Economy
How Filing Taxes Will Be Different Because Of The Coronavirus
Is unemployment money taxable? What about my stimulus checks?
Tax Day is April 15, and COVID-19 has changed a lot when it comes to filing this year. Here are five things to know about how filing taxes for 2020 will be different because of the pandemic.
Listen to the full Life Kit episode at the top of this page for more about filing for the first time and getting all of your paperwork ready.
Sacklers Offer $4.3 Billion To Settle Claims Purdue Helped Cause Opioid Crisis
Perdue Pharmaceuticals admitted last year that it knowingly conspired with doctors to over-prescribe OxyContin and other dangerously addictive opioid painkillers in order to bolster profits.
And as it desperately seeks an exit from bankruptcy protection (which the company only invoked to avoid being financially ruined by thousands of lawsuits) Perdue and the Sackler Family (who are now being personally targeted by some states attorneys general) are pitching a new $10 billion settlement plan that will see the family increase its contribution to $4.3 billion, roughly one-third of the family’s wealth.
Homebuyers canceling contracts as costs soar
Rising costs for lumber and other materials are causing new home contracts to be canceled, according to the National Association of Homebuilders.
Lumber costs have surged more than 170% over the past year, adding around $24,000 to the cost of a new home. Concrete, metal products, appliances, and other expenses are also increasing due to supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 shutdowns.
Griddy Offers to Cancel Texas Power Bills If Customers Don’t Sue
Griddy Energy LLC has one final deal for Texans before the power seller shuts down for good: if its 29,000 former customers agree not to sue, the company will cancel electric bills that were about 300 times normal amid last month’s winter storm.
On its first day in bankruptcy court, Griddy lawyers outlined a plan to liquidate, settle with customers and, possibly, arrange lawsuits against those that the company blames for its collapse.
The US State Department’s former lead investigator who oversaw the COVID-19 task force into the origins of the virus believes SARS-CoV-2 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and may have been the product of bioweapons research, according to Fox News.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology is not the National Institute of Health,” David Asher – now a senior fellow at the Hudson institute – told Fox News in an interview, adding: “It was operating a secret, classified program. In my view, and I’m just one person, my view is it was a biological weapons program.”
Feds mistakenly gave away $692M in duplicate PPP loans
The Small Business Administration mistakenly paid close to $692 million in duplicate Paycheck Protection Program loans to thousands of small businesses, even as others struggled to secure enough financing to stay afloat during the pandemic, according to a new report published by the agency’s in-house watchdog.
The Small Business Administration’s Office of the Inspector General said in a report released Monday that between April 3 and Aug. 19, lenders made more than one loan disbursement to 4,260 borrowers, including 2,689 with the same tax ID number and 1,571 with the same business name and address.
Last month, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed three bills making it official: marijuana will soon be growing legally in the gardens of the Garden State for anyone over 21 to enjoy. The bills follow through on a marijuana legalization ballot initiative that New Jerseyans approved overwhelmingly last year. New Jersey is now one of a dozen states, plus the District of Columbia, which have let loose the magic dragon — and more states, like Virginia, may be on the way.
It’s been almost a decade since Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana. That’s given economists and other researchers enough time to study the effects of the policy. Here are some of the most interesting findings.
The Financial Crisis the World Forgot
The Federal Reserve crossed red lines to rescue markets in March 2020. Is there enough momentum to fix the weaknesses the episode exposed?
By the middle of March 2020 a sense of anxiety pervaded the Federal Reserve. The fast-unfolding coronavirus pandemic was rippling through global markets in dangerous ways.
Trading in Treasurys — the government securities that are considered among the safest assets in the world, and the bedrock of the entire bond market — had become disjointed as panicked investors tried to sell everything they owned to raise cash. Buyers were scarce. The Treasury market had never broken down so badly, even in the depths of the 2008 financial crisis.
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The post Daily Digest 3/16 – How Filing Taxes Will Be Different Because Of The Coronavirus, The Financial Crisis the World Forgot appeared first on Peak Prosperity.
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