By Ryan Teague Beckwith
May 18, 2012 – 3:28 p.m.
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Sen. Bob Casey is shown in a file photo. To buy this photo, go to: http://roll.cl/cqrcpix
Should millionaires be allowed to evade taxes by renouncing their citizenship?
Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his citizenship last year. Although he denies it was for tax reasons, he would owe between $67 million and $100 million in taxes after Facebook goes public, reports CQ’s Ambreen Ali.
Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Bob Casey (Pa.) have introduced legislation in response.
The Senators plan to introduce legislation Thursday that would require the IRS to assume that individuals who renounce their citizenship and who have a net worth of $2 million — or average annual taxes of at least $148,000 over the past five years — are doing so for tax reasons.
The bill shifts the burden of proof so that every individual meeting that threshold must provide what Schumer described as “a very, very good reason” to the IRS.
A 1996 tax law bars those who renounce citizenship to avoid taxes from returning to the United States.
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By David Hawkings
May 18, 2012 – 12:21 p.m.
Bill Clark
Rep. Justin Amash listens during a Congressional hearing in 2011. To buy this photo, go to: http://roll.cl/cqrcpix
The House voted this morning that all terrorism suspects — even American citizens captured on American soil — should be subject to indefinite detention without any trial, either in a military tribunal or a federal court.
A solid majority was in favor of abrogating constitutional rights in this essentially unprecedented way — a clear sign that anxiety about the terrorist threat remains a more pressing political force a decade after Sept. 11 than the need to protect the voters’ civil rights.
The 238-182 vote rejected the impassioned arguments from both of the libertarian ends of the ideological spectrum, in which both liberal Democrats and tea party GOP conservatives warned that current law already gives the government way too much power to enter people’s homes, arrest them and hold them indefinitely — and that the defense authorization bill the House is on the cusp of passing would make matters worse.
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By David Hawkings
May 17, 2012 – 1:49 p.m.
Bill Clark
Speaker John Boehner talks during a weekly press conference in March of 2012. To buy this photo, go to: http://roll.cl/cqrcpix
This week’s return to the budget barricades — Speaker John Boehner’s revival of debt limit brinkmanship, the frosty hoagie summit, the Senate’s roll call revulsion at five different fiscal blueprints — has made one reality abundantly clear: The mother of all lame ducks will not come on the scene in November.
Not even the relatively golden light that’s supposed to break over the Capitol between an election and the start of a new year will be sufficient to help Washington’s leaders tackle the fiscal cliff.
It is so high and treacherous that the most Republicans and Democrats will agree on is to back away from the crumbling rock for a few more months. Look for the debt ceiling to be increased by only a few hundred billion dollars, for the across-the-board sequester cuts to be put on hold for a few months and for the Bush tax cuts to be left alone for an equivalent amount of time.
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By Ryan Teague Beckwith
May 16, 2012 – 7:15 p.m.
Archives
Rep. Sandy Adams is shown in a file photo. To buy this photo, go to: http://roll.cl/cqrcpix
The House passed a Republican version of a domestic violence bill.
On a mostly party-line vote, the GOP majority approved a five-year renewal of the Violence Against Women Act which does not extend protection to gays and lesbians, illegal immigrants and Native Americans, reports Reuters.
The Obama administration prefers a Democratic version of the bill which passed the Senate last month.
Republicans insisted their measure would bolster needed protections to combat domestic abuse. They also accused President Barack Obama and his Democrats of opposing their bill in a bid to rally their liberal base in a presidential election year.
Representative Sandy Adams, one of a number of Republican women sponsors of the measure, said, “We want to make sure that we are not politicizing this issue but just reauthorizing” the law.
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By Ryan Teague Beckwith
May 16, 2012 – 5:20 p.m.
Bill Clark
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, left, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and Rep. Michele Bachmann talk to reporters on the third day of Supreme Court hearings on the Affordable Care Act. To buy this photo, go to: http://roll.cl/cqrcpix
States have until Nov. 16 to set up health insurance exchanges.
While many states are waiting to see how the Supreme Court rules on the 2010 health care law, the Obama administration is forging ahead, reports Reuters.
One section of the law requires states to create exchanges where the uninsured cna by coverage.
The exchanges would allow consumers to purchase their insurance from an easy-to-understand menu of competing plans, at premiums set on a sliding scale according to the buyer’s income.
But progress at the state level has been uneven, with many states waiting to see how healthcare reform fares in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling anticipated in June that could overturn the law.
Twenty-six states participated in the lawsuit that went before the Supreme Court.
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