Posts tagged IRS
IRS Agents Union Endorses Kamala Harris, Cites Inflation Reduction Act Windfall
September 24, 2024 // “The administration also delivered agency budgets that provide federal employees with additional staffing and resources, including significant new investments to rebuild the IRS under the Inflation Reduction Act.” Indeed, the Inflation Reduction Act, for which Harris cast the deciding vote to break a Senate deadlock, boosts the IRS budget by $80 billion, enabling the agency to hire an additional 87,000 employees – while increasing the union’s membership in the process. However, the IRS expansion won’t just increase union membership, it’ll also help the agency to collect an additional $5 trillion of tax increases Harris wants, analysis by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) finds:
Foxx Expands Investigation of Biden-Harris Scheme to Use Pension Assets for Big Labor
July 31, 2024 // “The Committee on Education and the Workforce (Committee) is investigating attempts by the Biden-Harris administration and certain pension funds to leverage retirement assets for the benefit of organized labor. The Internal Revenue Code (Code) makes public pensions eligible for significant tax subsidies if, among other things, their benefits are part of a plan ‘for the exclusive benefit of [an employer’s] employees or their beneficiaries.’ The Committee seeks information to determine whether the law is being undermined by the Biden-Harris administration and violated by certain pension funds. … The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has an obligation to enforce the provisions of the Code to ensure that taxpayers are not improperly subsidizing a retirement plan that does not, in fact, comply with the Code’s exclusive benefit requirement. To the extent that CalPERS is using plan assets for the benefit of social or political causes, the plan’s tax status is no longer valid.”
OPINION: Would Harris Be Better than Biden for Independent Contractors?
July 11, 2024 // It’s imperative for the tens of millions of Americans who earn some or all of their income as independent contractors to understand where she stands when it comes to money that is earned through self-employment. The record shows that Harris poses a real threat to independent contractors’ income, and for many of us, to our entire careers.
Former Local 98 President Brian Burrows Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for Embezzlement of Union Funds, Filing False Government Reports, and Tax Fraud
June 28, 2024 // United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that Brian Burrows, 64, of Mount Laurel, NJ, was sentenced today by United States District Court Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl to 48 months’ imprisonment, three years of supervised release, forfeiture of $135,689.11, an $1,800 special assessment, and restitution to be determined later, for crimes arising from his embezzlement of funds belonging to Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (“Local 98”). Burrows had served as the President of Local 98 since 2008. The only person who held a higher office in the union was his codefendant, Business Manager John Dougherty.
Biden Administration Unveils Historic Rules for High-Paying Clean Energy Jobs The White House
June 19, 2024 // Clean energy projects that meet the requirements of these final rules will receive a fivefold increase for clean energy tax credits for deployment of wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen, and other clean energy technologies, as well as for projects receiving allocations under the Section 48C Advanced Energy Projects credit., providing a significant incentive for project developers to pay prevailing wages to workers for construction, alteration, and repair of clean energy projects and to hire registered apprentices to earn while they learn by working on those projects. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su also published a blog highlighting the use of Project Labor Agreements as a best practice for large construction projects and a tool to help project developers comply with the prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements. Project Labor Agreements, or pre-hire collective bargaining agreements that set the terms and conditions for employment on a construction project, help workers and developers alike by providing strong worker and wage protections while ensuring a reliable supply of skilled workers to help deliver projects on time and on budget.
Commerce agency near ‘collapse’ over telework, layoffs, union says
June 3, 2024 // Lawmakers, especially Republicans, have been wary of widespread remote work, saying customer service backlogs at government agencies including the Social Security Administration and the IRS prove the case for more in-person staff. Just last week, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR department, assured lawmakers that more than half of all federal employees work in-person full time.
Opinion: Gambling With a Worker’s Job
May 1, 2024 // But the job losses go beyond anecdotal evidence. In our recent analysis of California’s AB5, which is the first empirical investigation of the law, my co-authors and I find that it is associated with a significant decline in overall employment and self-employment for affected occupations. Self-employment fell by 10.5 percent for non-exempt occupations. Overall employment fell by 4.4 percent in the same professions. Not only that, but AB5 didn’t appear to make up for these job losses by putting more employees on traditional payrolls with better stability, benefits or protections. Our study found no consistent evidence of more workers becoming W-2 employees.
My Congressional Testimony: Flexible Benefits for a Flexible Workforce
April 17, 2024 // My testimony today focuses on legalizing independent contractors’ access to fringe benefits. My three key points are: 1. Independent contractors lives would be enhanced if they had access to benefits. 2. States are experimenting with various portable benefits models so that workers care not forced to choose between structured employment with benefits or flexible work without benefits. 3. Federal policy can provide a safe harbor for state and local experimentation with these portable benefits systems.
WASHINGTON EDUCATION ASSOCIATION GIVES BIG TO PROGRESSIVE CAUSES, TAX RETURN SHOWS
March 25, 2024 // WEA president Larry Delaney, elected to that position by the union’s members, received total compensation from the union of $312,281 for a reported average of 37.5 hours of work per week. The union’s elected vice president, Janie White, received $257,936 in total compensation. However, the union’s hired executive director, Aimee Iverson, far outpaced them both, receiving $415,545 in total compensation from the WEA that year. The Form 990 also disclosed a dozen other top staff, each earning well over $200,000 per year in total compensation. The total number of such employees on the payroll is unknown. Interestingly, unfunded pension obligations towards its current and former staff represent a significant liability for the WEA. In fact, the weight of the union’s reported $45 million in liabilities for employee retirement benefits pulled its net assets into negative territory that year by nearly $1.3 million.
Let’s Address the Real Challenges for Independent Contractors and Gig Workers
February 5, 2024 // Self-employment fell by 10.5 percent on average for non-exempt occupations, while overall employment fell by 4.4 percent on average for non-exempt occupations Occupations with a greater prevalence of self-employed workers saw greater reductions in both self-employment and overall employment In other words, on average, 1 in 10 self-employed individuals may have lost self-employment opportunities in California among occupations not exempt from AB5, while there is no evidence of an accompanying increase in traditional employment opportunities among workers in non-exempt occupations.