The tax on job creating businesses is 35 percent in the United States, second worst in the entire world.
Republican Senate candidate George Allen recently complained that corporate taxes are too high and discourage economic expansion.The tax on job-creating businesses in the United States is 35 percent, second worst in the entire world, he said during a June 14 news conference at which he unveiled his Blueprint for Americas Comeback..We wondered if the U.S. really is No.2 in the world when it comes to high corporate taxes and asked for the source of Allens information.Katie Wright, spokeswoman for Allens campaign, pointed to a March 8, 2011,reportfrom the right-leaning Tax Foundation. It indeed showed that the U.S. had the second highest total corporate tax rate among industrialized and emerging nations. Only Japan placed higher levies on business profits.But taxes are a complicated subject, and Allens claim needs elaboration.Eric Toder, co-director of the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center, noted most corporate income is taxed at the top U.S. federal rate of 35 percent, which Allen cited. The tax applies to American companies doing business here and abroad as well as to profits earned in the U.S. by affiliates of foreign companies.Allen understates his argument when he says the 35 percent federal corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world. Actually, it outstrips Japan and is the highest national rate among nearly three dozen industrialized democracies, according to 2011 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.But national tax rates on companies dont tell the whole story.When looking at how the U.S. corporate tax liability compares to other countries, analysts usually  examine a combination of federal and state corporate income tax rates.By that measure, the combined average corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.2 percent this year, according to the OECD. Among industrialized democracies, only Japans combined corporate rate of 39.5 percent is higher.Japan had planned to lower its corporate tax rate by 5 percent on April 1. But it delayed making the cut after a disastrous earthquake and tsunami struck in March.The OECD report only discusses statutory corporate tax rates. It does not address deductions and credits companies can claim in various countries to lower their liabilities. These loopholes produce an effective tax rate - the percentage of profits companies actually pay in levies.The World Bank published a report last November containing the effective corporate tax rates of 183 nations. The U.S. had an effective corporate tax rate of 27.6 percent, according to the study, which is still pretty high. Among larger international economies, only Japan, New Zealand and Thailand had higher effective tax rates on corporate profits.Allen, during his news conference, said he would like to lower the 35 percent national corporate tax rate to 20 percent and eliminate loopholes.Lets sum up:Allen said the U.S. corporate income tax of 35 percent is the second highest in the world.The national rate of 35 percent is actually the highest among democratic industrial nations. The U.S. combined corporate tax rate -- the average total of state and national levies on business profits -- is 39.2 and ranks second among industrialized democracies.So Allen is a smidgen off on tax rates, rankings and definitions. We rate his claim Mostly True.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont loves to boast about hisindependence from super PACsand billionaires, saying his campaign relies on the support of small donors. Recently, the Democratic presidential hopeful extended his small donor claim to Russ Feingold. Sanders sent out a news release May 26, 2016 that said he would be raising money for Feingold, a former U.S. senator who is aiming to unseat Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in a rematch of their 2010 contest. Sanders also sent an email to his national fundraising list. We are going to have to elect candidates up and down the ballot who recognize that it is too late for establishment politics and economics, Sanders wrote. Candidates like my friend, former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold. Sanders continued: Russ led the fight with me to make the Affordable Care Act much stronger in 2009. He voted against the USA PATRIOT Act and the war in Iraq. He authored and passed landmark campaign finance reform legislation and his campaign is powered by small-dollar contributions like ours. That last accolade caught our eyes. Sanderss record-breakinglevelof small-contribution support has been well noted. We wondered if small donors were also powering Feingolds campaign. Sanders backup Typically, small donors are considered those who give $200 or less over an election cycle. Having a lot of small-dollar contributions can indicate strong grassroots support and an effective online fundraising effort. When asked to back up the statement, Sanders team sent us to anews releaseissued by Feingolds campaign in April 2016. At that time, the release said, 30,000 Wisconsinites had contributed to Feingolds campaign with money coming in from each of the states 72 counties. The release also claimed 96 percent of all contributions in the first quarter were $100 or less. The problem for fact-checkers -- it cannot be independently verified. PolitiFact National explored the issue when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said our campaign depends on small donations for the majority of our support. Her team provided similar information, saying more than 50 percent of the money raised by the campaign came from online grassroots donations, with 98 percent smaller than $250. Until an individual donor surpasses $200 in contributions, their funds are unitemized on campaign disclosure reports. So the number of donors who give less than $200 is unknown. Numbers reported to the Federal Elections Commission provided weak support for Clintons statement, PolitiFact National found. And small donors accounted for less than 20 percent of Clintons total donations, according to those figures. The claim was ratedMostly False. FEC numbers The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group, tracks money given to candidates from individuals and PACs, as well as those self-financing their campaigns and money contributed from other means. Sanders profile on the groups web site reports that 99 percent of his campaigns more than $200 million in funds has come from individual contributions (as opposed, for instance, to political action committees). Of that, 62 percent -- or more than $129 million -- was from contributions of $200 or less. The other part comes from large individual contributions of up to $2,700. So what about Sanders Wisconsin pal, Feingold? According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Feingold has raised more than $10 million in the race against Johnson. Like Sanders, an overwhelming amount of his funds, 93 percent, come from individual contributions. But, Feingold has received a larger share of donations from large donors than small ones. Feingold received 52 percent of his overall funds from people who gave more than $200. Another 41 percent came from small individual donors. He also received about $600,000 from PAC contributions. So, the majority of Sanders funding -- 62 percent -- comes from these small donors while 41 percent of Feingolds funding came from small donors. The phrase powered by, of course, is open to some interpretation. We took a look at candidates in other competitive Senate races across the country this election cycle. Most candidates received less than 20 percent of all campaign funds from small donors. Some approached 30 percent -- still far below the proportion of funds Feingold has raised from small donors. So, while Feingold is not above 50 percent -- and does not match Sanders level -- we feel like the claim is generally on target. It doesnt factor into this claim, but as a point of reference, Johnson has raised just less than $12 million. Individuals donated about 80 percent of that money. He has gotten a far greater share of his contributions from big spenders -- those donating between $200 and $2,700 this election cycle. Just 15 percent of his funds come people who donate less than $200, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Our rating Sanders said in a fundraising letter that Feingolds campaign is powered by small-dollar contributions like ours. Both the presidential and congressional hopefuls have received the majority of their support from individual donors. While small donors have played a role in Feingolds funding, theyre not as integral as Sanders small donors. We rate the claim Mostly True. In September 2020, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of news reports and social media posts that claimed the department store chain Kohl's was launching a line of clothing themed around the movement against racial injustice and police brutality known as Black Lives Matter (BLM). On Sept. 9, 2020, the website Shore News Network published an article with the headline "Kohl's Stores Announce New Line of Black Lives Matter Clothing," which reported that: article "Kohls Department Stores, which operates Jersey Shore-based box stores has announced a new line of Black Lives Matter and equality based t-shirts that will be available for purchase in select Kohls department stores. The shirts will be available on September 21st." On Sept. 16, 2020, Twitter user @ElizabethKlave3 posted a widely shared tweet that read:  tweet "I just called Kohl's and they confirmed that they will be selling BLM merchandise. I asked them if they were going to sell back the blue and they said no not at this time. This is a shame and they will no longer have me as a customer."   Those claims contained a mixture of truth and falsehood. Kohl's did announce, on Sept. 7, 2020, that it had collaborated with a local business near the company's headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to produce "a line of tees for the whole family to support racial equality": announce "We've partnered with Cream City Print Lounge, a Milwaukee-area Black-owned business, to create a line of tees for the whole family to support racial equality. Mark your calendars for 9/21 to shop the line in select stores and at Kohls.com. With this launch, Kohl's is proud to donate $100,000 to the The National Urban League, which strengthens economic empowerment, equity and civil rights."   The T-shirts themselves do not appear to feature the words "Black Lives Matter" or "BLM." A spokesperson for Kohl's told Snopes the clothing would not feature the name of the movement itself and clarified, "The collection is not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter organization." Photographs of some of the T-shirts being printed, which were posted on Facebook by local reporter Cassidy Williams, featured the slogans "Black culture is not a trend" and "Racism is not cool" as well as the raised fist symbol, which has been used as a symbol of "unity and solidarity", the BLM movement, and as a symbol of "Black power." posted unity and solidarity BLM Black power The T-shirt shown in the Kohl's announcement on Sept. 7 also featured the same "raised fist" symbol with the words "Justice, Respect, Change." On Facebook, Cream City Print Lounge advertised a launch party for its collaboration with Kohl's, and the graphic for the event featured T-shirts bearing the slogans "Black culture is not a trend," "Together we can create change," "Peace, love, equality," and the raised fist with "Justice, Respect, Change"  but again, rather conspicuously, no T-shirts bearing the name "Black Lives Matter" or "BLM." graphic As a result, it's hard to argue that it would be more accurate to describe the forthcoming Kohl's line as "BLM T-shirts," rather than "T-shirts advocating racial equality." Anti-racism is not synonymous with the BLM movement, and vice versa, just as anti-racist rhetoric and symbolism should not be conflated with, or reduced to, the slogan "Black Lives Matter." And in this case, the company happens to have made that distinction explicit.  Furthermore, the political and social atmosphere that prevailed in the United States in the autumn of 2020 was one of intense and widespread division surrounding acts of police violence towards Black people and resulting protests. The BLM movement, in general, and the Black Lives Matter Global Network in particular, were the subject of a great deal of criticism, especially among right-leaning observers and supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump. So the distinction between "BLM T-shirts" and "T-shirts advocating racial equality" could hardly have been more substantive.  Nonetheless, the description of the T-shirts as "BLM merchandise" was clearly not arbitrary, and obvious areas of overlap existed between the principles and messages advocated by the broader BLM movement, on the one hand, and the collaboration between Kohl's and Cream City Print Lounge. So the mistake was an understandable one, but a significant mistake all the same. We issue a rating of "Mixture." Shore News Network. "Kohl's Stores Announce New Line of Black Lives Matter Clothing."
 9 September 2020. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., believes the governments economic policies over the past few decades have cut the legs out from underneath America's middle class. At the AFL-CIO National Summit on Raising WagesJan. 7, Warren spoke about growing income inequality, particularly since the 1980s, when the trickle-down economics policies gained traction under former President Ronald Reagan. She argued that this theory -- that giving tax breaks and other economic benefits to corporations and the wealthy will benefit the poor by improving the economy overall -- hasnt worked. Warren, a former law professor and expert on the economic challenges of the middle class, cited a number of statistics to support her point, including: Well, since 1980, guess how much of the growth in income over the last 32 years -- how much of the growth in income did the 90 percent get? Zero. None. Nothing. In fact, it is worse than that. The average family not in the top 10 percent makes less money today than they were making a generation ago. We wondered if that was true -- that the bottom 90 percent of earners in America have a lower income than they had more than 30 years ago. The statistic comes from data compiled by well-known economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, who study income inequality. TheirWorld Top Incomes Databasespecializes in cataloging the highest level of incomes over time in more than 20 countries. To check out Warrens claim, we looked at average income data from 1979 to 2012 for the top 10 percent and bottom 90 percent of earners. (The time frame Warren used in her speech was a generation, which is vague, but in context its clear shes talking about since the 1980s.) The Saez-Piketty data comes from millions of tax returns filed over the past century. The data supports her claim. Adjusted for inflation, the top 10 percent of earners in the United States made, on average, $144,418 in 1979 and $254,449 in 2012. Thats about 76 percent growth. The bottom 90 percent of earners, on the other hand, made $33,526 in 1979 and $30,438 in 2012. Thats adecreaseof about 9 percent. This chart generated on the Saez-Piketty top income database shows the growth of the top 10 percent of earners average income over time, compared to the relatively stagnant progression of the bottom 90 percent of earners average income. Compare this to the 30 years prior, where -- according to Saez and Pikettys data -- the average income for the bottom 90 percent of earners grew alongside the top 10 percent, albeit at a slower pace. However there is some context to consider. Mainly, not everyone approves of the Saez-Piketty approach to cataloging income. Their approach uses pre-tax income and includes realized capital gains. Because the richest Americans earn a lot of capital gains and pay a lot of taxes, this arguably magnifies their income. On the other hand, the approach lowballs the income of lower-level earners -- the bottom 90 percent in this case. The income calculation does not include government payments, such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and the earned income tax credit. Salim Furth, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, also noted that the data looks at tax units -- individuals or married couples filing together -- rather than households, which may artificially lower average incomes. For example, a young adult living with his parents are two separate tax units; together they are one household or family. The Saez-Piketty data captures that the young worker has a very small income, but not the fact that he lives in a house with multiple incomes. Also, tax law has changed over the past 50 years to increase the number of units, Furth said. Of the general trend in income growth, he said, Data sources that are more widely used show solid, though not fantastic, income growth for most of the income distribution through 2007. There are big losses in the Great Recession, and then an incomplete recovery since then. TheCongressional Budget Officeproduced a report in November 2014 showing that the bottom 80 percent of earners (measured by households rather than tax units) saw income increases of about 16 percent between 1979 and 2011. The top 81-99 percent, on the other hand, saw increases of about 56 percent over the period. And the top 1 percent alone saw their household income grow 174 percent. That report also found that if it includes government benefits in its income calculation, all income brackets saw even more income growth. Still, this data shows that top earners incomes are growing at a faster pace than everyone elses -- which supports Warrens broader point. Richard Burkhauser, an economist at Cornell University, pointed us to a paper he co-wrote on income inequality that compares Saez-Piketty-style data to other income measurements. The results are consistent with the Saez-Piketty data until households are adjusted for size, and capital gains taxes and government payments are factored in. With those controls, incomes have grown across the board, and income inequality has also grown -- but not at as dramatic a rate as the Saez-Piketty data implies. Ultimately, Burkhausers report concludes that different measurements work for different policy questions. If Warrens talking specifically aboutmarket income-- that is, income earned before taxes and before government payments -- the Saez-Piketty data is appropriate, and undoubtedly income inequality has grown substantially in recent years, and the middle class is struggling. If the question is, alternatively, whether government programs are doing something to close the gap and help the middle class -- other measures show that programs like food stamps and Medicaid are helping to a certain extent, at least for people who qualify. (And of course not everyone in the bottom 90 percent of earners does qualify.) Arguably, in a speech directed at working and middle-class Americans at a summit on raising wages, the context of Warrens remarks give credence to the fact that she was referencing data that emphasizes earned income over government-provided income. In the speech, Warren wasnt advocating for new government programs that give out payments to individuals in need. She was making a policy argument against the idea of trickle-down economics and in favor of broad economic policies that she believes would improve Americans job-earned income, like raising the minimum wage and breaking up the Wall Street banks. We can make new choices, she said. And one way to make those choices is to talk openly and honestly and directly about work, about how we value work, and how we value those who do the work. Our ruling Warren said, The average family not in the top 10 percent makes less money today than they were making a generation ago. According to one measurement, the bottom 90 percent of American earners had a lower income in 2012 than they had 30 years ago. By other measurements -- mainly ones that include government payments such as Social Security -- incomes have grown across the board. However, this data still supports Warrens overall point that income inequality is growing. Additionally, given the context of her speech at a forum about wages, it makes sense that Warren would reference data that gives more weight to pre-tax income. Shes arguing that middle-class wages havent increased enough over the past couple decades. We rate Warrens claim Mostly True. Help fund PolitiFacts Kickstarter to live fact-check the 2015 State of the Union and GOP response. In May 2017, a Reddit user posted a graphic that purported to list all of President Trump's accomplishments during his first four months in office. It was then widely shared on social media: Reddit TRUMP ACCOMPLISHMENTS ..Retweet the hell out of this to annoy @ABC @CBS @cnn @cnbc @MSNBC @nbc @nytimes @washingtonpost #dishonestmedia. pic.twitter.com/ITArBQgcmJ @ABC @CBS @cnn @cnbc @MSNBC @nbc @nytimes @washingtonpost #dishonestmedia pic.twitter.com/ITArBQgcmJ  Small Biz for Trump (@SmallBiz4Trump) May 15, 2017 May 15, 2017  Creating homebrew visual aids touting the accomplishments (or failures) of top politicians is a popular online pastime, not least because it's a cheap and easy way to propagandize, and because there are no pesky standards of fairness and accuracy to meet. As we've noted with regard to previous specimens (for example, a late-2016 meme touting the alleged economic achievements of President Obama), the graphic format lends itself to the display of cherry-picked facts to make a simplistic case with no semblance of context or nuance. achievements In this case, the claim is that, despite all the carping in the mainstream press about "chaos" and "ineptitude" in the Oval Office, President Trump has actually accomplished quite a lot during his first four months as chief executive, and thus you will not find mention of major campaign promises Trump has had difficulty keeping so far, such as instituting a Muslim immigration ban and building a wall on the Mexican border. Also, since it's very much a partisan case being made, there will be disagreement over what constitutes an "accomplishment." Some feats, such as reducing unemployment, are uncontroversial, while others, such as dismantling entire government agencies, aren't likely to be regarded as accomplishments by those who find the functions of those agencies critical. Here are the claims: 4.4 percent - lowest since May 2007 As reported in the Washington Post, government data released on 5 May 2017 indicated that the national unemployment rate hit a new low in April: reported The U.S. job market rebounded strongly last month and the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level seen in a decade, government data released Friday morning showed, calming fears that had bubbled up in the past month about the state of the economy. Employers added 211,000 jobs in April as the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4 percent, the lowest level since May 2007.  It bears pointing out that the jobless rate had already been on a steady decline since 2010. Further, unemployment hit a previous nine-year low of 4.6 percent in December 2016 when President Obama was still in office. It climbed back up to 4.8 percent in January, dipped to 4.7 percent in February, and to 4.5 percent in March 2017. unemployment To what degree short-term improvements in the economy since January can be attributed to a new chief executive whose economic policies remain nascent is perennially up for debate, though according to The New York Times' senior economic correspondent Neil Irwin, a "Trump effect" that is buoying corporate hiring policies after the election cannot be ruled out: according So does Mr. Trump deserve any credit for solid economic results? If you think the economy is driven by concrete, specific policies around taxes, spending, monetary policy and regulation, the answer is no. If you think that what really matters is the mood in the executive suite, then just maybe. SoftBank $50B Exxon $20B Hyundai $3.1B Apple $1B Chrysler $1B GM $1B Bayer AG $1BToyota $600M LG $250M This is a mostly-accurate, partial list of corporations who have announced investments in American facilities and/or jobs since the election of Donald Trump. With the exception of Bayer AG (which announced $8 billion in new investments, not $1 billion as claimed), the dollar amounts match those cited in press reports between January and April 2017 (sources: Softbank, Exxon Mobil Corp., Hyundai-Kia, Apple, Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, Bayer AG, Toyota, LG Electronics). Softbank Exxon Mobil Corp. Hyundai-Kia Apple Fiat Chrysler General Motors Bayer AG Toyota LG Electronics It's not necessarily accurate to characterize all of these commitments as "accomplishments" of President Trump, however. As CBS Moneywatch's Irina Ivanova reported in January 2017: reported Few of the jobs companies are promising to create in the U.S. can be attributed to a sudden renewed commitment to USA Inc. inspired by Trumps America First policies. Indeed, the businesses Trump has been quick to praise have been careful not to characterize their recent hiring announcements as new. And as usual with corporate investments of this scale, such plans are typically months  or even years  in the making, suggesting they long predate the presidential election. For example, Fiat Chrysler said their promise of a $1 billion investment in Michigan and Ohio plants, projected to create 2,000 jobs, was the "second phase" of an industrialization plan announced in 2016. GM's $1 billion investment was "several years in the making," according to sources cited by CBS. promise The largest of all the announced commitments, SoftBank's pledge of $50 billion, was also in the works long before Trump won the election: Another widely publicized corporate initiative that Trump trumpeted  a promise by SoftBank to create 50,000 high-tech jobs in the U.S.  was the result of a tech fund the company announced on Oct. 14  three weeks before the election. Given the massive tech industry in the U.S., economists say much of the planned $50 billion investment would have found its way to the states regardless of who occupied the White House. You dont just decide overnight to invest $3 billion, said Nathan Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas who studies interactions between government and corporations. Bayer AG's commitment to an $8 billion investment and the creation of 3,000 U.S. jobs was announced by the Trump transition team after the president-elect met in January 2017 with the CEOs of Bayer AG and Monsanto, who are planning a merger. Transition spokesman Sean Spicer credited Trump's negotiating skills for the pledge, but some analysts were skeptical that the companies had actually promised anything that wasn't already on the table when plans for the merger were first revealed in September 2016: commitment analysts Bayer and Monsanto said in a joint statement after Spicer's remarks that the "combined company expects to spend approximately $16 billion in R&D in agriculture over the next six years with at least half of this investment made in the United States." That amounts to about $2.7 billion a year, which roughly equates to what the combined companies already spend in that area globally, [Wall Street analyst Jeremy] Redenius said. As for the U.S. breakdown, he estimates it's likely close to half already; Monsanto spends $1.5 billion a year, the majority of which is in the U.S., he said, and Bayer already invests in R&D here as well. "Not an increase, but not substantially cutting," he said of the global figure. The merger, which awaits U.S. regulatory approval, is not likely to be completed until 2018, CNBC reported. reported $182B in April 2017 It is true that the U.S. Treasury reported a $182 billion budget surplus in April 2017, the largest April surplus since 2001 (and the second-largest in history), according to MarketWatch. It's unclear exactly how that surplus is attributable to President Trump, however. April is typically a surplus month because of tax receipts. In addition, citing a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) review as its source, Associated Press reported that the April 2017 surplus was "inflated" because of a tax deadline change allowing corporations to pay federal taxes in April that in previous years were paid in March.  MarketWatch review inflated It remains to be seen what effect Tump's policies will have on the budget deficit for 2017 as a whole (the fiscal year ends on 30 September). The CBO projects a 4.6 percent drop in the deficit from what it was in 2016, but that is based on laws and policies already in effect when Trump took office. DOW at 20,896 The stock market can be fickle. As of April 29, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 20,940.51, 6.12 percent higher than when Trump took office  positive movement, unquestionably. That number had risen to 20,981.94 by 16 May, then plummeted 372 points the next day as the market was shaken by news that Trump had shared classified information with Russian diplomats in the White House and attempted to divert FBI Director James Comey from an investigation of Trump's alleged ties to Russia before he fired him. 20,940.51 20,981.94 news Currently at 125.6 It's true that the Consumer Confidence Index, a metric assessing how ordinary consumers feel about the strength of the economy, hit 125.6 in March 2017, its highest point since 2000. It is also true that it fell five points to 120.3 the following month. Even so, it showed that consumers (as of April) had more confidence in the economy under Trump than under Obama, during whose administration the index never exceeded 113.7 (although it did manage to rise to that point after bottoming out in 2009 at 25). fell Passed 32 bills through Congress As of 17 May 2017, President Trump had signed 34 bills passed by Congress, a comparatively high number in such a short period of time (since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who signed 76 pieces of legislation in his first 100 days, only Harry Truman, at 55, signed more). signed number That's not to say that all of the legislation signed by Trump between January and May 2017 was necessarily noteworthy, however. One bill changed the name of a Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Pago Pago, American Samoa; another renamed a VA health center in Pennsylvania; another approves the location of a memorial honoring Desert Storm and Desert Shield veterans; three appointed citizen regents to the board of the Smithsonian Institution. changed renamed Nor should it be assumed that Trump's signing of a given bill meant he or his administration was actively involved in its passage. Thirteen such bills nullifying federal regulations enacted during the Obama administration (such as H.J. Res. 69, reversing a U.S. Fish and Wildlife rule pertaining to Alaska's National Wildlife Refuges and S.J. Res. 34, reversing FCC Internet privacy rules) were rushed through Congress and quickly signed because they made use of the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which imposes a 60-day limit on the time allowed to overrule previously passed laws. Appointed constitutionalist Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch This is true. Gorsuch was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 7 April 2017. true After 8 years of inaction This is true. Trump fulfilled a campaign promise by signing an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership international trade agreement on 23 January 2017, one day after announcing he would renegotiate it. Despite President Obama's fervent support for the deal, many groups, including labor unions, were critical of the TPP, and CNN reported that its chances of approval by Congress were already "bleak."  signing 40 percent fewer illegal border crossings and deportation of violent and repeat offenders The number of illegal border crossings from Mexico into the U.S. in February 2017 were indeed down 40 percent from the previous month, according to statistics provided by the Department of Homeland Security, and that downward trend, which had actually started the previous November, continued in March and April 2017. This U.S. Customs and Border Protection chart shows how striking the change was compared to the previous five years: statistics   CNN Water contamination crisis started in April 2014 It's true that in March 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a $100 million grant to the state of Michigan to upgrade the drinking water infrastructure in Flint, which experienced a lead pollution crisis potentially affecting as many as 100,000 people beginning in 2014. There has been some dispute, however, over whether this ought to be labeled a "Trump accomplishment" or an "Obama accomplishment."  awarded crisis As we noted in a previous article, funding for the grant came from a bill signed by President Obama in 2016, though the monies weren't officially awarded until after he left office, hence some prefer to credit it to Trump. article Strengthening relationships  China  Japan  Russia  UK Tough on North Korea Tough on Syria Freed Humanitarian Workers from Egypt Although President Trump pledged to "strengthen" overseas relationships going into office and he had already met with several important foreign leaders by mid-May 2017, it is too soon to tell to what degree his promise will bear fruit. China: The president-elect got off to a rocky start with China in December by accepting a congratulatory call from the leader of Taiwan, which China views as a province,not an independent nation, and with which the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations. China lodged a formal complaint. In April, Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom he said he made "tremendous progress" but no breakthroughs. A trade deal negotiated by the Trump administration with China in May was rated "pretty good" by The Wall Street Journal. call met rated Japan: Japanese Prime Minister Abe, who has met twice with Trump, issued a joint statement with him reaffirming the "unshakable alliance" between the U.S. and Japan. That is despite Trump having called Japan a "currency manipulator" during the presidential campaign and pulling out of the TPP, which Abe supported. Whether the "very, very good chemistry" Trump says he has with Abe will improve the relationship between the two countries over the long haul remains to be seen. Russia: U.S.-Russia relations have been strained for many years, a situation not improved by Russia's attempts to meddle in the U.S. presidential election, nor by the fact that Trump associates are under investigation for possible collusion in that effort. A U.S. missile strike by Trump against Syria, with whose government Russia is closely allied, were strongly condemned by Russian leaders, who warned there could be "extremely serious" consequences. U.K.: British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first foreign leader to visit the Trump White House, and their cordial meeting was portrayed by both countries as a renewal of the "special relationship" between the U.S and the U.K. According to the BBC, Obama was seen by many Britons as more interested in the European Union as a whole than in the U.K. itself, while Trump, who was in favor of Brexit, is perceived as the opposite. BBC Tough on Korea? President Trump has employed what the Washington Post calls "hard-line rhetoric" against North Korea, including threats of force, in hopes of squelching that county's increasing militarism, a strategy some experts dismiss as "macho posturing" that could escalate into a Cuban Missile Crisis-like confrontation.  calls experts Tough on Syria? In April 2017, Trump ordered U.S. missile strikes against an air base in Syria in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack on civilians by the Syrian government, which has been known to brutalize its own people during the ongoing civil war there. Trump's gesture came up short, however, in that the Syrian Air Force was able to launch a new attack against rebel forces from that same base just hours later. attack Humanitarian workers in Egypt: In April 2017 President Trump negotiated the release of U.S.. citizen Aya Hijazi, her Egyptian husband, and four other humanitarian workers from a prison in Cairo, Egypt, where they had been locked up since 2014, without evidence or trial, on charges of child abuse and trafficking.  negotiated Trimming the fat at many overblown government agencies and promoting small business growth by reigning in the EPA Although it is true that President Trump signed an executive order on 13 March 2017 directing the heads of executive branch departments to eliminate all "unnecessary" agencies and reorganize those that remain to improve their "efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability," the order gave said department heads six months from the date of signing to come up with suggestions for this process, so not much fat has been trimmed thus far despite the groundwork being laid. signed Regarding efforts to "reign in" the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a CNN report confirms that's been among Trump's top priorities from the start: priorities President Donald Trump made a campaign trail promise to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency  a department once looked to as an important national force tackling climate change  and during his first 100 days in office has held true to his word, taking swift strides towards dismantling the agency and rolling back regulations. Alongside EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who once worked tangentially with the fossil fuel industry to oppose Obama-era regulations, the Trump administration has so far issued a flurry of EPA-focused executive orders, proposed employee buyouts, handed down a social media gag order and is proposing significant cuts to the EPA budget. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a small business advocacy group, has hailed Trump's commitment to cutting "burdensome regulations," while environmental protection groups see it as a threat to public health and the future of the planet. hailed threat  Finished Dakota Access Pipeline & reversed Obama's "Land Grab" EO, freeing US to use our own natural resources The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project, halted under President Obama, was revived by President Trump and will begin commercial operations on 1 June 2017. Trump also issued an executive order directing a review of lands designated as national monuments: halted revived directing Specifically, the review will consider all national monument designations of federal public lands since 1996 that are 100,000 acres or larger. Mr Trump singled out former President Barack Obamas egregious use of federal power in using the Antiquities Act to unilaterally place swaths of American land and water under federal control, adding, its time we ended this abusive practice. Antiquities Act As with many of the other items discussed above, whether or not one regards this as an "accomplishment" (as opposed, say, to a travesty) will depend almost entirely on one's political views going in. Baker, Peter and Davenport, Coral.  "Trump Revives Keystone Pipeline Rejected by Obama."
 The New York Times.  24 January 2017. Bradner, Eric.  "Trump's TPP Withdrawal: 5 Things to Know."
 CNN.  23 January 2017. Bunge, Jacob and Alessi, Christopher.  "Bayer, After Trump Meeting, Pledges to Add Thousands of U.S. Jobs."
 The Wall Street Journal.  18 January 2017. Carroll, Lauren.  "Trump Has Signed More Bills in 100 Days than Any President Since Truman, Spicer Says."
 Politifact.com.  27 April 2017. Crutsinger, Martin.  "Federal Government Records $182.4 Billion Budget Surplus."
 Associated Press.  10 May 2017. DeCambre, Mark.  "How Trump's Stock Market Ranks During His First 100 Days in Office."
 MarketWatch.  30 April 2017. Green, Miranda.  "Trump's EPA: Cuts, Infighting and No Talk of Climate Change."
 CNN.  4 May 2017. Greene, Leonard.  "Stock Market Suffers Biggest Blow Since President Trump Took Office."
 New York Daily News.  17 May 2017. Ivanova, Irina.  "Trump Isn't the Reason Corporate America Is Investing in the U.S."
 CBS News.  18 January 2017. Kopan, Tal.  "Does Border Drop Mean Trump's Tough Talk Is Working?"
 CNN.  9 March 2017. Kulish, Nicholas and Santos, Fernanda.  "Illegal Border Crossings Appear to Drop Under Trump.
 The New York Times.  8 March 2017. Liptak, Adam and Flegenheimer, Matt.  "Neil Gorsuch Confirmed by Senate as Supreme Court Justice."
 The New York Times.  7 April 2017. McKelvey, Tara.  "Special Relationship Gets a New Lease on Life."
 BBC.  27 January 2017. Robb, Greg.  "U.S. April Budget Surplus Rises to $182 Billion."
 MarketWatch.  10 May 2017. Rucker, Philip and DeYoung, Karen.  "Freed Egyptian American Prisoner Returns Home Following Trump Intervention."
 The Washington Post.  20 April 2017. Ryan, Missy, Denyer, Simon and Rauhala, Emily.  "On North Korea, Trump Administration Talks Tough but Hopes to Avoid War."
 The Washington Post.  19 April 2017. Ryan, Tim.  "Trump Directs Department Heads to Trim Agency Fat."
 Courthouse News.  14 March 2017. Savransky, Rebecca.  "Tillerson: U.S.-Russia Relationship 'At an All-Time Low Point' Since End of Cold War."
 The Hill.  14 May 2017. Thomas, Lauren.  "Consumer Confidence Lags in April as Americans Are Less Optimistic About Economy."
 CNBC.  25 April 2017. Watson, Kathryn.  "Trump Executive Order Calls for Review of 'Egregious' Federal Land Grab."
 CBS News.  26 April 2017. Boston Herald.  "Editorial: Getting Tough in Syria."
 20 May 2017. CBO.gov.  "Monthly Budget Review for April 2017."
 5 May 2017. Democracy Now.  "Trump's Proposed EPA Cuts Threaten Health & Lives of Tens of Millions of Americans."
 3 March 2017. NFIB.com.  "In Targeting the Waters of the United States Rule, President Trump Looks to Dismantle Another Burdensome Regulation."
 3 March 2017. PRNewsWire.com.  "The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index Declined in April."
 25 April 2017. TradingEconomics.com.  "United States Unemployment Rate."
 5 May 2017. U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  "Southwest Border Migration."
 1 May 2017. The Wall Street Journal.  "Japan's Abe Talks Trump."
 22 May 2017. The Wall Street Journal.  "Trump's Pretty Good China Deal."
 14 May 2017. Claim:  Destructive act is conveniently blamed on household pet. LEGEND Examples:  [Brunvand, 1993] Their mother had baked a Dutch apple pie for a special event. She left it on the kitchen table to cool while she ran an errand, warning the boys not to touch it. But the pie smelled wonderful, and the boys couldn't resist a tiny bite. One bite became several, until a major chunk of the pie had been eaten. They then heard their mother's car pull into the garage, and they knew they were trapped unless they could quickly cover up their crime. The future lawyer got a brilliant idea. He grabbed the family cat and shoved its face into the pie, smearing its whiskers with gooey filling and crumbs. His mother walked in, looked at the cat, and saw what she interpreted as guilt written all over its face. She immediately grabbed the cat and threw it out the back door into a stream that ran behind the house.  [Brunvand, 1989] I recently heard about a friend of a friend  what you call a  FOAF  who is an interior decorator with a thriving business on Chicago's wealthy North Shore.  He had just finished painting an elegant home in Wilmette, and was going around with a can of touch-up paint, making sure everything was perfect. He finished the last brush stroke, stepped back to admire his work, and kicked the paint can over onto the priceless Oriental rug.  What to do? At that moment, the client's yappy, snappy, obnoxious toy poodle, Fifi, trotted into the room.  Thinking quickly, the decorator scooped her up and dropped her into the puddle of paint, at the same time exclaiming loudly, "Fifi! Bad Dog! What have you done?"  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] A husband breaks a purple vase that belongs to his wife. she thinks the dog did it and she hates the dog. In her husband's absence she kills the dog and buries it in the back yard. the story ends with the husband confessing that in fact he and not the dog broke the vase, and the wife, who is contemplating the mound behind the rose bushes in the garden doesn't know what to say. Origins:  Shoving    a hapless pet into the incriminating mess is a traditional way of shifting blame. One of Brunvand's readers recalls hearing the spilled paint story in 1929, so this one has been with us for a while. Although pets can (and have!) spilled cans of paint, it's not reasonable to assume any self-respecting cat would have an interest in Dutch apple pie. A more believable way of presenting the story would be to change the food item into a tortire, a renowned French-Canadian meat pie. (Though tortire is good eating any time, it's a traditional Christmas Eve food in Quebecois households, often served at "Le Reveillion," the meal following Midnight Mass.) Another legend, one about kinky teen sex, employs the scapegoated pet theme. In "Stain Feign," teenagers who've decided to engage in anal sex on the family's brand new white sofa afterwards rush out to buy a puppy to have something to blame the mess on. Stain Feign Barbara "canine one one" Mikkelson Sightings:  Our "blamed pet" legend shows up in a 1972 Toni Morrison novel, Bluest Eye, in a scene involving two children, a cat, and a berry cobbler. Last updated:  1 August 2011 The Baby Train    Brunvand, Jan Harold.  Curses! Broiled Again!   New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.   ISBN 0-393-30711-5   (pp. 132-134). Curses! Broiled Again!    Brunvand, Jan Harold.  Too Good to Be .  New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.   ISBN 0-393-04734-2  (pp. 61-63). Too Good to Be  The Big Book of Urban Legends Claim:   The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seizing bank accounts from innocent American citizens under civil forfeiture laws. : Civil forfeiture laws enable law enforcement agents and the government to seize the assets of Americans who are neither guilty nor even suspected of any wrongdoing.      Civil forfeiture laws are new or exclusive to the IRS.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] Just read a Facebook post.  It was an article regarding the IRS seizing bank accounts of innocent American citizens who have done nothing criminally wrong.  Inspite of the problems this has caused individuals the IRS seems relatively unconcerned except they want to collect money for whatever reasons.  Is this true?  Does the IRS have the right to just take the money of American citizens from their accounts? Are they an acting collections agency for the government now? I found this article a tad disturbing to say the least. Thank you for amy information you might have regarding this article and subject matter. Origins:  On 5 October 2014, the issue of civil forfeiture  and its effects on American citizens entered the spotlight after HBO host John Oliver addressed the matter at length on his show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. During the segment, Oliver and guest Jeff Goldblum focused on seemingly arbitrary, unfair, and corrupt civil forfeiture practices allegedly perpetrated by law enforcement agents in a number of jurisdictions.  Oliver's civil forfeiture segment sparked a number of conversations about the laws surrounding confiscation of assets under related laws. Then, on 25 October 2014, the New York Times For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away  until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000. The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes  in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report. Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up. It seems Hinders' run-in with the IRS was triggered by her practice of keeping deposits under the mandated reporting threshold of $10,000. Deposits that exceed $10,000 must be reported to the government under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, but Hinders told the Times that she believed large deposits created unnecessary paperwork for bank employees: Bank Secrecy Act My mom had told me if you keep your deposits under $10,000, the bank avoids paperwork. I didn't actually think it had anything to do with the I.R.S.   Former federal prosecutor David Smith, an expert on such seizures, told the paper that the practice of civil forfeiture has shifted to focus on individuals not historically targeted by such laws: They're going after people who are really not criminals. They're middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.   Richard Weber, Chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, described the seizures as "structuring" related, referring to suspicion triggered by a large number of deposits near the $10,000 threshold for reporting under the Bank Secrecy Act. In response to sudden interest in the IRS's policies regarding "structuring cases," Weber issued a statement indicating the IRS will curtail its seizure activities in cases where no crime is suspected: statement After a thorough review of our structuring cases over the last year and in order to provide consistency throughout the country (between our field offices and the U.S. attorney offices) regarding our policies, I.R.S.-C.I. will no longer pursue the seizure and forfeiture of funds associated solely with "legal source" structuring cases unless there are exceptional circumstances justifying the seizure and forfeiture and the case has been approved at the director of field operations (D.F.O.) level. While the act of structuring  whether the funds are from a legal or illegal source  is against the law, I.R.S.-C.I. special agents will use this act as an indicator that further illegal activity may be occurring. This policy update will ensure that C.I. continues to focus our limited investigative resources on identifying and investigating violations within our jurisdiction that closely align with C.I.'s mission and key priorities. The policy involving seizure and forfeiture in "illegal source" structuring cases will remain the same.   The IRS is just one of several agencies engaging in civil forfeiture, and Oliver's segment also addressed its application by local and regional law enforcement:  Prior to Oliver's segment and the Times' profile, civil forfeiture practices had been extensively profiled in the media: In general, you needn't be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with "probable cause" is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner's guilt or innocence. One result is the rise of improbable case names such as United States v. One Pearl Necklace and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. "The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window," Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There's no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence. Owners who wish to contest often find that the cost of hiring a lawyer far exceeds the value of their seized goods. Washington, D.C., charges up to twenty-five hundred dollars simply for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, which can take months or even years to resolve. Although the IRS has pledged to restrict its civil forfeiture activity to mainly "illegal source" cases, the practice is not limited to the tax agency and remains legal. Last updated:  28 October 2014    Stillman, Sarah.  "Taken."   The New Yorker.  12 August 2013. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In early March 2021, Ari Fleischer, a media commentator who served as White House press secretary for former U.S. President George W. Bush, said on Twitter that New York's requirement that residents show ID before getting a COVID-19 vaccine was just as "sensible" as requiring people to show identification to vote . said a COVID-19 vaccine  hurdles require We can verify that Fleischer's tweet is real, while also pointing out that Fleischer is attempting to create an equivalency between two different issues when none exists. The state of New York is vaccinating residents in a phased rollout because of limited vaccine supply. Therefore, residents must make appointments to receive their shots and provide documentation showing that they are the person with the appointment, and that they are eligible for the vaccine during a given phase, based on factors like age and and type of employment. The elderly, along with essential workers and health care employees, have been prioritized. phased Voting, on the other hand, is a completely different issue. Voting is a constitutional right that forms the basis of the U.S. system of government. Unlike COVID-19 vaccines, access to voting isn't limited on the supply side so much as it is controlled by legislators who have the power to either make the process easier or more difficult. Access to voting, especially for demographic groups that have been historically excluded from it, has been an ongoing flashpoint in American politics. The issue gained new urgency in the wake of the November 2020 election, when a disinformation campaign pushed by former President Donald Trump falsely alleging widespread voter fraud incited a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Since then, Trump's fellow Republican legislators in many states have rushed to create new requirements for voters. Although they argue such laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud, critics point out such fraud is rare. rushed rare Advocates for expanded voter access argue that voter ID laws are a voter suppression tactic because, as the American Civil Liberties Union states: states Many Americans do not have one of the forms of identification states [deem] acceptable for voting. These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining government-issued photo ID card. One of the more unusual political memes we've come across presented four different cases of tax-related financial improprieties to suggest that tax-evasion prosecutions were somehow influenced by racial bias against non-blacks:  However, the "Tax Racism" meme offered examples  not all of which were actual cases of tax evasion  so widely spaced in time and so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful in making any point at all about either tax fraud or race. Martha Stewart, the entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the author of books on cooking, entertaining, and decorating, was not charged with, or imprisoned for, non-payment of income taxes. Stewart was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators in a case related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into insider trading activity: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed securities fraud charges against Martha Stewart and her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic. The complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Stewart committed illegal insider trading when she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. The Commission further alleges that Stewart and Bacanovic subsequently created an alibi for Stewart's ImClone sales and concealed important facts during SEC and criminal investigations into her trades. In a separate action, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 months in prison and also settled a civil suit with the SEC by paying a $195,000 fine (a penalty that reflected four times the amount of stock value loss she avoided by taking advantage of inside information, plus interest). settled Stewart did engage in a dispute with the state of New York in 2002 over unpaid property taxes that she contended she didn't owe because she hardly spent any time in that state, and she was eventually ordered by a judge to pay $220,000 in back taxes plus penalties. But contrary to the false impression created by this meme, she was not prosecuted or jailed over that issue  the time she spent in prison was solely related to a later insider-trading case, not to tax evasion. dispute By the mid-1920s, notorious Chicago mobster Alphonse Gabriel Capone was reportedly taking in nearly $60 million annually ($878 million in 2018 dollars) from a variety of illegal activities, primarily Prohibition-era bootlegging. Capone was dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1" after the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in which gunmen allegedly hired by him posed as police officers to murder seven members of a rival gang, leading to increased public pressure on the government to rein Capone in. Federal authorities had difficulty gathering sufficient hard evidence to convict Capone on any substantial criminal charges, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: Even if they couldn't prove Capone was making his millions illegally, they could prove he wasn't paying income tax on his ill-gotten gains. Despite his obviously lavish lifestyle, Capone never filed a federal income tax return and claimed he had no taxable income, reportedly boasting at one point that, They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money. He was proved wrong. IRS and Treasury agents gathered evidence that Capone had made millions of dollars in untaxed income, and the mobster was eventually indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. After conviction he was sentenced in 1931 to 11 years in prison, fined $50,000, and ordered to pay back taxes in the amount of $215,000. Capone was released from prison in 1939 with time off for good behavior and retired to Florida, where he died in 1947 at the relatively young age of 48. conviction In a literal sense Capone was indeed jailed for non-payment of income taxes, but the tax evasion charges were essentially a proxy for prosecuting the mobster over the multitude of vastly worse and violent crimes with which he was connected (and the immense profits he derived from those criminal activities). Capone was by no means an otherwise upright and law-abiding citizen who was thrown in prison simply because he didn't pay his income taxes. At this point in our narrative we need to distinguish between different forms of tax evasion. At one end of the spectrum are those who haven't engaged in any fraudulent behavior but simply didn't or can't pay their taxes for any number of reasons  maybe they didn't plan or withhold prudently, they received poor financial advisement, they had legitimate confusion or dispute over what constituted taxable income, or they simply overspent and ended up in debt. Although non-payment of taxes is a crime, the IRS will not usually seek prosecution in these types of case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order to evade the full payment of taxes: They fail to disclose their full income, hide financial transactions, claim deductions to which they are not entitled, disguise monies earned as something other than income, or otherwise file falsified tax returns. The IRS will, at their discretion, seek prosecution in egregious cases of these forms of tax evasion. Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname as the "Queen of Mean," was a billionaire who  along with her husband, real estate investor and broker Harry Helmsley  owned a vast portfolio of real estate and other assets, including a chain of hotels and the iconic Empire State Building. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes, fell into the latter class of tax evader, falsely manipulating her personal finances, business expenses, and dealings with third parties in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader Some of [Helmsley's] luster was tarnished in 1986 when court documents and law enforcement officials said she had failed to pay sales taxes in New York on hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry she purchased at Van Cleef & Arpels, the exclusive Manhattan store. Two senior store officers were indicted on charges that they operated a scheme by which customers with out-of-state addresses could have their purchases recorded as being mailed to them, thus avoiding city and state taxes. In 1987 a series of adverse articles in The New York Post about the Helmsleys, set off by one of their disgruntled employees, led to a broad investigation. The following year Harry and Leona Helmsley were indicted by federal and state authorities on charges that they had evaded more than $4 million in income taxes by fraudulently claiming as business expenses luxuries they purchased for Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, Conn, a 28-room Jacobean mansion on 26 acres with a sweeping view of Long Island Sound that they bought in 1983. In 235 counts in state and federal indictments brought by Robert Abrams, then the New York State attorney general, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the United States attorney and later mayor of New York, the Helmsleys were accused of draining their hotel and real estate empire to provide themselves with such extravagances at Dunnellen Hall as a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $45,000 silver clock, a $210,000 mahogany card table, a $130,000 stereo system, and $500,000 worth of jade art objects. Nothing was too small or personal to be billed to their businesses, from Mrs. Helmsleys bras to a white lace and pink satin dress and jacket and a white chiffon skirt  the dress and skirt were entered in the Park Lane Hotel records as uniforms for the staff. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees. She was convicted of 33 felony counts related to her evasion of $1.2 million in federal income taxes. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison (reduced to four years on appeal), fined $7.1 million for tax fraud, and ordered to pay some $1.7 million in back federal and state taxes. She began serving her sentence in 1992 and was released from federal prison in Connecticut in 1994 after having served less than half her sentence. Where along the tax-evader spectrum between "legitimate dispute" and "willful tax fraud" civil rights activist Al Sharpton might fall is a difficult to determine. Claims were made in the press in 2014 that Sharpton owed some $4.5 million in unpaid taxes, but the accuracy of that number and how much of the monies owed might already have been repaid by Sharpton were unclear, and his tax-troubles narrative involved a muddied mixture of personal, business, and non-profit finances as well liabilities for federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, and personal income taxes. Much of the dispute over the "why" and "how much" of Sharpton's unpaid tax bill stemmed from the operations of the National Action Network, a not-for-profit, civil rights organization founded by Sharpton in 1991. Sharpton contended in a 2014 New York Times account that he incurred an unexpected tax liability because he was taxed personally for income he had given to the non-profit organization, and that he was up to date on repayment plans. Officials contested that the amount he was in arrears for in unpaid taxes had actually grown larger, though: contended Today, Mr. Sharpton still faces personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million, and state tax liens of $777,657, according to records. Mr. Sharpton said the federal liens resulted from a demand by the I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to National Action Network. He said he was up to date on payment plans for both the federal and state liens, so, he said, the outstanding balance was much lower than records showed. But according to state officials, his balance on the state liens is actually $220,000 greater now than when they were first filed during the years 2008 through 2010. A spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said state law did not allow him to provide any further details. Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced "old taxes" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested During a news conference at the headquarters of his National Action Network in Harlem, Mr. Sharpton sought to refute the assertion that there were $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens outstanding against him and the for-profit businesses he controls. He said that the liens had been paid down, although he declined to say by how much, and that he was current on all taxes he was obligated to pay under settlement agreements with tax authorities. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons assertion that the amount he owes the federal government is much lower than the $3.6 million shown in records could not be verified. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said federal law prohibited the agency from divulging any details about individual taxpayers. As for the state tax liens, Mr. Sharptons assertion that he had paid them down conflicts with information provided by state officials. State authorities filed tax liens against Mr. Sharpton in 2008 and 2009, and again in 2010 against a for-profit business he controls, Revals Communications, all totaling $695,000. But a spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said the amount due had actually increased, to $916,000. Regardless of the numbers, Sharpton wasn't put in prison because tax officials did not deem his case to be an exceptional one of scofflaw tax fraud or evasion that merited prosecution, instead working with him to facilitate his paying down the debt. The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings spanning several decades, while ignoring the many other instances of tax evasion successfully prosecuted by the U.S. government, documents nothing about any purported racial bias in such prosecutions. tax evasion Buettner, Russ.  "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
  The New York Times.  19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ.  "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
  The New York Times.  18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid.  "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
  The New York Times.  20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips.  "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
  Forbes.com.  17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W.  "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
  Forbes.com.  17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W.  "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
  Forbes.com.  19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs.  "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
  10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie.  "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
  The Washington Post.  8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle.  "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
  USA Today.  28 February 2014. Claim:  Mitt Romney's son Tagg owns a company that manufactures voting machines.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October  2012] Is it true that Tagg Romney, son of Mitt Romney, buys voting machines through Bain Capitol?  Tagg Romney, the son of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has purchased electronic voting machines that will be used in the 2012 elections in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington and Colorado. Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of five board members in Hart Intercivic, a company that owns the notoriously faulty electronic voting machines that will count the ballots in swing state Ohio November 7. Hart machines will also be used elsewhere in the United States. In other words, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public. But they will help decide who "owns" the White House.  Origins:  This somewhat tangled tale of intrigue has Tagg Romney, the son of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, as owner of a company that manufactures voting machines which will be used in the upcoming presidential election through the following chain:  After his father's 2008 presidential campaign ended, Mitt Romney's son, Tagg Romney, started Solamere Capital, a private equity fund, along with Spencer Zwick, the Romney campaign's top fund raiser, and a third partner, Eric Scheuermann.   Tagg Romney's parents, Mitt and Ann Romney, contributed $10 million to the firm's first fund.  Solamere Capital  According to the New York Times,  "unlike many private equity funds that specialize in scouting out companies to invest in directly, Solamere is a 'fund of funds' that invests in 22 other private equity funds," and one of the equity firms with which Solamere Capital has partnered is H.I.G. Capital.   In 2011, H.I.G. Capital made a controlling investment in Hart InterCivic, a national provider of "election voting systems, election management products and services" used in hundreds of voting jurisdictions in several states, including a high-population county in the key swing state of Ohio. investment jurisdictions  Therefore, Tagg Romney allegedly holds a significant ownership interest in the manufacturer of voting machines that will be used in an election determining whether his father will become President of the United States. However, according to a Solamere spokesman quoted by the Weekly Standard, although Solamere has some shared investments with H.I.G. Capital, the latter firm's investment in Hart Intercivic is not one of them: "Not only does Solamere have no direct or indirect interest in this company [Hart Intercivic], Solamere and its partners have no ownership in this company, nor do they have any ownership in nor have made any investments in the fund that invested in the voting machine company," the spokesman said. So while Solamere does partner with HIG on investments, none of those investments involve Hart Intercivic. HIG may be simultaneously managing investments with both companies, but the investments are kept separate, as required by law. Put simply, Tagg Romney is not an "investor in a voting machine company." An H.I.G. spokesman quoted by the Huffington Post also said Solamere itself has no investment in the H.I.G. Capital fund that is invested in Hart Intercivic: [Charles] Sipkins [said] that there is no connection at all between Solamere and Hart Intercivic. "Solamere has invested in a certain H.I.G. Capital fund. Solamere has no interest in the specific H.I.G. fund that invested in Hart Intercivic." He added that Solamere's total investment in H.I.G. represents 0.05 percent of H.I.G.'s total assets. It is true that H.I.G. Capital's co-founder, Anthony Tamer, and several of H.I.G.'s managing directors once worked at Bain & Company (whose CEO was Mitt Romney); that Anthony Tamer and his wife are donors to the Romney campaign; and that H.I.G. Capital is the sixth-largest financial contributor to Romney fundraising  contributor committees; and it is true that Tagg Romney's firm, Solamere, has investments in other H.I.G. funds that are run by partners who are former Romney colleagues and current Romney fundraisers, and those partners also manage the fund invested in Hart Intercivic.  That close a connection between the Romney family,  Romney campaign contributors, and a provider of voting systems may raise some eyebrows, but it doesn't establish any direct ownership link between Tagg Romney and a provider of voting systems. Additionally, the potential for vote-tampering in Ohio through manipulation of Hart Intercivic's equipment is quite low.  As the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported, the pieces of Hart InterCivic equipment to be used in Ohio aren't electronic voting machines that record voters' selections directly through touch screens  they are merely standalone scanners that tabulate paper ballots, so any close or suspect results could be confirmed through a recount: Elections officials in Ohio's Hamilton and Williams counties  the only two of Ohio's 88 counties that use equipment made by Hart InterCivic  as well as company representatives say there's no way such meddling could occur. Both counties use a paper balloting system in which results are tallied by scanners made by Hart InterCivic. All programming of the machines, diagnostic testing, and vote tabulation is done by elections staff in each county and no vote tabulation is done over the Internet, county election board representatives say. The paper ballots are there as backup and can be recounted with Democratic and Republican party representatives on hand. "There is no truth to the idea that anyone could get into our system and tamper with the results," said Hamilton County elections board deputy director Sally Krisel. Steven Rosenfeld also noted on AlterNet that: AlterNet Even if an investment (which is fairly hands-off) led to some sort of manipulative scanning (which is far-fetched) that wasn't caught in pre-election audit testing (even more far-fetched), the problem with this theory is that any significant deviation from the expected turnout models and exit polls (and pre-election polls) will lead to an examination and audit of the paper ballots. Any real deviation would not just be noticed; it would be quarantined and examined. If you're planning to steal an election, leaving a paper trail is not how to do it. This is a guilt-by-association theory. Too many eyes are on every step of the voting process this year. It's not 2004. And the machines in question are no better or worse than optical scan systems from other manufacturers, Ohio's former Democratic secretary of state found in independent testing. In contrast, other electronic voting machines used across Ohio don't leave as extensive a record of actual balloting as the optical scan systems, as they rely on cash register-like tape rolls to record every vote. Last updated:  27 October 2012    Eaton, Sabrina.  "Elections Boards Deny That Mitt Romney Backers Could Tamper with Results."   The Cleveland Plain-Dealer.  24 October 2012.    Fang, Lee.  "Tagg Team: The Romney Family Recipe for Crony Capitalism."   The Nation.  29 October 2012.    Froomkin, Dan.  "Pro-Romney Firm's Purchase of Voting Machine Company Raises Alarms."   The Huffington Post.  23 October 2012.    Luo, Michael and Julie Creswell.  "Ties to Romney '08 Helped Fuel an Equity Firm."   The New York Times.  30 April 2012.    Rosenfeld, Stephen.  "5 Reasons Karl Rove Is NOT Going to Electronically Steal This Election."   AlterNet.  27 October 2012.    Warren, Michael.  "Tagg Romney Is Not an 'Investor in a Voting Machine Company'."   The Weekly Standard.  23 October 2012. On Jan. 9, 2023, we reviewed an Ulta Beauty email scam that claimed recipients had won a $500 gift card. This was a phishing scam, and it did not come from Ulta Beauty. The Ulta Beauty email scam claimed to come from "Ulta Department 74130" via an email address that ended with the domain name, climatekids.net. "Answer and win a brand new $500 Ulta Beauty gift card," the email read.  We scanned the link in the scam email with IPQualityScore.com's helpful malicious URL scanner, which readers can use for free. The scan found that the link was "very risky" and contained "suspicious activity." malicious URL scanner We visited the link in a safe way and noted that it began on cosmosis.org, then redirected to quinyspike.com. The browser then redirected once more to resonatorbang.com, where we were presented with the fake survey. The fake survey began, "Congratulations! You've been chosen to receive a brand new $500 Ulta Beauty Gift Card! To claim, simply answer a few quick questions regarding your experience with us.Attention: This survey offer expires today, January 9, 2023." After the fake survey, we were redirected for the final time togillydealdays.com, where we were asked to provide our personal information and a credit card number. The credit card number was supposedly needed to pay shipping costs for the $500 gift card. We strongly advise against providing any such details to websites that readers are unfamiliar with. Always safeguard your personal and financial data when browsing online. Remember that if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. We checked the Whois domain information for the registration ofgillydealdays.com. According to the details we found, the website had been registered for the first time ever just four days before on Jan. 5. Brand new websites can often be a sign of a scam, and that's exactly what was happening here. "Malicious URL Scanner | Scan URLs for Malware | Malware URL Checker." IP Quality Score, https://www.ipqualityscore.com/threat-feeds/malicious-url-scanner. "Wayback Machine." Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/. "WHOIS Domain Lookup." GoDaddy, https://www.godaddy.com/whois.