May 22, 2013 / Maria News

Corruption? IRS Offical Refuses to Testify, Invokes the 5th Amendment

FoxNews.com – The director of the IRS division that singled out conservative groups refused to answer questions Wednesday at a House hearing on the program, as a Democratic lawmaker warned there would be “hell to pay” if the agency stonewalls Congress on its investigation.

The IRS official, Lois Lerner, invoked the Fifth Amendment Wednesday as she declared she would not testify or answer questions on the advice of counsel.

“I will not answer any questions or testify about the subject matter of this committee’s meeting,” she said.

However, her statements prompted confusion in the hearing room, as she delivered a brief opening statement in which she claimed she had done nothing wrong. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that given her other remarks, she may have “effectively waived” her rights.

After further deliberation, she was ultimately dismissed.

It was an unusual start to Congress’ third hearing on the controversial IRS program. Before Lerner spoke, Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch warned that if IRS officials don’t start cooperating more, “it will lead to a special prosecutor” being appointed.

“There will be hell to pay if that’s the route that we (choose) to go down,” he said.

Lynch was mainly referring to testimony from a Tuesday Senate hearing where other IRS officials did not provide the names of those who started the targeting program.

May 15, 2014, 2013 / Maria News

Attorney General to investigate IRS targeting of conservative groups

By Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – The IRS has since admitted that the staff of its Cincinnati office engaged in such activity. Documents suggest at least three other IRS offices did the same.

IRS officials in both Washington and California IRS officials contacted conservative groups to demand more information before approving the groups’ requests for tax-exempt status.

A legal group representing numerous conservative organizations called American Center for Law and Justice provided CNN with four such letters: one each from IRS offices in Washington; Cincinnati; El Monte, California, and Laguna Niguel, California. The words “patriots” or “tea party” figured in the names of each group that received the letter.

Lois Lerner, director of tax exempt organizations for the IRS, said last week that the IRS had targeted some groups for further review as they had those words in their names. Lerner said the activity took place at the IRS office in Cincinnati that handles most applications for 501(c)(4) status.

In addition, a draft report from the inspector general for the IRS says that agents were on the lookout to give special scrutiny to groups with “tea party” and “patriots” in their names. Groups criticizing “how the country is being run” were also being targeted by the IRS.

In January 2012, the criteria was revised as “political action-type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement.” According to the report, IRS officials knew about the targeting of conservative groups in June 2011 — and that the practice began as early as March 2010.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday that he’s “confident” no one at the White House was involved in the practice. Carney said he is “sure some people knew about the stories. But we were not aware of any activity or any review by the inspector general.”

Obama called the IRS’ alleged actions “outrageous” and said personnel involved “have to be held accountable.” Some Republicans criticized the president for not speaking out on the issue immediately. He said he learned about it through news reports late last week.

© 2013, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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March 31, 2013 / MariaNews.com 

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg slapped with $1.1 billion tax bill

By Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – In his decision to go public, Zuckerberg not only amassed $13 billion, but also about $2.3 billion in stock options alone that he reported as income last year.

Coupled with a 48.3 percent total tax rate, that leaves Zuckerberg owing Uncle Sam more than $1 billion.

Few will shed tears over Zuckerberg’s plight. Billionaires such as he usually don’t grieve their giant tax bills, one expert says. “I have had very few clients that get these huge windfalls who have resented paying the tax. They know they got lucky,” San Francisco-area accountant Stan Pollock says.

“Most people are thrilled, to tell you the truth,” Stan Pollock, a San Francisco-area accountant who specializes in handling tax issues for tech workers, told CNN. “I have had very few clients that get these huge windfalls who have resented paying the tax. They know they got lucky.”

A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment on the monstrous tax bill.

Zuckerberg bought 60 million Facebook shares the day of its initial public offering. Since then, he sold more than 30 million shares for about $1.13 billion. A regulatory filing submitted then said Zuckerberg would use most of that money to cover his taxes.

This debt is even before factoring in some deductions, such as for the $500 million charitable donation he made in December to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and any other income Zuckerberg collected last year. Only Uncle Sam and California’s tax agency know exactly what’s in Zuckerberg’s return, but three California CPAs believe Zuckerberg’s bill for the year will probably exceed $1 billion.

This is unusual, even for billionaires.

“With numbers that large, it’s usually capital gains, not ordinary income,” Toby Johnston says, a partner at tax firm Moss Adams LLP’s Silicon Valley office who works with wealthy clients. Investors profiting off their gains paid a significantly lower tax rate last year than Facebook’s founder will. The highest federal capital gains rate in 2012 was 15 percent. It goes up to 23.8 percent (including a Medicare surtax) this year.

© 2013, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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March 31 / 2013 / MariaNews.com

Statement of  President & Chief Executive Officer of EWTN Global Catholic Network on the Dismissal of EWTN’s Lawsuit Challenging the HHS Mandate:

EWTN - “On Monday, March 25, 2013, Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn of the US District Court in Birmingham dismissed EWTN’s lawsuit challenging the government mandate that employee healthcare plans must provide coverage for contraception, sterilization procedures and abortion-inducing drugs. While we are extremely disappointed that Judge Blackburn did not rule on the constitutional issues that were at the heart of the EWTN lawsuit, we are not surprised by the decision. In every lawsuit filed against the mandate, the government has made promise after promise to amend its unjust rules. As a result, nearly everyone, including the courts, is left waiting to see what the government might or might not do to address the serious issues of conscience that have been raised since the first set of rules were published over a year ago.

Contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs are not healthcare. EWTN cannot and will not compromise our strongly held beliefs on these moral issues. We are consulting with our legal team at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty about our available options as we go forward. We are grateful for the prayers and support of the EWTN Family over the past year since the lawsuit was first filed, and ask for continued prayers as we consider our response to this decision.”

Source: EWTN

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March 21, 2013 / MariaNews.com 

Coca-Cola cutting 750 U.S. jobs, more than one percent of workforce

By Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – About one in four of the jobs being eliminated are in the Atlanta area, home to Coke’s headquarters.

Coke’s U.S. workforce rose by 900 last year to 68,300. The rise in labor was attributed to consolidating the North American operations of Coca-Cola Enterprises, its largest bottler. It purchased those operations in 2010.

The layoffs will be coming in the next few months. It must be noted that these job cuts are far less severe than those at rival Pepsico. In February 2012, the holding company for Pepsi said it plans 8,700 job cuts worldwide by 2014. That accounted for three percent of its global staff. But less than 2,000 of those job cuts will come out of its U.S. workforce of 106,000.

In related news, Coca-Cola closed its Sheboygan production facility, leaving 40 employees jobless, according to a letter to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development received Wednesday.

The company said it will offer a competitive severance package and will pay all earned wages and agreed-upon benefits upon termination of the jobs.

In faraway Norway, Coca-Cola Norge plans to lay off nearly half of all its employees in next year, after it revamps its bottling operations and turns over beverage delivery to grocery wholesalers. Coca-Cola is investing heavily in the re-tooling, but as many as 500 workers will lose their jobs.

A decline in sales of Coca-Cola’s high-fructose soft drinks is behind much of the major restructuring that mainly affects operations at the US-based company’s large plant at Lørenskog, northeast of Oslo. The jobs of around 400-500 employees at the plant are expected to disappear by March 2013.

“We needed to tackle the situation before we start seeing red ink,” Stein Rømmerud, communications director for Coca-Cola Enterprises Norge og Sverige, told reporters. Increasing competition from grocery store chains’ own house brands have also contributed to the sales challenges.

© 2013, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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March 1, 2013 / MariaNews.com 

Sequester News – Obama meets with Congressional Leaders in last effort

FoxNews.com – President Obama is now meeting with Congressional leaders from both parties at the White House in a last-ditch effort to stave off the sequester – $85 billion in automatic across-the-board domestic and defense cuts set to take effect today.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already drawn a line in the stand and said in a statement released before the meeting that Republicans will not support any last-minute deals and they will not raise taxes.

“Republicans have offered the President numerous solutions, including the flexibility he needs to secure those reductions more intelligently,” McConnell said in the statement. “I am happy to discuss other ideas to keep our commitment to reducing Washington spending at today’s meeting. But there will be no last-minute, back-room deal and absolutely no agreement to increase taxes.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/01/white-house-to-enact-sequester-cuts-friday-amid-questions-over-impact/#ixzz2MJ7eWEWw

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February 22, 2013 / MariaNews.com 

Does For-Profit Businesses Have Right to Religious Liberty?

By Cybercast News Service

WASHINGTON, DC (CNS NEWS) – Republican members of Congress have weighed in on the legal battle being waged over the Obamacare mandate requiring employers to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to employees.

Eleven senators and congressmen filed an amicus brief, also known as a friend-of-the-court brief, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on Tuesday in support of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a Christian-owned and operated corporation that opposes the mandate based on its owners’ religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby filed suit against Health and Human Services and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Rep. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was one of the lead sponsors of the Religious Freedom Reformation Act of 1993, which he said was designed to protect the religious liberty of all Americans, even those who own corporations or other for-profit businesses.

“As one of the lead sponsors of RFRA, it’s deeply troubling to see this White House trample on the religious freedom the law seeks to protect,” Hatch said in a written statement.

The brief states: “Amici are federal legislators who were part of the broad, bipartisan coalition that enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (“RFRA”). Amici designed and passed RFRA to establish a blanket default rule that would insulate religious liberty from the shifting fortunes of interest-group politics.

“Defendants have ordered that certain employers’ insurance plans must cover all FDA-approved contraceptives without cost-sharing (the “HHS mandate”), but have refused to exempt many employers with sincere religious objections. Amici have an interest in vindicating RFRA’s blanket protections against the selective and stingy approach adopted by Defendants.”

In addition to Hatch, the brief was signed by Sens. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), and Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and Frank Wolf (R-Va.).

At an event at the Family Research Council on Wednesday to discuss the threat Obamacare poses to Americans’ religious freedoms, Adele Keim, legal counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Hobby Lobby, said that HHS is trying to make the distinction between non-profit and for-profit, with the latter being said to be secular and exempt from religious consideration.

“In the Hobby Lobby case, HHS’s lawyers have argued that business owners don’t have religious liberty at all when it comes to how they run their businesses,” Keim said. “According to HHS, that’s because the corporate form, which was designed centuries ago to limit liability, insulates them from the moral consequences of their actions.”

Keim said that HHS claims the for-profit nature of a corporation does not make the religious belief of its owner relevant.

“But of course, there’s nothing in the First Amendment that says you lose your religious liberty when you make a living,” Keim said.

Kyle Duncan, general counsel with Becket, said the lawmakers’ brief shows that the Obamacare mandate goes against federal civil rights law.

“While any brief by sitting members of Congress is significant, this one comes from members who originally supported the federal civil rights law-the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993-which is at the heart of the mandate challenges,” Duncan said.

“The brief leaves no doubt that Congress intended to protect the religious freedom of those like Hobby Lobby and its founder, David Green, against federal attempts to force them to insure abortion-inducing drugs,” Duncan added.

According to Becket, there are 47 legal court cases opposing the HHS mandate, with more than 130 plaintiffs being represented.

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February 19, 2013 / MariaNews.com 

$1,728,477,000,000: U.S. federal debt hits new record

By Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – The total debt of the federal government as of Wednesday was $16,524,304,599,079.04, which included $11,668,602,027,147.93 in debt held by the public and $4,855,702,571,931.11 in intra-governmental debt. Intra-governmental is when money the Treasury has taken out of government trust funds, such as the Social Security Trust Fund, and is spent on other government programs.

Since Jan. 2 of this year, the Federal Reserve has increased its holdings of U.S. government debt by $62,359,000,000.00. The Treasury has simultaneously increased the overall debt held by the public by $87,084,476,752.86. Therefore, the Federal Reserve has bought up the equivalent of 71.6 percent of the publicly held debt that has been issued by the Treasury so far in 2013, and 14.8 percent of all of the U.S. government’s publicly held debt that is now extant.

The Federal Reserve said on January 30 that it intended to buy $45 billion in federal government debt per month with the aim of helping to insure economic growth at what it called a “moderate pace” as well as an unemployment rate that would “gradually decline.”

The U.S. economy did not grow in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. On the contrary real GDP declined by 0.1 percent. In January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment did not decline. In fact, it ticked up from 7.8 percent in December to 7.9 percent in January.

“The Committee expects that, with appropriate policy accommodation, economic growth will proceed at a moderate pace and the unemployment rate will gradually decline toward levels the Committee judges consistent with its dual mandate,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a press release.

© 2013, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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February 6, 2013 / MariaNews.com 

More than eight million Americans are now collecting disability

By Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – February is the 192nd straight month that the number of American workers collecting federal disability payments has increased. The last time the number of Americans collecting disability decreased reaches as far back as January 1997 – and that number of workers taking disability dropped by 249 people, from 4,385,623 in December 1996 to 4,385,374 in January 1997.

As the overall number of Americans collecting disability has increased – so did the ratio of full-time workers to disability beneficiaries has decreased.

In December 1968, 1,295,428 Americans collected disability and 65,630,000 worked full-time. Thus, there were about 51 Americans working full-time for each person collecting disability at that time. The last time the number of disability beneficiaries declined, in January 1997, 4,385,374 Americans collected disability and 104,900,000 worked full-time.

Thus, there were then about 24 Americans working full-time for each person collecting disability.

In January 2013, with a record 8,830,026 Americans collecting disability and 115,918,000 working full-time, there were only 13 Americans working full-time for each person collecting disability.

In related news, the U.S. missed an opportunity to display global leadership on disability rights on December 4, 2012, as the Senate failed to approve ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Senate vote was 61 in favor and 38 opposed, with 66 “yes” votes – two-thirds of the Senate in attendance – needed to consent to ratification.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a landmark civil rights law enacted by Congress in 1990, was the first major piece of national legislation in the world to address systematically the discrimination, barriers, and challenges faced by people with disabilities. In that legislation, the US set out a vision for empowering people with disabilities to achieve economic self-sufficiency, independent living, full participation, and inclusion and integration into society.

© 2013, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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