April 1, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
What Happened
On March 28th, 2022, the Department of Treasury issued the 2023 Fiscal Year Revenue Proposal (The Green book) outlining a number of proposed tax policies designed to increase revenues, improve tax administration, and make the tax system more equitable and efficient. The proposal had several key policies that will have a direct impact on crypto taxpayers if adapted as proposed.
Key Concepts
Tax Policy Changes Targeted Towards High-income Taxpayers
The proposal has three major tax policy changes focused on high income earner in the US. First, the treasury wants the highest marginal income tax rate to increase from 37% to 39.6% effective December 31, 2022. This increased marginal rate would apply to taxable income over $450,00 for married filers and $400,000 for individual filers. If your total taxable income is above these thresholds, your short-term cryptocurrency gains (coins & NFTs sold after holding them for less than 12 months) and other types of crypto income such as staking, mining & interest would be subject to this higher rate.
Second, the proposal is planning to subject long-term capital gains (which are generally subject to a lower tax rate than ordinary income tax rate) to a higher tax rate for taxpayers with over 1 million of taxable income. For example, if your overall taxable income is over 1 million, long-term gains in excess of 1 million would be subject to a much higher ordinary income tax rate vs the maximum 20% rate under the current law. Furthermore, the proposal aims to make transfers of appreciated property as gift and at death as taxable events for wealthy individuals.
Third and arguably the most aggressive tax proposal included in the document is the 20% minimum tax on “Total income” for taxpayer’s worth over 100 million. Total income includes regular taxable income such as wages and investment income and surprisingly unrealized capital gains on assets you own.
Specific Policy Changes For Digital Assets
The proposal includes four digital assets specific tax policy changes. Let’s first go through the three policies that have a direct impact on taxpayers.
The first proposal talks about cryptocurrency lending activity which has expanded rapidly over the past several years. The treasury aims to make cryptocurrency-based loans tax-free similar to loans based on stocks & securities, as a long as certain criteria is met. This is good news for taxpayers who are involved in lending activity.
Certain specified financial assets (foreign bank accounts, brokerages, etc.) held by US individuals in foreign countries have been subject to IRS reporting for many years. To comply with the rules, US taxpayers with foreign accounts in excess of $50,000 are required to file a Form 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) disclosing various information about those assets. Whether digital assets held in overseas exchanges are subject to Form 8938 reporting has been a grey area for several years. The treasury proposal finally adds clarity to this lingering question and want to subject digitals assets to Form 8939 reporting.
The next digital asset-specific tax policy change involves day traders of cryptocurrency. Section 475(f) tax election has been a taxpayer-friendly election active day traders of stocks have been enjoying for many years. When this election is properly made, day traders can mark-to-market their positions at year end and treat gains and losses as ordinary income. This allows them to deduct unlimited amounts of losses and override the $3,000 annual cap on capital loss deduction other taxpayers are subject to. If we strictly follow the current law, this favorable tax election is only applicable to stocks and commodity traders. The treasury has clearly identified the growth of crypto markets and proposed to extend this favorable election to active digital asset traders. This is another positive policy change.
The final proposal related to cryptocurrency is aimed at US cryptocurrency exchanges. To effectively combat offshore tax evasion, the US tax regulators heavily rely on information shared by foreign financial institutions and governments on financial accounts owned by US individuals in foreign countries. The success of this system heavily depends on reciprocity. In simple terms, the US must share information about US financial accounts owned by foreign individuals to those respective countries; Foreign countries must report to the US when US individuals hold financial accounts in foreign countries. This continuous information sharing enables regulators to catch bad actors using offshore strategies to evade taxes.
To strengthen reciprocity when it comes to crypto-related information sharing, the treasury would require US digital asset exchanges to report account balance for all financial accounts maintained at a US office held by a foreign person to the IRS.
“This would allow the United States to share such information on an automatic basis with appropriate partner jurisdictions, in order to reciprocally receive information on U.S. taxpayers”
All aforementioned proposals would be effective after December 31, 2022, except the rule that mandates US exchanges to report foreign account holder information, which is planned to be effective after December 31, 2023. According to treasury estimates, these digital assets specific rules will raise approximately 11 billion in tax revenue between 2023 and 2032.
Next Steps
Monitor how the proposed rules are processed through the legislative process in the coming months.
