Here’s one tax advantage for the rich Biden's plan didn't eliminate - Yahoo Finance

President Joe Biden's latest plan takes many steps toward taxing those at the top, but one tax advantage on capital gains would remain intact, ensuring continued preferential treatment for the wealthiest Americans.

The ability to defer taxes on capital gains allows rich Americans to continue earning returns on untaxed money until the assets are sold — at which point investors can time the sale to blunt any tax burden. In the meantime, those untaxed gains can also be used as collateral for loans. 

Read more: Taxes on stocks: How it works and strategies to minimize

“If you don't pay tax on the annual increase in value of your assets, you continue earning returns on money that you would otherwise pay in tax,” Samantha Jacoby, senior tax legal analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told Yahoo Money. "It's an important tax advantage that allows wealthy people to continue building wealth over time."

The deferral option mostly benefits those at the top of the income distribution. For the top 1%, capital income — which largely is taxed at lower rates than income — accounted for 41% of their income in 2016, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office.

US President Joe Biden arrives to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on April 29, 2021. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

‘I can't say to my boss, or the IRS that I want to pay tax in 20 years’

Unlike other types of income like wages, investors pay tax only when capital gains are “realized” — meaning when the assets get sold — compared with a worker who pays taxes on their wages annually and can’t use the money that goes toward taxes.

“I can't say to my boss — or the IRS — that I want to pay tax in 20 years [on my wages] because this will help me pay my bills now,” Jacoby said.

Read more: Here's how you should use your tax refund in 2021

Additionally, investors can use unrealized gains as collateral for financing. For example, Larry Ellison, the chairman and former CEO of Oracle Corp., pledged a portion of his Oracle stock as collateral for a $10 billion credit line for personal spending, Business Insider reported in 2014. This allowed him to obtain cash without selling his investments or paying taxes on them.

“They don't have liquidity issues,” Jacoby said. “They're better off because of the increase in value of their assets and they can finance their lifestyles that way.”

Additionally, by not having to pay taxes until their assets are sold, investors have the opportunity to plan when is the most beneficial time to sell. They can hold on to their capital gain assets, choosing to sell at the most tax advantageous time with losses offsetting gains.

‘Big step towards taxing capital gains income more like other kinds of income’

Under Biden’s proposal, the top long-term capital gains and qualified dividends tax rate would increase to 39.6% from 23.8%, with an effective rate of 43.4% when the Medicare surcharge is added. The increased rate would apply to those earning over $1 million. Investors currently pay 23.8% as the top capital gains rate along with the 3.8% net investment income tax, known as the Medicare surtax.

Additionally, the step-up basis would be eliminated, no longer allowing heirs to inherit stocks, real estate, and other assets that the deceased owned without paying tax on the gains in value that occurred when the original owner held them. Under the proposal, gains over $1 million for single filers ($2.5 million for joint filers when combined with existing real estate exemptions) would be taxed.

While those two proposals would remove some of the preferential tax treatment of capital gains, the deferral option still provides those at the top an advantage that lower-income earners don’t often use.

In 2019, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) proposed anti-deferral accounting rules, but such a measure was not included in Biden’s tax plan.

“Biden's plan takes a big step towards taxing capital gains income more like other kinds of income,” Jacoby said. “But it's more modest than the Wyden proposal, which would eliminate the deferral advantage that capital gains have.”

Yahoo Money sister site Cashay has a weekly newsletter.

Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance and Cashay, a new personal finance website. Follow her on Twitter @denitsa_tsekova

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Rank'Em: Here's 12 Possible Second-Round Targets - DallasCowboys.com

FRISCO, Texas – On Thursday, the Cowboys found themselves picking 12th overall after a trade on the clock.

Could they be on the move again? Perhaps this time, the Cowboys might actually move up in the second round, especially considering they have three third-round picks.

But if not, they'll picking 12th again on Friday, with the 44th overall pick.

Will they finally get a cornerback? What about a safety or defensive linemen?

Here are 12 possible options – all on defense – for the Cowboys in their

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100 Million Americans Now Fully Vaccinated—But Here's Why The Pandemic Might Continue - Forbes

Topline

More than 100 million Americans have now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the CDC—a major milestone for the U.S. that comes well ahead of schedule—but a sudden dropoff in the vaccination rate could mean a large number of people may not ever get the vaccination, making it impossible to eradicate the virus.

Key Facts

Around 55% of U.S. adults have now received at least one shot, meaning the number of fully vaccinated will continue to steadily rise as second doses are administered.

After an initial rush for shots, vaccine demand has waned—even though all U.S. adults are now eligible to receive a Covid vaccine.

The 7-day rolling average for shots administered in the U.S. has dropped below 2.5 million, according to the CDC—down significantly from a high of more than 3.2 million on April 11.

Big Number

47.7%. That's the percentage of Americans who are still unvaccinated that said they're likely to get a shot, according to the latest Household Pulse Survey from the Census Bureau.

What To Watch For

States and localities are moving ahead with easing restrictions and lifting mask mandates, despite warnings from federal health officials that it is far too early to do so. Officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have especially emphasized mask wearing and social distancing need to continue while indoors, as contagious new variants keep spreading. 

Key Background

President Joe Biden initially set a goal of having 100 million shots in Americans' arms by his 100th day in office, but the U.S. blew by that mark—more than doubling it. Over 237 million shots have now been administered, with "fully vaccinated" being defined as two weeks after someone receives a second dose of either Pfizer or Moderna or the single-dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. With around 30% of the population fully vaccinated, the U.S. is ahead of most other major countries in terms of vaccinations, such as the U.K. (21% fully vaccinated) and France (10% fully vaccinated). Only a handful of countries are ahead, like Israel (56%) and Chile (34%). But health experts have repeatedly emphasized widespread vaccinations are the only way to end the pandemic because it will create a level of herd immunity that will end Covid’s ability to spread widely.

Tangent

Vaccine hesitancy appears heavily divided along partisan lines. Polls have found Republicans and those who voted for Donald Trump are among the most likely to refuse to get vaccinated.

Further Reading

Here Are The Groups Who Don’t Want A Vaccine—And Trump Voters Are Near Top (Forbes)

Covid vaccinations are slowing in the U.S. as supply outstrips demand. How states are targeting who’s left (CNBC)

Fully Vaccinated Americans No Longer Need To Wear Masks Outside Except In Crowded Settings, CDC Says (Forbes)

Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus

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Mack Brock "Come Now" Cafe Sessions Video - TCB - TheChristianBeat.org

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Twitter Stock Falls on Earnings. Here's What Wall Street Didn't Like. - Barron's

The return of live sports in the U.S. could give Twitter a boost.

Alastair Pike / AFP via Getty Images

Twitter stock is taking a hit as Wall Street digests the company’s first-quarter earnings report. Analysts say the market was disappointed by the company’s second-quarter outlook and signs of weakness in user growth.

Twitter stock (ticker: TWTR) was down about 13% to $56.72 late Friday morning. The S&P 500 index had fallen 0.6%.

BofA Securities analyst Justin Post wrote Friday that Twitter’s first-quarter revenue was in line with expectations, though U.S. brand advertising was slow in January and February. He noted that user growth was a tick lower than expected.

Post called the company’s second-quarter outlook confusing, arguing that the call should have been higher given that management pointed to a recovery in spending by brands in March. The company said revenue is likely to be between $980 million and $1.08 billion, while the consensus view on Wall Street has been that the figure should be $1.06 billion.

Wedbush analyst Ygal Arounian wrote in a note on Friday that he thinks Wall Street will focus on the slowdown in user growth, noting that investors are increasingly focused on whether users remain engaged with apps such as Twitter now that the pandemic is receding in the U.S.

“Twitter’s digital advertising peers all saw significant beats on revenue with guidance ahead of 2Q expectations, meaning Twitter, so far, has participated somewhat less in the digital advertising market rebound,” Arounian added.

In a note titled “This Birdie Finds Turbulence Out of Thin Air,” MKM Partners analyst Rohit Kulkarni called it a mixed quarter for Twitter. He said advertising revenue growth seemed to lag behind peers like Pinterest (PINS) and Snap (SNAP), which reported earlier in April. He too noted that Twitter’s user growth was softer than expected.

“While yesterday’s results do not inspire confidence in management’s ability to hold a steady cadence in fundamentals, we think Twitter remains a solid ‘re-opening play’ with live sports and events over the summer,” Kulkarni wrote.

Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein is also looking ahead to the return of live events, saying their suspension has been weighing on revenue growth.

“While the market reacted to weaker 2Q outlook, following upbeat investor day, we are more upbeat on product cadence and expect Brand strength,” in the second half of 2021, Helftstein wrote.

At least for now, investors seem less optimistic.

Write to Connor Smith at connor.smith@barrons.com

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Personal income just hit a record high — here's where the spending is going - NBC News

Personal income jumped by more than $4 trillion last month, a record 21.1 percent increase, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on Friday. Economists had been predicting a spike as stimulus payments reached people’s bank accounts and the improving economic picture pulled more displaced workers off the sidelines, but the increase exceeded even their optimistic projections.

“All the stars are aligning,” said Megan Horneman, director of portfolio strategy at Verdence Capital Advisors. “You have the recovery from the coronavirus and all the fiscal stimulus colliding into really robust economic growth.”

More data released this week showed that the economy — like many Americans — has had a potent shot in the arm. On Thursday, the government reported that GDP grew by an annualized 6.4 percent rate in the first quarter of 2021. Consumer spending, which comprises about two-thirds of the nation’s economic activity, grew by an annualized 10.7 percent.

The emergence of a more confident consumer both reflects and contributes to these economic gains: The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers reported that consumer sentiment rose 4 percent in April from the month before, with a whopping 23 percent improvement from April 2020. People’s outlook about both current economic conditions as well as their expectations for the future also rose.

Guests sit in the outdoor dining area near the pool at the Tween Waters Island Resort and Spa hotel in Captiva Island, Fla., on Friday, April 2, 2021.Bloomberg / via Getty Images

Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, expressed optimism that the coming months will continue to produce greater economic improvement. “Progress on vaccinations should allow the U.S. economy to fully reopen this summer, leading to rebound in services spending and consumers using some of their savings,” he said.

The fact that much of March’s household spending was on products rather than services — expenditures on goods jumped by 23.6 percent — was a reflection of the constraints the pandemic had placed on Americans’ ability and willingness to fly, eat out, attend concerts and the like. Even with these limitations, though, spending on services inched up 4.6 percent — an encouraging sign for the coming months, analysts said.

As service sector activity picks up, so does hiring. Data from job site Indeed.com found that job openings are now roughly 22 percent higher than they were in February 2020, before Covid-19 wreaked havoc on the economy.

“It's a great sign that we continue to see job postings pick up,” said Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, adding that the expansion has been broad-based, with more open positions in white- and blue-collar professions. “The biggest factor holding back the labor market right now — the pandemic — seems to be receding.”

“One of the encouraging signs in the last month or so is that we're starting to see a pickup in postings in really hard-hit sectors.”

Hospitality and tourism jobs are still down from pre-pandemic levels, but are improving, Bunker said, while restaurant and bar job openings have rebounded over the past four to six weeks. “One of the encouraging signs in the last month or so is that we're starting to see a pickup in postings in really hard-hit sectors,” he said. “We’re seeing an acceleration in these job postings. That's great to see.”

Moody’s Investors Service vice president William Foster observed in a recent research note that spending on services remains constrained, and has been mired at roughly 8 percent below pre-pandemic benchmarks since the middle of 2020. He said the American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Joe Biden last month would help to increase that demand. “The Covid-19 relief bill that Biden signed in March, alongside ongoing vaccine rollout, has set the stage for a rebound in spending on services,” he wrote.

The evolving public health situation is both the biggest driver behind the optimism as well as the biggest risk that still lies ahead.

“We think now that there's the ability to get vaccinated, that the virus is obviously not eliminated, but contained from an economic perspective,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “It transitions from a societal issue to a personal issue,” which diminishes the impact to the economy on a broad scale.

The caveats there are that if a large number of Americans remain resistant to getting the vaccine, as polling has suggested, the potential for localized outbreaks of Covid-19 or the emergence of a more virulent variant could rapidly unravel much of the progress that has been made. “We have seen the pace of vaccinations slow down. I think that’s something to keep an eye on,” Bunker said, adding that until the pandemic is definitively in the rear view mirror, that cloud will remain. “The pandemic seems to be abating, but it’s still not behind us,” he said.

Martha C. White

Martha C. White is an NBC News contributor who writes about business, finance and the economy.

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The 2021 NFL Draft First Round is Over. Here's What We Learned. - The New York Times

Quarterbacks still come first, Alabama still produces talent and Aaron Rodgers is still unhappy.

The first round of the 2021 N.F.L. draft proceeded on Thursday night according to the league’s strict hierarchy: quarterbacks came first, followed by those who catch passes from them and protect them, with the defenders tasked with stopping them bringing up the rear.

And just to add some extra drama to the proceedings, a member of the league’s quarterback aristocracy did his best to upstage the newcomers.

Quarterbacks went 1-2-3.

For the first time since 1999, quarterbacks were selected with the top three picks: Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence by the Jacksonville Jaguars at No. 1, Brigham Young’s Zach Wilson by the Jets at No. 2, and North Dakota State’s Trey Lance by the San Francisco 49ers at No. 3.

The Lawrence and Wilson selections were forgone conclusions weeks ago. San Francisco’s choice of Lance over Alabama’s Mac Jones or Ohio State’s Justin Fields, on the other hand, had been a closely guarded secret.

Lance led the Bison to the Football Championship Subdivision national championship in 2019, throwing 28 touchdowns and zero interceptions against a much lower caliber of competition than Fields or Jones faced in their Power 5 conferences. He played only one game in 2020 because of coronavirus-related postponements and cancellations before declaring for the draft. A coach of Kyle Shanahan’s insight, however, can no doubt accurately evaluate a small-program prospect with limited playing time.

Lance will replace Jimmy Garoppolo, the small-program prospect with limited playing time whom Shanahan’s 49ers traded for in 2017, lavishly overpaid and eventually grew disenchanted with.

Fields, who led the Buckeyes to consecutive College Football Playoff appearances, dropped to the Chicago Bears, who traded up to draft him with the 11th pick. He is expected to quickly supplant Andy Dalton and Nick Foles, the N.F.L.’s versions of Art Garfunkel and John Oates.

The New England Patriots later selected Jones with the 15th overall pick. Jones led the Crimson Tide to the national championship in 2020 under nearly ideal conditions; five of his college teammates were selected among the draft’s first 24 picks. Now he joins one the most successful American sports franchises of the 21st century. Some guys have all the luck.

Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb and Akili Smith were the last quarterbacks to be selected with the top-three selections in an N.F.L. draft. Only McNabb had a noteworthy career, which is a reminder that top quarterback prospects usually end up at the mercy of perennially dysfunctional franchises like the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns. Or, in this year’s case, the Jaguars and the Jets.

Receivers great and small were embraced.

The Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith went to the Eagles at No. 10.Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

After the quarterbacks came a run of pass catchers.

The Atlanta Falcons selected tight end Kyle Pitts, who caught 12 touchdown passes in eight games for Florida last year, at No. 4. The highest-drafted tight end in history, Pitts is expected to revolutionize the way N.F.L. offenses use tight ends, just as Kellen Winslow, Tony Gonzalez, Rob Gronkowski, George Kittle, Travis Kelce and many others revolutionized the position over the last 50 years. Apparently, the tight end position has undergone as many revolutions as 19th century Italy.

The Cincinnati Bengals selected Louisiana State wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase with the fifth pick, reuniting him with Joe Burrow, Chase’s college quarterback and the top pick in last year’s draft. If the Bengals transform into an L.S.U. alumni team, it will at least give them an identity for the first time since Boomer Esiason left in 1993.

The speedy Alabama wide receiver Jaylen Waddle joined the Miami Dolphins with the next pick, No. 6 over all, leaping ahead of more-accomplished teammate DeVonta Smith, who was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles with the 10th pick.

Smith is nicknamed Slim Reaper, which sounds like the world’s only Eminem/Iron Maiden tribute band but refers instead to the fact that Smith reportedly weighs around 166 pounds, a few Waffle House breakfasts shy of the minimum N.F.L. threshold. Smith should have carried the 45-pound Heisman Trophy he won last season onto a scale with him to put evaluators more at ease.

Like Chase, Waddle and Smith will be reunited with their college quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa (in Miami) and Jalen Hurts (in Philadelphia). But it’s not really noteworthy when that sort of thing happens to Alabama players.

Cornerbacks: The next generation.

The Broncos liked the look of cornerback Patrick Surtain II. So did Patrick Surtain II.Pool photo by David Dermer

By the time N.F.L. teams got around to drafting some defenders, their best choices turned out to be cornerbacks with famous fathers.

The Carolina Panthers selected Jaycee Horn (South Carolina) with the eighth pick. Horn’s father, Joe Horn, was a standout wide receiver best known for using a cellphone as a prop in a touchdown celebration against the Giants in 2003. Horn used a flip phone, retroactively making the gag a “dad joke.”

Patrick Surtain II (Alabama) joined the Denver Broncos with the ninth pick. His father played for the great Miami Dolphins defenses of the early 2000s, which are not well remembered mostly because their offenses were dreadful.

Other second-generation cornerbacks will be drafted in later rounds, including Florida State’s Asante Samuel Jr., whose dad allowed an Eli Manning interception to bounce off his hands in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLII, making him the only New England Patriots player eligible for the Giants’ Ring of Honor.

Leaping forward and trading back.

The Jets traded up to the 14th pick from the 23rd pick (acquired from the Seattle Seahawks in last year’s Jamal Adams deal) to select Southern Cal offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker, who will provide some insurance against Wilson’s enduring too many early-career hits the way the last umpteen Jets quarterback prospects did.

The Giants’ general manager, Dave Gettleman.Michael Conroy/Associated Press

As for the Giants, General Manager Dave Gettleman opted to trade down in the first round for the first time in his long career, sliding down from the 11th pick to net an extra first-round pick in 2022, plus change. In their adjusted spot at No. 20, the Giants selected the Florida all-purpose rusher-receiver Kadarius Toney.

Gettleman said last week that he had always been amenable to trading down, but the price was never right. “I don’t want to get fleeced,” he said.

No N.F.L. personality sounds more like a crotchety uncle haggling at a used car dealership than Gettleman, but he appears to have struck a shrewd deal this time.

Rodgers, grudges and Green Bay.

Aaron Rodgers in the workday uniform he currently prefers.Carol Kaelson/Jeopardy Productions, Inc., via Associated Press

A report by ESPN’s Adam Schefter that a disgruntled Aaron Rodgers does not want to return to the Green Bay Packers sent shock waves across the league in the hours before the draft. Rodgers, the reigning most valuable player and a recent “Jeopardy!” guest host, was not-so-secretly miffed when the Packers drafted his potential replacement, Jordan Love, in last year’s first round and by other organizational decisions.

The Packers could have selected a wide receiver with the 29th pick, which would have been the draft-day equivalent of a diamond brooch and a tearful apology. Instead, they chose Georgia cornerback Eric Stokes.

While the Rodgers situation is still developing, few teams have the resources to trade for him. And if Rodgers chooses to retire, “Jeopardy!” would be better off hiring LeVar Burton.

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Snake, Rattle and Roll: Rattlesnake Season Is Here - CDFW News

Spring is here and with it brings warm weather and hot, dry conditions in many areas of California. Human encounters with snakes are more likely as these elusive animals become more active this time of year. Most native snakes are harmless. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) recommends avoiding the rattlesnake, a venomous species, and knowing what to do in the rare event of a bite.

Rattlesnakes may be found in diverse habitats, from coastal to desert, and are widespread in California. They can be attracted to areas around homes with heavy brush or vegetation, under wood piles where rodents may hide, as well as well-manicured landscapes to bask in the sun.

Rattlesnakes are not generally aggressive, unless provoked or threatened, and will likely retreat if given space.

“Snakes are often misunderstood. They provide significant ecosystem benefits, such as rodent control, and are an important part of California’s unique biodiversity,” said CDFW’s Conflict Programs Coordinator Vicky Monroe. “Snakes prefer to avoid people or pets and are not naturally aggressive. We encourage people to be rattlesnake safe, take time to learn about their local wildlife and take appropriate safety precautions when enjoying the outdoors.”

• Most bites occur when a rattlesnake is handled or accidentally brushed against by someone walking or climbing.
• Most bites occur between the months of April and October when snakes and humans are most active outdoors.
• On occasion, rattlesnake bites have caused severe injury – even death.

The California Poison Control System notes that the chances of being bitten are small compared to the risk of other environmental injuries. The potential of encountering a rattlesnake should not deter anyone from venturing outdoors.

CDFW provides tips on its website to “Be Rattlesnake Safe,” how to safely coexist with native snakes and what to do (or not do) in the event of a snake bite.

Other resources can be found on the California Herps Living with Rattlesnakes webpage.

In 2019, CDFW confirmed the state’s first case of Snake Fungal Disease (SFD), a newly emerging disease in snakes. SFD can cause significant mortalities in species of conservation concern. There is no evidence that SFD is transmittable from snakes to humans. You may assist CDFW’s efforts by reporting sightings of snakes with skin sores or unusual behavior. Do not attempt to touch or handle.

Media Contacts:
Peter Tira, CDFW Communications, (916) 215-3858
Vicky Monroe, CDFW Statewide Conflicts Program Coordinator, (916) 856-8335

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Here’s What Biden’s Corporate Tax Plan Means for Investors - Barron's

President Biden, shown Wednesday before Congress, wants raise corporate taxes and curb incentives for U.S.-based companies to keep profits overseas.

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Multinationals may soon be forced to pay a higher share of their profits to the governments of the countries where they operate. “We’re going to reform corporate taxes so they pay their fair share,” President Biden said Wednesday in his address to Congress.

Biden’s “Made in America Tax Plan” would raise the statutory federal rate to 28% from 21%, remove incentives to relocate profits and production to tax havens, and impose a 15% minimum tax on businesses that report high profits to investors but little to no taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service. It would mark a major step toward an international agreement to limit tax avoidance that’s been endorsed by finance ministers of many U.S. allies and would end what Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently called the “30-year race to the bottom on corporate tax rates.”

Businesses that generate most of their value from intangible assets such as software and pharmaceutical patents—and have therefore had the easiest time shifting profits to avoid the IRS—would be hit hardest. Other sectors that have had less success shielding their profits from taxes, such as telecoms, retailers, and banks, could stand to benefit on a relative basis. In fact, they might not lose out at all, especially if the proposed increase in the headline tax rate is whittled down to 25% or less to protect other provisions.

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Consider that America’s most tax-efficient companies faced effective rates below the current 21% even before the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, at the end of 2017. According to a Barron’s analysis of company filings, Alphabet (ticker: GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Microsoft (MSFT) are among U.S. multinationals that had effective tax rates of about 19% in the years before TCJA.

The biggest reason, which all of the companies clearly explain in their annual securities filings, is that they were able to shift much of their reported earnings to jurisdictions where corporate profits are lightly taxed—if they are taxed at all. TCJA didn’t alter this basic dynamic, which is why it reduced these companies’ yearly tax burden only by roughly four percentage points.

Biden’s plan would have a sizable impact on those companies, even if the federal statutory rate remained constant at 21%, because it would ensure that all profits earned abroad would be taxed at least 21%. If a foreign government had a corporate tax rate at 21% or higher, the IRS would collect nothing, but any subsidiary in a jurisdiction where the tax rate is below 21% would have to pay the difference to the IRS.

Of the roughly $2.2 trillion in corporate profits earned by American businesses in 2019, more than $500 billion was earned outside the U.S. Of that, about $330 billion was booked in just one of several known corporate tax havens with effective tax rates near zero—Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Switzerland—and mostly by businesses identified only as “nonbank holding companies.”

Tellingly, the Irish government has been one of the few vocal opponents of both the Biden proposals and the parallel Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development talks, with Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe recently saying that “small countries…need to be able to use tax policy as a legitimate lever to compensate for the real, material and persistent advantage enjoyed by larger countries.”

The only real limit imposed by the pre-TCJA regime was that companies couldn’t use the money they saved on taxes for dividends, buybacks, debt service, or mergers and acquisitions. That’s why they used the foreign profits booked in their tax haven subsidiaries to buy U.S. Treasury, agency, and corporate debt securities—building up a cash hoard while they waited for the law to change. The cumulative value of these “reinvested” earnings from the beginning of 1997—when profit-shifting began in earnest after Treasury Decision 8697—through the end of 2017 was worth more than $2.2 trillion.

For these companies, the biggest upshot of TCJA was that they could use their accumulated offshore savings to lift shareholder payouts in exchange for paying a modest one-time “transition tax.” Moreover, future foreign profits could be distributed directly to shareholders without being taxed.

In the year after TCJA was passed, spending on buybacks and dividends by U.S. nonfinancial companies each rose by about $200 billion compared with the preceding four quarters. At the same time, U.S. multinationals pulled about $360 billion out of their subsidiaries in the main tax havens. But this proved to be a one-off gain, with dividends and buybacks down about 10% in 2019 from 2018. Despite the tax changes, companies kept retaining earnings in tax havens in 2019, albeit at a lower rate than before.

TCJA may not have done much to boost shareholder payouts or alter the incentives to shift profits, but it has encouraged U.S. companies to relocate real economic activity abroad. The problem is that the law’s so-called Gilti and FDII provisions penalize American businesses for putting intangible assets offshore—as many software and pharmaceutical companies do—unless they also move physical investments outside the U.S. as well. Unsurprisingly, U.S. imports of pharmaceuticals have soared since the passage of TCJA, with most of the increase attributable to tax havens such as Ireland and Switzerland. Closing the loopholes created by TCJA would therefore encourage the revival of domestic drug manufacturing.

There are many reasons to fix glitches in the global corporate tax regime. The good news for investors, at least in U.S.-focused companies such as Comcast (CMCSA), Target (TGT), and Wells Fargo (WFC), is that most of the Biden proposal would have zero impact on their tax bills. By contrast, many leading tech and pharma companies would face a substantial increase in their tax obligations, even if America’s statutory corporate tax rate remained unchanged.

Write to Matthew C. Klein at matthew.klein@barrons.com

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Here’s what China wants from its next space station - MIT Technology Review

At 11:23 a.m. local time Thursday at Wenchang, Hainan Island, China launched Tianhe-1, the first module of a new orbital space station. It’s scheduled to be operational by the end of 2022. The launch, which went flawlessly, sets China up for a very busy next two years as it seeks to build upon the decade’s successes and follow through with one of its most ambitious space projects yet. 

Although this project was conceived and approved back in early 1992, it’s finally coming together at a time when the future of humans in low Earth orbit is up for grabs. The International Space Station is heading into its final years. Russia may actually be leaving the ISS early to build its own independent space station. And companies like Axiom Space and Sierra Nevada Corporation are aggressively pursuing plans for commercial stations as potential successors.

“A space station is a space station,” says Namrata Goswami, a space policy and geopolitics expert and coauthor of Scramble for the Skies. It’s a clear demonstration that China is technologically capable of sending people to space for significant periods of time. “The geopolitical benefits of hosting experiments and foreign astronauts are the same as it is with the ISS, but with China now as the lead actor,” she says. 

The Tianhe-1 module that launched this week is the core of what is supposed to be a three-part space station. On the surface, it seems to pale in comparison to the 22-year-old ISS. The ISS is a football-field-size behemoth weighing about 420 metric tons, while the much smaller T-shaped Chinese Space Station (CSS) will be a mere 80 to 100 tons, closer to the size and mass of Russia’s former Mir station. The Tianhe-1 module is just 22 tons and 16.6 meters long. And after 12 missions this year and next to put the whole thing together, the completed station will still be roughly half the length of the ISS. 

China seems fine with that. “We did not intend to compete with the ISS in terms of scale,” Gu Yidong, chief scientist of China’s human exploration program, told Scientific American. 

And it doesn’t mean the station won’t boast some useful space capabilities. Tianhe will be the primary living quarters for any astronauts on board, and the next two segments, Wentian and Mengtian, will support an array of scientific experiments taking advantage of the station’s microgravity. They may investigate the study of fluid dynamics and phase changes, for example, or the growth and evolution of organisms. 

There will be 14 refrigerator-sized experiment racks inside the station, and another 50 docking points for experiments that can be mounted outside to expose materials to the vacuum of space. China has already reached out to international partners to solicit experiments. Five docking ports and a host of robotic arms will ensure safe visits from other spacecraft and set up the possibility of expanding the station itself. 

Perhaps most exciting, the station will play an important role in helping China deploy and operate a brand-new space telescope, Xuntian, meant to rival NASA’s aging Hubble Space Telescope, with a field of view 300 times larger and a similar resolution. It will make observations in ultraviolet and visible light, running investigations related to dark matter and dark energy, cosmology, galactic evolution, and the detection of nearby objects. Scheduled to launch in 2024, Xuntian will be able to dock with the CSS for easy repairs and maintenance.

Furthermore, the station can act as a platform for testing technologies that will be critical for sustaining a long-term presence on the moon and Mars one day. These include habitation and life support systems, solar power, and shielding from radiation and micrometeorite impacts.

All this is neat, but as Cornell University’s Lincoln Hines points out, the station’s true goal seems to be prestige—to position China as part of an exclusive club of space powers that operate a permanent outpost in orbit, boosting nationalist support within its borders. “I’ve no doubt there are people in China’s scientific community that are genuinely excited about what they could do through the CSS,” says Hines. “But from the perspective of the central government to support this grand, ambitious project, it’s a really strong symbol that lets China tell its population, ‘We’re technologically powerful and can compete with the United States.’”

And it also puts China closer to competing with the US in “soft power.” The US is the primary funder of the ISS, an extraordinarily costly public good that benefits the rest of the world. It helps accomplish some interesting science and tech experiments, but the station’s biggest impact has arguably come from its status as a beacon of international cooperation. 

We can expect the CSS to provide the same kind of diplomatic benefit for China by helping strengthen the country’s ties with other nations—especially at a time when the country is facing pretty fierce scrutiny for human rights abuses against Uyghurs, political dissidents, and activists in Hong Kong’s democracy movement. 

“China's effort is new and vibrant,” says Goswami, while the future of the ISS is murky. “It signals to the world that China is openly contesting the US for space leadership across the board, and that it is a capable partner.”

Even if these potential benefits are never realized, it may not make much of a difference to China. Unlike US public officials, the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t have to justify its expense sheet to its citizens. 

“From my perspective, the Chinese government’s number one goal is its own survival,” says Hines. “And so these projects are very much aligned with those domestic interests, even if they don’t make a ton of sense in broader geopolitical considerations or have much in the way of scientific contributions.”

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New in Paperback: ‘All Adults Here’ and ‘Fire in Paradise’ - The New York Times

DOWN THE HIGHWAY: The Life of Bob Dylan, by Howard Sounes. (Grove, 608 pp., $22.) This 20th-anniversary edition celebrating Dylan’s upcoming 80th birthday includes a new chapter by the author on the past 10 years of Dylan’s life. “No matter the time or place,” Perry Meisel wrote in his 2001 review of the book in these pages, “Dylan comes alive, strumming his guitar in a studio in Nashville or hurrying down Macdougal Street with the collar of his leather jacket turned up against the wind.”

ALL ADULTS HERE, by Emma Straub. (Riverhead, 384 pp., $17.) After she sees an acquaintance of 40 years (whom she never liked) get hit by a school bus, a widow decides to tell her grown children about her affair with her female haircutter in Straub’s comic fourth novel, which our reviewer, Stephen McCauley, called “bigly entertaining.”

HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE: Stories, by Souvankham Thammavongsa. (Back Bay, 192 pp., $15.99.) Thanks to their author’s “gift for the gently absurd,” as our reviewer, Sarah Resnick, put it, the stories in this heart-wrenching debut collection by a Canadian poet born to Laotian refugees — a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist — “never feel dour or predictable, even when their outcomes are by some measure bleak.”

FIRE IN PARADISE: An American Tragedy, by Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano. (Norton, 272 pp., $16.95.) According to our reviewer, Rachel Monroe, this “gripping account” of the November 2018 Camp Fire — which killed 85 people and destroyed 90 percent of the homes in and around Paradise, Calif. — has “the narrative propulsion and granular detail of the best breaking-news disaster journalism.”

NOBODY WILL TELL YOU THIS BUT ME: A True (as Told to Me) Story, by Bess Kalb. (Vintage, 224 pp., $16.) “Narrated” by her late grandmother as woman-to-woman advice, Kalb’s “oral history” of her family’s journey from Russia’s pogroms to the American dream pays particular attention, our reviewer, Miranda Popkey, noted, to the uniquely special relationship “that skips a generation.”

RED DRESS IN BLACK AND WHITE, by Elliot Ackerman. (Vintage, 336 pp., $16.) In this “superbly written,” “entirely absorbing” novel set amid the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, the unstable marriage of a debt-ridden Turkish real estate developer and an American art patron mirrors “a whole country’s instability,” our reviewer, Joan Silber, observed, as well as the “web of interests and counterinterests” in which the country is embroiled.

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New in Paperback: ‘All Adults Here’ and ‘Fire in Paradise’ - The New York Times
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Here’s what analysts are saying about Amazon tripling profits - MarketWatch

Here Are The Results of the 1st Round of the 2021 NFL Draft - The New York Times

1. Jacksonville Jaguars — Trevor Lawrence (quarterback, Clemson)
2. New York Jets — Zach Wilson (quarterback, Brigham Young)
3. San Francisco 49ers — Trey Lance (quarterback, North Dakota State)
4. Atlanta Falcons — Kyle Pitts (tight end, Florida)
5. Cincinnati Bengals — Ja’Marr Chase (wide receiver, Louisiana State)
6. Miami Dolphins — Jaylen Waddle (wide receiver, Alabama)
7. Detroit Lions — Penei Sewell (offensive tackle, Oregon)
8. Carolina Panthers — Jaycee Horn (cornerback, South Carolina)
9. Denver Broncos — Patrick Surtain II (cornerback, Alabama)
10. Philadelphia Eagles (from Dallas Cowboys) — DeVonta Smith (wide receiver, Alabama)
11. Chicago Bears (from New York Giants) — Justin Fields (quarterback, Ohio State)
12. Dallas Cowboys (from Eagles) — Micah Parsons (linebacker, Penn State)
13. Los Angeles Chargers — Rashawn Slater (offensive tackle, Northwestern)
14. New York Jets (from Minnesota Vikings) — Alijah Vera-Tucker (guard, Southern California)
15. New England Patriots — Mac Jones (quarterback, Alabama)
16. Arizona Cardinals — Zaven Collins (linebacker, Tulsa)
17. Las Vegas Raiders — Alex Leatherwood (offensive tackle, Alabama)
18. Miami Dolphins — Jaelan Phillips (edge rusher, Miami of Florida)
19. Washington Football Team — Jamin Davis (linebacker, Kentucky)
20. New York Giants (from Bears) — Kadarius Toney (wide receiver, Florida)
21. Indianapolis Colts — Kwity Paye (edge rusher, Michigan)
22. Tennessee Titans — Caleb Farley (cornerback, Virginia Tech)
23. Minnesota Vikings (from Jets) — Christian Darrisaw (offensive tackle, Virginia Tech)
24. Pittsburgh Steelers — Najee Harris (running back, Alabama)
25. Jacksonville Jaguars — Travis Etienne (running back, Clemson)
26. Cleveland Browns — Greg Newsome II (cornerback, Northwestern)
27. Baltimore Ravens — Rashod Bateman (wide receiver, Minnesota)
28. New Orleans Saints — Payton Turner (defensive end, Houston)
29. Green Bay Packers — Eric Stokes (cornerback, Georgia)
30. Buffalo Bills — Gregory Rousseau (edge rusher, Miami of Florida)
31. Baltimore Ravens — Jayson Oweh (edge rusher, Penn State)
32. Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Joe Tryon (edge rusher, Washington)

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Xbox Cloud Gaming Beta hands-on: The revolution is (almost) here - The Next Web

“Consumers looking for an on-demand service won’t find it with Game Pass.” That’s how I ended this 2017 article titled “Xbox Game Pass isn’t the Netflix of Anything.” I’m happy to say that now, in 2021, it finally is.

That’s right. It’s three years later and Xbox Game Pass is the Netflix of Gaming. And it’s all thanks to Microsoft’s excellent “Xbox Cloud Gaming” service, which recently entered beta.

I’ve tested the service and ran it through some paces and, well, I have some thoughts.

The short version is this:

Here’s a more nuanced take: Microsoft’s been telling us for years that “Project X Cloud,” now Xbox Cloud Gaming, would be a big deal. We should have trusted the Redmond company.

Back in 2017 when I wrote my first review of the Game Pass service, I was underwhelmed. It was download-only and featured mostly older games and titles that’d already been given away free with Xbox Live. To put it simply: it was a pale runner-up to Sony’s PlayStation Now service.

In the time since, however, Microsoft has stepped its game up so much that PlayStation Now feels outdated and out of touch by comparison.

In fact, things have changed so much that today I found myself playing Sony’s MLB: The Show 2021 on my Alienware PC through the Microsoft Xbox Cloud Gaming platform in my Google Chrome browser And it was (almost) glorious!

My PlayStation 4 Pro sat idly by while I did something that felt almost disrespectful to all the Sony-only gamers who had to shell out $60 to play the game. I used 3rd-party software to trick my PC into thinking my Dual Shock 4 controller was an Xbox controller so I could play the game how it was meant to be played (Cloud Gaming requires the use of a Xbox-compatible controller). And all it took was an internet connection and my Game Pass subscription. All-in-all, a month’s worth of both is still cheaper than buying the game.

I don’t think I can overstate the value of Xbox Game Pass for people whose hobby is gaming. Xbox Cloud Gaming basically unifies the PC and console Game Pass libraries on a single platform. I can play PC-only titles such as Age of Empires III by downloading them from the Game Pass library, and I can play console-only titles such as MLB: The Show 2021 by streaming them. It’s the best of both worlds.

But it’s not perfect.

As you can see, I’ve got decent internet. That’s pretty slow for my service (I pay for 500mbps), but it’s the middle of the day and a lot of people work from home these days. Unfortunately, the service was pretty spotty for me.

When I loaded up The Show, I went straight to practice mode and threw about 30 pitches. This portion of the game requires precise timing in order to reach high levels of accuracy. So, assuming I could time my button presses properly and consistently, it works sort of like an experimental lag meter.

The service worked perfect, when it worked. About half the pitches I threw were in the general area of accurate (I’m not great at the game, but good enough to rarely flub one) and the other half were obviously lagged out.

Bottom line: based on my experience, you’re going to want to play on a computer that’s physically connected to your router/modem via ethernet or similar cable. And even then, it’s still too spotty for competitive play at the moment. That may be location dependent, with users in closer proximity to servers having better luck.

It’s also worth mentioning that Microsoft is currently running Xbox games on special “blades” built for the purpose, but the goal is to upgrade those to Xbox Series One X’s in the near future. That may help alleviate some of the stuttering, freezing, and lag problems.

Microsoft also claims speeds will increase over time, and there’s every reason to believe they will. After all, Xbox Cloud Gaming is, at it’s core, an Azure-based artificial intelligence product. As the algorithms managing the millions of connections between Microsoft’s servers and the clients they serve continue to train on the massive data generated, the AI systems powering them should become more robust and powerful.

Basically, if we want cloud gaming to get better, all we have to do is keep playing games.

You can find out everything you need to know about Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass and Cloud Gaming services right here.

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