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Amazon head tax reversed

Jun 13, 2018
Last month the Seattle city council voted unanimously for a head tax – a set fee that bigger companies would have to pay for each of their employees. The tax was meant to raise funds to address homelessness and help create more affordable housing in a city where both have become problems. Then yesterday that same […]

An unintended consequence of the GOP tax law: bigger pensions for some

Jun 4, 2018
A decrease in the corporate tax rate gave companies more of an incentive to funnel money into defined-benefit pension plans.
There is a “considerable amount of concern that middle-income Americans are not saving enough for their retirement,” says Joseph Cordes of George Washington University.
PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images

Fears of a trade war rekindled

Jun 1, 2018
We ended the week with a strong jobs report. But what about wage growth?
Work gloves are viewed on the factory floor at Quadrant, a high-end plastic processor, in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 2011.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Seattle’s tax on big business draws attention of more cities

May 16, 2018
This week, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted in what’s commonly known as a “headcount tax.” Businesses that bring in more than $20 million in annual revenue will have to pay a $275 tax for each of their full-time employees. It’s a lower fee than what many were hoping for, but there are still plenty […]

Where are Affordable Care Act premiums headed?

May 4, 2018
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the Republican-controlled House voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the vote would increase the number of uninsured Americans by more than 20 million. Well, Obamacare is still standing, but as part of the tax overhaul, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans […]

Amazon wants tax incentives, Texas knows the drill

May 3, 2018
As Amazon considers locations for its second headquarters, incentives are on the table.
Toyota was offered more than $50 million in financial incentives and tax abatements from the Texas Enterprise Fund and the city of Plano to move its North American headquarters to Plano, above.
Courtesy of Amanda Roark/Toyota

States and cities that raise tolls and taxes may get a leg up for federal infrastructure money

Apr 27, 2018
What’s that old saying? You’ve got to spend money to make money? The U.S. Department of Transportation is trying a variant on that when it comes to funding road and bridge improvements. It’s tripled the amount of money in what’s known as the BUILD Transportation Discretionary Grant program to $1.5 billion. But part of the criteria for state […]

For public good, not for profit.

What happens if online retailers have to charge sales tax?

Apr 26, 2018
"This is a very big deal ... for all small entrepreneurs everywhere," Etsy's CEO says.
FedEx worker sort through a pile of boxes at the FedEx sort facility at the Oakland International Airport in December 2006 in California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Is globalism a failed policy?

Apr 24, 2018
The economy is doing well, but the average person is angry. "The alternative is that you change the social contract," one expert says.
“You can get rid of Trump, but, I mean, all of the Trumpism in the United States is real and is coming for us,” says Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
Ralph Freso/Getty Images

Forecast is sunny for business

Apr 23, 2018
But economists say more hiring and bigger profits ahead have little to do with tax cuts.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), flanked by Republican lawmakers, speaks during an enrollment ceremony for the conference report to H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed by the House and Senate, on Dec. 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C.
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