A blurry timeline for Democratic legislative priorities. President Joe Biden told House Democrats to delay action on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until they can agree on a scaled-back tax and spending package to fund the rest of his economic agenda. How long that will take is anybody’s guess. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says he’d like to get the bills passed ”in the next month.” But White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond told Fox News yesterday “We don’t have a time frame on it. This is just about delivering and making sure that we deliver both bills to the American people because it meets their needs.”
What will be in it? The White House passed the word over the weekend that it is exploring a scaled back version of the $3.5 trillion social spending bill. But progressives pushed back against the idea of a $1.5 trillion measure—the number floated by key Senator Joe Manchin. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who leads the House progressive caucus, told CNN a bill as small as $1.5 trillion “is not going to happen.” Sen. Bernie Sanders told Meet the Press there would be “give and take” on both sides.
Pandora Papers shared with The Washington Post. The Washington Post reports on private financial records, including 11.9 million documents that reveal how the wealthy move money, property, and other assets through a secret offshore financial system. The trove, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, exposed billions of dollars that have been hidden from tax authorities, creditors, criminal investigators. The papers identified 130 billionaires as well as 330 political leaders in 90 countries who sheltered assets to avoid tax .
Austria embraces carbon pricing and tax cuts. Starting next year, the Austrian government will impose a carbon levy of €30 per ton, growing to €55 per ton in 2025. The measure is part of a larger tax overhaul that cuts corporate and personal income taxes by a total of €18 billion ($21 billion). This is the biggest tax system reform in modern Austrian history.
And a Russian billionaire finally pays his US taxes. Billionaire Russian bank owner Oleg Tinkov was arrested in London in February 2020, accused of hiding $1 billion in assets and income when renouncing his US citizenship in 2013. He pled guilty on Friday to filing a false US tax return and will pay $507 million in taxes, interest, and penalties.
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