Will banks be required to disclose all transactions exceeding $600 to the IRS as part of the Biden administration's proposal?
Announced in April 2021, U.S. President Joe Bidens American Families Plan is an ambitious proposal that aims to expand Americans' access to childcare and education and increase the number of women in the workforce. The plan is to fund all of this through more taxes on higher-income earners and increased reporting requirements of banks that could potentially yield more tax revenue. These reporting requirements have caught the ire of a number of banks that took issue with this less widely known section of the plan. Announced reporting A Facebook post by FNB Community Bank claimed: The Biden administration has proposed requiring all community banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS on all deposits and withdrawals through business and personal accounts worth more than $600 regardless of tax liability. This indiscriminate, comprehensive bank account reporting to the [Internal Revenue Service (IRS)] can soon be enacted in Congress and will create an unacceptable invasion of privacy for our customers. Facebook post   Another screenshot shared by our readers expressed similar concerns:   The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) even began a campaign, calling on communities to send a letter to Biden to prevent this so-called intrusive proposal": began a campaign, Tell Congress: Don't Let IRS Invade My Privacy The Biden administration is proposing requiring financial institutions report to the IRS all transactions of all business and personal accounts worth more than $600. This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. In order to knock down this intrusive proposal, please send this letter to your representative and senators immediately. We looked up the proposal itself, and it does require more robust reporting of transactions across business and personal accounts. The proposal, which aims to go into effect after Dec. 31, 2022, states: proposal This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600. We begin by explaining some of the more technical terms in this proposal. A "de minimis threshold" is broadly defined as the amount of a transaction that has such a small value that accounting for it would be unreasonable. We spoke to Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law at New York University, Nyamagaga Gondwe, who explained, "It is the amount below which the [IRS] would argue isn't worth investigating. It's the difference between your company giving you a $5 card to Subway, versus traveling on a private jet on your company's dime. [The latter] is worth reporting." In this case, "gross flow" refers to the aggregate inflows and outflows of cash from bank accounts. In sum, the current proposal stipulates that an aggregate amount of less than $600 worth of cash flowing into and out of accounts is not worth reporting.  defined gross flow The "fair market value" refers to the amount people are willing to pay for an asset in the open market. In this case, Gondwe argued, the use of the term could possibly refer to the changing market value of transactions more than $600 that may occur in foreign currency transactions.  refers to The ICBA claims that the proposal will make banks report "all transactions" above the limit, but this is misleading. While it is true that the IRS will have more information on cashflows above $600, that doesnt mean they will have all the information pertaining to all transactions. The Center for American Progress (CAP) points out that banks will only be providing aggregate numbers to the IRS after each year  gross inflow and gross outflow  and not individualized transaction information. This reporting requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo, but wouldnt require people to report any additional information to the government. According to The Wall Street Journal, financial institutions must already report interest, dividends, and investment incomes to the IRS, and the IRS can get other information through audits. Center for American Progress extend Wall Street Journal audits According to Marie Sapirie of Tax Notes, a publication focused on tax news, a parenthetical to the proposal indicates that there is some flexibility on raising the minimum account balance/inflow/outflow above $600. Tax Notes parenthetical The Tax Notes report also states that the treasury department estimated this form of reporting would raise $463 billion over the 10-year budget window, making it the third largest revenue raiser proposed in the budget. The aim is to target businesses outside of large corporations that carry out gross underreporting of their income in the amount of $166 billion per year. According to the proposal: Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance. Tax Notes aim Banks claim this would be an invasion of consumer privacy, with the ICBA saying it would allow the government to monitor account information. However, CAP analysts Seth Hanlon and Galen Hendricks argue, Only the prior years total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS monitors you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January. saying argue Another challenge not mentioned in the ICBAs consumer alert is the higher costs this reporting proposal may place on banks. In May 2021, a coalition of banking associations wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, arguing that they already give a lot of data to the IRS, and that this would impose additional costs on their systems: consumer alert wrote a letter The costs and other burdens imposed to collect and report account flow information would surpass the potential benefits from such a reporting scheme. New reporting would appear to require material development costs and process additions for financial institutions, as well as significant reconciliation and compliance burden on impacted taxpayers. For example, reporting total gross receipts and disbursements would require a new reporting paradigm for depository institutions, which necessitates system changes to collect the information. On the flipside, Sapirie wrote for Tax Notes, the benefits of such a reporting proposal may be difficult to come by: Tax Notes Increasing the amount of information flowing into the IRS would not in itself lead to increased enforcement, and it might come with added challenges. [Former IRS Commissioner Charles O.] Rossotti acknowledged that the IRS today cannot use all the information it already receives, and significant areas of noncompliance are barely addressed, so more reporting alone will not solve the problem. It would almost certainly have a deterrent effect for taxpayers contemplating evasion, but the extent of that effect is unclear, and it might be insufficient to justify the costs to financial institutions and the federal government of implementing such a large new reporting regime. But CAPs analysis argues that this will help prevent tax evasion, while also providing more funding to enhance data security for consumers: CAPs analysis Additional funding would go to enhancing data security. Even at present, the IRS data security is already much better than the financial industry, with only very rare and limited breaches compared to the exponentially bigger data breaches from financial institutions. Second, the reporting of information flows only from financial institutions to the IRS and not in the other direction, as some earlier proposals had called for.  [...] The Biden administrations bank reporting proposal is a critical element of the Build Back Better agenda. It gives the IRS some visibility into opaque forms of income that disproportionately accrue to high-income individuals. Despite fearmongering from bank lobbies, the proposal protects taxpayers privacy while simply requiring banks to provide basic, aggregated information about flows. That enables the IRS to select audits in a more efficient and equitable way so that the vast majority of taxpayers will be less likely to be audited. And by deterring and helping catch tax cheats, the proposal raises substantial revenue for the Build Back Better agenda, which provides critical investments to increase economic opportunities for American families and communities. On Oct. 12, 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the proposal in response to a question from a reporter, who said, "[Banks] are concerned about the tracking of transactions that are greater than $600, Americans are starting to get worried about this. Do you think [this] is going to stay in the Reconciliation Bill?"  defended "With all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data," Pelosi said. "Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think $600  that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes."     Whatever the impact of this proposal is, it does require additional reporting of certain bank transactions, just not in the way the above banks are portraying it. As such, we rate this claim a Mixture. A Scorecard for Reconciliation, Round 2. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/featured-analysis/scorecard-reconciliation-round-2/2021/09/10/783l0?highlight=biden. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Community Banks Must Engage Customers on New IRS Reporting Mandates. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/blogs/main-street-matters---advocacy/2021/08/19/community-banks-must-engage-customers-on-new-irs-reporting-mandates. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Consumer Alert from ICBA. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/bank-locally/consumer-alert-from-icba. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021.Digging Into the Bank Info Reporting Plan. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-today-global/information-reporting/digging-bank-info-reporting-plan/2021/08/30/777dx. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Fair Market Value (FMV). Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairmarketvalue.asp. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. "General Explanations of the Administrations Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals." Department of the Treasury, May 2021, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Gross Cash Flow Definition. Law Insider, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/gross-cash-flow. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Hanlon, Seth, and Galen Hendricks. Bank Tax Reporting Is a Critical Component of Bidens Build Back Better Agenda. Center for American Progress, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2021/09/14/503821/bank-tax-reporting-critical-component-bidens-build-back-better-agenda/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. ICBA Urges House Panel to Reject IRS Monitoring Plan. Default, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/news-and-articles/2021/09/09/icba-urges-house-panel-to-reject-irs-monitoring-plan. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Jagoda, Naomi. Pelosi Defends IRS Bank-Reporting Proposal, Says Specifics Open to Negotiation. The Hill, 12 Oct. 2021, https://thehill.com/policy/finance/576362-pelosi-defends-irs-bank-reporting-proposal. Joint Trades Statement for the Record: Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight Hearing Entitled: Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion." 10 May 2021, https://bpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Joint-SfR-Senate-Finance-Subcommitte-Hearing-on-Closing-the-Tax-Gap-051021.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Rubin, Orla McCaffrey and Richard. Biden Tax Plan Leans on Banks to Help Find Unreported Income. Wall Street Journal, 29 Apr. 2021. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-tax-plan-leans-on-banks-to-help-find-unreported-income-11619701380. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Tankersley, Jim, and Dana Goldstein. Biden Details $1.8 Trillion Plan for Workers, Students and Families. The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-american-families-plan.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. "When Is a Minimal Fringe Benefit Not So Minimal?" https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/when-is-a-minimal-fringe-benefit-not-so-minimal. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Oct. 14, 2021: Added Pelosi's comments on the proposal.
Mallard ducks frequently make their nests at ground level, but for whatever reason a female Mallard in downtown Spokane, Washington, chose a cement awning ten feet up an office building for her nesting site.  As detailed in viral email at the time, the duck laid her clutch of eggs just outside the window of Joel Armstrong, a senior loan officer at Sterling Savings Bank, and he arrived at work one day in May 2008 to find the ducklings hatched and the mother standing on the edge of the awning.  As Armstrong watched, mama duck then flew down to the sidewalk below, and her ducklings started lining up on the ledge to jump down onto the hard concrete below to join her:   Something really amazing happened in Downtown Spokane this week and I had to share the story with you. Some of you may know that my brother, Joel, is a loan officer at Sterling Bank. He works downtown in a second story office building, overlooking busy Riverside Avenue. Several weeks ago he watched a mother duck choose the cement awning outside his window as the uncanny place to build a nest above the sidewalk. The mallard laid nine eggs in a nest in the corner of the planter that is perched over 10 feet in the air. She dutifully kept the eggs warm for weeks and Monday afternoon all of her nine ducklings hatched.   Joel worried all night how the mamma duck was going to get those babies safely off their perch in a busy, downtown, urban environment to take to water, which typically happens in the first 48 hours of a duck hatching. Tuesday morning, Joel came to work and watched the mother duck encourage her babies to the edge of the perch with the intent to show them how to jump off!  The mother flew down below and started quacking to her babies above. In his disbelief Joel watched as the first fuzzy newborn toddled to the edge and astonishingly leapt into thin air, crashing onto the cement below. My brother couldn't watch how this might play out. He dashed out of his office and ran down the stairs the sidewalk where the first obedient duckling was stuporing near its mother from the near fatal fall.   Joel looked up. The second duckling was getting ready to jump! He quickly dodged under the awning while the mother duck quacked at him and the babies above. As the second one took the plunge, Joel jumped forward and caught it with his bare hands before it hit the cement. Safe and sound, he set it by the mamma and the other stunned sibling, still recovering from its painful leap. One by one the babies continued to jump to join their anxious family below. Each time Joel hid under the awning just to reach out in the nick of time as the duckling made its free fall. The downtown sidewalk came to a standstill. Time after time, Joel was able to catch the remaining 7 and set them by their approving mother.   At this point Joel realized the duck family had only made part of its dangerous journey. They had 2 full blocks to walk across traffic, crosswalks, curbs, and pedestrians to get to the closest open water, the Spokane River. The onlooking office secretaries then joined in, and hurriedly brought an empty copy paper box to collect the babies. They carefully corralled them, with the mother's approval, and loaded them up into the white cardboard container. Joel held the box low enough for the mom to see her brood. He then slowly navigated through the downtown streets toward the Spokane River, as the mother waddled behind and kept her babies in sight. As they reached the river, the mother took over and passed him, jumping into the river and quacking loudly. At the water's edge, the Sterling Bank office staff then tipped the box and helped shepherd the babies toward the water and to their mother after their adventurous ride.   All nine darling ducklings safely made it into the water and paddled up snugly to mamma duck. Joel said the mom swam in circles, looking back toward the beaming bank workers, and proudly quacking as if to say, 'See, we did it! Thanks for all the help!   Thankfully, one of the secretaries had a digital camera and was able to capture most of it (except the actual mid-air catching) in a series of attached photographs. Please join me in celebrating my brother  The Downtown Duck Hero!  [Ed. note: Yes, we're aware that the captions to the pictures displayed above reference nine ducklings, even though ten are plainly visible in some photographs.] Joel Armstrong himself described what happened for Spokane television station KREM: "The first duckling goes to the edge and... smack. Just hits the sidewalk," he said. Horrified, Armstrong darted out of his office and to the sidewalk below. The duckling laid motionless for about 10 seconds before regaining its senses. The next thing Armstrong knew, all the ducklings had instinctively lined up on the ledge ready to follow the first one's lead. Now lined up a like a centerfielder, Armstrong proceeded to shag ducks like falling baseballs from the sky with his bare hands. "In one instance two jumped at the same time," he said. Armstrong caught both. "I truly think the entire time the mother duck could sense I was trying to help," he said. "She just stood there and allowed me to catch them." Armstrong and some of his Sterling Savings co-workers then tried to escort the mother and her offspring to the Spokane River, but the ducklings were too slow to dodge traffic and make it all the way to the water under their own power.  So their human helpers obtained a cardboard box, placed the ducklings into it, and walked them to the river, where the little fowl quickly took to the more hospitable aquatic environment. "It was amazing watching them jump," Armstrong said. "Could you imagine the second day of your life having to jump from a building to get home?"  Armstrong's story quickly spread on the Internet in the form of the  narrative reproduced above, put together by his sister, Candace Mumm. narrative In May 2009, the "duckling rescue" scenario was repeated when a second brood of ducklings hatched on the ledge at Sterling Savings Bank and was once again caught by Joel Armstrong as they jumped from their nest. hatched Variations:  A March 2009 variant shifted the setting of this piece from Spokane to San Antonio; the duckling savior to "Michael R" (said to be an accounting clerk instead of a loan officer); and the bank to "Frost Bank."  Also, instead of just "onlooking secretaries" helping corral the ducklings, the variant reported that "several San Antonio Police Officers" helped get the ducklings into the box to be carried to the river.  Blocker, Kevin.  "Man Catches Ducklings Jumping from Ledge."
  KREM-TV [Spokane, WA].  26 May 2008.

 KREM-TV [Spokane, WA].   "Duck Makes Nest on Spokane Office Ledge ... Again."
   1 May 2009.

 KREM-TV [Spokane, WA].   "Duck Family's Amazing Journey Caught on Tape."
   19 May 2009. A popular trope used by those seeking to recast the shark as a misunderstood beast is to compare the risk sharks pose to humans to the purported risk posed by ripening coconuts. These sweet-tasting, nutrient-rich tree nuts  the logic goes  kill more people by falling out of trees than do sharks. This is an ostensibly simple question to investigate, as it requires knowing only two things: the annual death rate from unprovoked shark attacks and the annual death rate from falling coconuts. trope The annual death rate from sharks is pretty straightforward. The University of Florida runs a comprehensive database of shark attacks and fatalities: The International Shark Attack File. According to their research, there has been an average of six deaths annually over the past decade. research Problems emerge, however, when one tries to get a handle on how many people die each year as a direct result of injuries sustained by falling coconuts. The most commonly cited figure is that 150 people die each year from falling coconuts. No published research, however, has come up with any reliable estimate of this statistic whatsoever. Perhaps ironically, it appears that this number, as well, gained a sense of legitimacy from the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File, when a researcher there quoted the statistic in a press release for a local event: press release "Falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks," said George Burgess, Director of the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File and a noted shark researcher. "The reality is that, on the list of potential dangers encountered in aquatic recreation, sharks are right at the bottom of the list," said Burgess, who was one of three scientists participating Tuesday in a National Sea Grant College Program and NOAA Fisheries sponsored press briefing on sharks and the risks of shark attacks at the National Press Club. Investigating the specific claim of 150 coconut deaths each year, syndicated skeptic column The Straight Dope reached out to Burgess in 2002 to ask what his source was for that statistic, and discovered that, ultimately, it came from a British travel-insurance firm named Club Direct: reached out When I called Burgess, he told me he had gotten this statistic off the Internet  specifically, from a widely reported press release from the British travel-insurance firm Club Direct, saying that "holidaymakers hit by falling coconuts will be guaranteed full cover under their travel insurance policy. The news follows reports from Queensland, Australia, that coconut trees are being uprooted by local councils fearful of being sued for damages by people injured by coconuts.  'Coconuts kill around 150 people worldwide each year, which makes them about ten times more dangerous than sharks,' says Brent Escott, managing director of Club Direct." According to the column, this press release also cited a 1984 study from the Journal of Trauma titled "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts". That study  the recipient of a 2001 Ig Nobel award for research that "cannot or should not be replicated"  did not set out to calculate the global annual death rate from falling coconuts, however. Instead, using simple physics and four years of data collected from a remote Papua New Guinean hospital, it sought to demonstrate that the risk to human health from falling coconuts was a real one. From a physics standpoint, the paper argued: 1984 study recipient If a coconut weighing 2 kg falls 25 meters onto a person's head, the impact velocity is 80 km/hr. The decelerating force on the head will vary depending on whether a direct or glancing blow is received. The distance in which the coconut is decelerated is also an important factor. Thus an infant's head lying on the ground would receive a much greater force than that received by the head of a standing adult, that dropped as it was struck. For a stopping distance of 5cm and a direct blow, the force would be 1,000 kg. From a number of fatalities standpoint, however, the data did not actually directly identify a single fatality, though it did anecdotally report one death: Nine trauma admissions resulted from falling coconuts during the 4-year study period; during this time a total of 355 trauma cases were admitted. Thus 2.5% of trauma admissions were caused by falling coconuts. Injuries were to the back, shoulders, or head. [...] The health worker who referred Patient 1 for craniotomy informed us about another person in the same village who had died instantly a few years earlier when struck on the head by a falling coconut. While it might perhaps be possible to use this limited data to come up with a rough global estimate, no study has actually attempted to do this with systematic methodology. As such, there is no way to debunk the claim with 100 percent certainty. We can say, though, that newspaper reports of death from falling coconuts are far more sparse than reports of death from shark attacks. A 1973 article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin detailed the tragic death of a 2-year old girl struck by a large number of falling coconuts on a beach, while claiming that as far as they could tell, this was the first newspaper report of such an incident in the area:    Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 28 July 1973. Credit: Newspapers.com  The fact that this 1973 story has been cited decades after the fact (for example from a 1999 edition of the Honolulu Advertiser below), at least superficially reinforces the notion that death from falling coconut is a rare (but real) occurrence:    The Honolulu Advertiser. 14 January 1997. Credit: Newspapers.com  We rank this as unproven because accurate, published estimates on the global annual rate of death from falling coconut do not yet exist. Given the dearth of firsthand accounts of death from falling coconut, however, it seems unlikely that they pose more of a threat to human health than do sharks  even if death from either event is extremely unlikely. Turnbull, Leslie.  "How to Avoid Being Eaten by a Shark."
  This Week.  29 May 2017. Florida Museum.  "International Shark Attack File"
  Accessed 30 May 2017. UniSci.  "Falling Coconuts Kill More People Than Shark Attacks."
  Accessed 30 May 2017. Barss, Peter.  "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts."
  Journal of Trauma.  November 1984. Improbable Research.  "Portrait of an Ig Winner: Dr. Barss."
  Accessed 30 May 2017. Honolulu Star-Bulletin.  "Baby Dies After Being Hit by Falling Cluster of Coconuts."
  28 July 1973. The Honolulu Advertiser.  "Coconut Danger in Park."
  14 January 1997. In early March 2022, as Russia continued its invasion of Ukraine, Uncle Walt's Insider published an article positing that the Walt Disney World Resort theme park known as EPCOT would soon be adding a Ukraine pavilion to the World Showcase attraction. Russia invasion of Ukraine article Walt Disney World Resort EPCOT Ukraine However, this was satire. The beginning of the article referenced Bob Chapek, who is the chief executive officer for The Walt Disney Company: Bob Chapek The Walt Disney Company Ukraine Pavilion coming to EPCOT They probably shouldn't build it next to the Russia Pavilion. WORLD SHOWCASE LAGOON, FL  Bob "Bob" Chapek has announced that he intends to bring a new country to EPCOT: Ukraine! Chapek probably said this in a phone call with our own Uncle Walt. EPCOT "As I was counting money with the news playing in the background, I suddenly had this great and innovative idea come to mind. I phoned up the boys in Glendale, and after a quick discussion we have decided to allow Ukraine to join the host of other nations around the World Showcase Lagoon!" The story also said that the Ukraine pavilion at EPCOT would feature "a brand new ride" called "Escape from Chernobyl" and even took a humorous jab at Chapek's intelligence. Ukraine EPCOT Chernobyl As noted above, this article was not a factual recounting of real-life events. It originated from a silly and lighthearted website that aims to write fun and interesting fiction for its loyal readers. Uncle Walt's Insider describes its output as being "loving" and satirical in nature, as follows: describes "While we all love Disney, the company really likes to control its own image and doesnt always look kindly on anything that might detract from it  like a satire site that occasionally takes loving jabs at it." Disney The website also showed the following disclaimer on a policies page linked below the story about the Ukraine pavilion coming to EPCOT: page Ukraine EPCOT "All events, persons, and companies depicted herein, including Disney, Walt Disney, and The Disney Company, are fictitious, and any similarity to actual persons, living, dead or otherwise, or to actual firms, is coincidental. Really. The same goes for any similarities to actual facts." Walt Disney  Fireworks light up the night sky at EPCOT in 2014. (Courtesy: Jeff Krause/Flickr)  Jeff Krause/Flickr While the article from Uncle Walt's Insider was simply just humorous satire, we did find that a handful of social media users had mentioned the idea of having a Ukraine pavilion at EPCOT. One person seemed to hint at wanting a special place for the country to be created inside the theme park: Ukraine EPCOT hint at  Another tweet conveyed the same sort of message: conveyed  Others had the idea for something to be set up inside the park for charitable purposes: idea charitable purposes  TheDisneyBlog.com even tweeted the following, saying: "It is becoming clear that EPCOT needs to add Ukraine to the World Showcase": TheDisneyBlog.com tweeted EPCOT Ukraine  We found several past references to the possibility of a Ukraine pavilion being created in EPCOT. Ukraine EPCOT In 2003, a forum user on the wdwmagic.com message boards posted: "Did You Hear the One About EPCOT's Ukranian Pavilion?" wdwmagic.com posted The thread on the forum mentioned an old article that came from the Ukrainian Weekly publication. While the story link from 1996 was no longer accessible in 2022, we found that it had been archived by Archive.org: Ukrainian Weekly it had been archived Archive.org Ukrainian pavilion idea advances at Disney World's EPCOT Center by Natalia Warren LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Jason Harper, president of the Ukrainian Project Fund recently met with George Kalogridis, executive vice-president of EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World, to further discuss plans for the proposed Ukrainian Pavilion. EPCOT Walt Disney World As a result of the meeting, Mr. Kalogridis added Ukraine to a list that includes two other countries vying for the site between the Chinese and German pavilions. Mr. Kalogridis also gave Mr. Harper the go-ahead to discuss the pavilion project with other Walt Disney Company officials. Ukraine ... Besides architectural sketches of Ukrainian-style buildings, a drawing for a roller coaster ride, and photos of souvenirs, the proposal includes a videotape of Ukrainian dancing, provided by the Rusalka Dance Company of Winnipeg, which also has lent its name in part to the proposed sit-down restaurant, Club Rusalka. In an earlier agreement, the Canadian dance ensemble had agreed to perform twice a year to raise funds for the UPF Ukrainian Pavilion project and to appear live for future corporate proposal events. We also stumbled upon the following snippet from The San Francisco Examiner that had been published 30 years before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The writer appeared to joke about the idea of a pavilion for Russia or Ukraine coming to EPCOT: snippet The San Francisco Examiner Russia's invasion of Ukraine Russia Ukraine EPCOT  This story was published on March 8, 1992. (Courtesy: The San Francisco Examiner)  While Russia and Ukraine do not have pavilions in EPCOT, the website for Walt Disney World Resort lists the 11 countries that do. They include Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, the United States, Japan, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada: Russia Ukraine EPCOT website Join us on an inspiring journey through one of the most unique areas in any Disney theme parkWorld Showcase. The World Showcase: DestiNations Discovered tour is a fascinating 4.5-hour walking excursion through 11 "countries" and 4,000 years of history, culture, and food. From the streets of Paris to the Bavarian countryside, guests can immerse themselves in the architecture, landscapes, streetscapes, attractions, shops, and restaurants of 11 themed pavilionseach staffed by actual citizens from these countries. World Showcase began as a personal passion of Walt Disney, who envisioned an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), a global community where visiting guests could assimilate the sights and sounds of the world. According to the Disney bloggers known as The Mouselets, EPCOT once announced pavilions for Spain, Israel, and Equatorial Africa. However, those plans never came to fruition. The Mouselets  The Germany pavilion at the World Showcase at EPCOT. (Courtesy: Darcy/Flickr)  Darcy/Flickr On Feb. 25, right after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, Disney's Voices of Liberty appeared to sing a song for Ukraine in EPCOT's America Gardens Theatre. The tune was "Let There Be Peace On Earth." The post included the hashtag, "#prayforukraine": Voices of Liberty sing a song   In sum, the rumor about a Ukraine pavilion coming to EPCOT's World Showcase originated from a satirical website. It's unclear what countries might be added in the future to the Disney World property. Ukraine Disney World Location is commonly cited as the most important consideration in buying real estate, and geographic location was the reason that Cleveland once was tagged as being -- or occupying -- the best location in the nation.The slogan was coined in 1944 by the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., now part of FirstEnergy Corp., to help build post-war business.The claim was based on the fact that within 500 miles of the city lived half the people of the United States and Canada; that Cleveland was the natural meeting place of iron ore, coal, copper, gypsum, stone, sand and other vital raw materials; and that efficient water, rail, highway and air transportation facilitated delivery and reduced costs, wrote historians Carol Poh Miller and Robert Anthony Wheeler.The slogan has fallen into disuse, but geography hasn't changed.Gov. John Kasich touted the concept this month when he spoke to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce about making Ohio more competitive for business growth:We're to the point now where location matters because logistics matters again, he said. Cost of shipping things matters again. We're within 600 miles of 60 percent of America. We're in a perfect location.Given our Buckeye bias, PolitiFact Ohio wanted to believe it. But we have examined similar claims before and found them wanting. We knew that population has shifted since the 1940s, when the population center point of the entire nation (now in Missouri) was still in Ohio. But we also noted that Kasich moved the measuring stick from 500 miles cited in those previous claims to 600 miles.Using the tools we employed before,we built a map including all U.S. counties whose seats are located within 600 miles of Ohio's borders. We used U.S. Census Bureau data to calculate the aggregate population.We found that 184,900,000 people live within 600 miles of Ohio, or 59.9 percent of the U.S. population of 308.7 million.That's 60 percent, whether you round off by a number that is not statistically significant or factor a margin of error.The 600-mile reach would include nearly all of the Eastern Seaboard, the upper Midwest, much of the Deep South and some states west of the Mississippi River.One additional note: In addition to 60 percent of the U.S. population, Kasichs claim also would encompass the most populous parts of Ontario and Quebec.We rate Kasich's statement as True. The Trump administration and Senate and House leaders have revealed a framework for tax legislation that proposes tax cuts for business, a reduction in tax brackets, and the elimination of several tax breaks. What the plan means for Americans remains to be determined. But Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., recently said that the amount of tax relief working families receive under the plan is entirely dependent on one thing: what happens to the child tax credit. The child tax credit, if we don't do it, there will be no tax relief for working families, Rubio said on WFLA on Oct. 15. How much tax relief working families get under tax reform is entirely dependent on whether or not we put in place an increase to the child tax credit. We wondered whether increasing the child tax credit will be the only way that working families can gain under the framework. What we found is that the child tax credit is indeed central in the current tax proposal. However, the plan is so tentative that its premature to say that will be the only way working families will see relief. Rubios team sought to back up his assertion with apress releasethat included two charts. Both charts relayed the same message: In order to help working families, a tax plan must increase the child tax credit and make the credit refundable. So in Rubios mind, expanding  not just increasing   the child tax credit is key in seeing working families prosper. The Trump-backed tax frameworkproposes increasing the creditfrom the current amount of $1,000 and raising the current income threshold at which the credit phases out. Experts agreed that expanding the child tax credit is one of the central provisions that will shape the impact that middle-income households will experience under the framework. Scott Greenberg, a senior analyst at the Tax Foundation, said the existing, $1,000 child tax credit is already quite large. Parents with children under the age of 17 are eligible for a tax credit of up to $1,000 per child. If they owe more than $1,000 in taxes, then the credit lowers their tax liability, or the total amount of tax left on their income. If parents owe less than $1,000 in taxes then the tax liability is reduced to zero. In its current form this tax credit is nonrefundable. Greenberg said that under current law, a married household with two children making $60,000 would owe about $3,733 in individual income taxes before taking the child credit into account. After taking the child credit into account, the households individual income tax burden would fall to about $1,733. (His math assumes that the household takes the standard deduction and does not claim any other major credits, exclusions, or other provisions.) Still, its not just about increasing the credit. Transforming it into a refundable credit is also important. In 2015, Rubio and Mike Lee, R-Utah, releaseda tax planthat connected the child tax credit to the payroll tax, which would have increased the refundability rate.At the time, experts were unsure whether this would have benefitted low-income families because it didnt include an expansion for them. Another reason why expanding the child tax credit is important is because the current framework eliminates the personal exemption  that is, the untaxed income pegged to the number of dependents on their return. This provision disproportionately benefits households with children. To compensate for eliminating it, the plan proposes increasing the child tax credit. It looks like theyll pay more under the current framework, but thats where the child tax credit comes into play, said Elaine Maag, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. It does its magic and wipes away that tax liability. Its worth emphasizing that the details of the child tax credit are a work in progress. Right now, the plan does not specify how much the credit would increase or which incomes level would qualify. More broadly,little is knownabout the thresholds of new income tax brackets, which could greatly affect the distribution of benefits. From the sketchy details we have of the basic (framework), its pretty fair to say the child tax credit is key, said Edward McCaffrey, a tax law professor at the University of Southern California. As a result, the credit has emerged as one of few options available to policymakers looking to change the tax burden on middle-income households. Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, bemoaned the focus on a specific tax break such as the child credit, favoring instead overall tax simplification. In that context, Edwards said, policymakers have lots of ways to cut taxes on moderate-income Americans. Maag, meanwhile, pointed to proposals outside the framework that would expand the earned income tax credit. For example, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced a very large increase in that credit -- a refundable credit targeted at low-income working Americans -- that would provide benefits to low- and middle-income families Rubio said if tax reform efforts dont expand the child tax credit, there will be no tax relief for working families. Thats a bit overstated, since the tax proposal is in its early stages. That said, judging by whats in the initial framework, experts say that the child tax credit is one of the few levers that could significantly affect the size of the tax burden for middle-income households. We rate this claim Mostly True. In December 2015, we looked into a bit of text being shared on social media which was said to represent the final words of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. We hoped our article helped to put the kibosh on that false rumor, but in January 2019 a nearly identical speech was circulated anew, only this time attributed to a different billionaire with an eerily similar name: Steve Gouves. final words The "Steve Gouves death bed speech" was shared by many social media users in January 2019, with one of the most popular postings being that of Joshua Feurstein, an evangelical internet personality who has previously spread misinformation and is perhaps most famously known for railing about Starbucks' Christmas cups.  postings previously misinformation Fuerstein's posting included a photograph of a bearded man, presumably Mr. Steve Gouves, and the following text: posting   From my friend David Norrie Steve Gouves dies a billionaire, with a fortune of $ 7 billion, at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer, and here are some of his last words: In other eyes, my life is the essence of success, but aside from work, I have a little joy, and in the end wealth is just a fact of life to which I am accustomed. At this moment, lying on the bed, sick and remembering all my life, I realize that all my recognition and wealth that I have is meaningless in the face of imminent death. You can hire someone to drive a car for you, make money for you - but you can not rent someone to carry the disease for you. One can find material things, but there is one thing that can not be found when it is lost - "life". Treat yourself well, and cherish others. As we get older we are smarter, and we slowly realize that the watch is worth $ 30 or $ 300 - both of which show the same time. Whether we carry a purse worth $ 30 or $ 300 - the amount of money in the wallets are the same. Whether we drive a car worth $ 150,000, or a car worth $ 30,000 - the road and distance are the same, we reach the same destination.If we drink a bottle worth $ 300 or wine worth $ 10 - the "stroller" will be the same. If the house we live in is 300 square meters, or 3000 square meters - the loneliness is the same.Your true inner happiness does not come from the material things of this world. Whether you're flying first class, or economy class - if the plane crashes, you crash with it. So, I hope you understand that when you have friends or someone to talk to - this is true happiness! Five Undeniable Facts- 1. Do not educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy. - So when they grow up they will know the value of things, not the price. 2. Eat your food as medicine, otherwise you will need to eat your medicine as food. 3. Whoever loves you will never leave you, even if he has 100 reasons to give up. He will always find one reason to hold on. 4. There is a big difference between being human and human being. 5. If you want to go fast - go alone! But if you want to go far - go together! And in conclusion,The six best doctors in the world.1. Sunlight2. Rest3. Exercise4. Diet5. Self-confidence6. Friends Keep them in all stages of life and enjoy a healthy life. "Love the people God sent you, one day he'll need them back." ??Something worth sharing!?? The man in this photograph is not "Steve Gouves" but rather James R. Kirouac, a "Level 2 Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique Practitioner" with the company "Leading Edge Thought," who, as best we can tell at the time of this writing, is still very much alive: James R. Kirouac Leading Edge Thought   The first half of this text (everything preceding "Treat yourself well and cherish others) is a nearly verbatim copy of the fake deathbed speech falsely attributed to Steve Jobs back in 2015. That speech appears to have originated on a random blog and was never connected to Jobs in any real way. (You can read more about the actual last words of Steve Jobs here.) here The second half of this text has been circulating independently from the first since at least September 2015, when it was posted to a Chinese language blog at xuite.net. That posting was not attributed to Jobs, Guoves, or any other billionaire, and it was not shared as if it were a deathbed speech. September 2015 The fake Steve Jobs deathbed speech started making its way around the web in November 2015 and readers, apparently, have revised and expanded it over the years. At some point the text posted to xuite.net was tacked  onto the end of the original fake speech, Jobs' name was changed to Guoves, and an image of an unrelated bald man was employed to depict the fictional billionaire. tacked In short: Steve Guoves did not make this speech on his death bed because Steve Guoves does not exist. Much of this text was previously attributed to Steve Jobs, but the Apple co-founder did not utter those words on his death bed either. During his recent election announcement for governor of Missouri, Mike Parson trumpeted a strong economy in the state, taking particular care to highlight increases in small-business wages. With record lows in unemployment, more people are going back to work in Missouri, Parson said Sept. 8. Wages are on the rise  in fact we were the top small-business wage growth state in the nation. Does the governors comment check out? We wanted to investigate. A spokesperson for Parsons campaign cited an April 2019 article from St. Louis Business Journal that used numbers from an April 2019 report from Paychex/IHS Market Small Business Employment Watch to show Missouri ranked first in the country in hourly wage growth for small businesses. At $25.55 per hour, Missouri small business wages were up 3.48%, or 86 cents, that month. The Show-Me State finished first ahead of California, New York, Arizona and Illinois in small-business wage growth. According to the Small Business Employment Watchs September report, Missouri now ranks third in the country in hourly wage growth increase at 3.38% (New York is second at 3.53% and Illinois is first at 4.11%). If assessing for weekly wage growth rise, Missouri is second at 3.83%. Illinois comes in at 3.84%, just .01% better than Missouri. Overall, Missouri has been a top-five small business wage growth state (by weekly earnings) every month this year, according to Paychexs analysis. So what is Paychex, and how does it calculate its data for the Small Business Employment Watch? Paychex is a human resources and payroll company with over 600,000 clients nationwide. According to a media spokesperson for the company, it uses up-to-date, aggregated payroll data from approximately 350,000 of Paychex's small business clients with fewer than 50 workers to keep its data current. All businesses whose wage data is included in the report must have run payroll for the month that the data is being compiled and the three months prior. According to a Paychex spokesperson, the sample includes millions of small-business workers. How many small-business workers are there in Missouri and in the United States? It depends what you consider a small business. Paychex defines a small business as a firm with fewer than 50 workers, but the U.S. Small Business Administration defines small businesses as firms with less than 500 workers. According to the SBAs 2019 profile for the state of Missouri, there are 1.2 million small business employees in the state of Missouri alone, and 58.9 million in the country. In other words, while Paychex represents a significant portion of small businesses, its not the whole pie. The company itself claims to work with one in 12 private sector employees. Parson said, Wages are on the rise  in fact we were the top small business wage growth state in the nation. This statement is backed by statistics from Paychex that showed it to be true for the month of April, although Missouri fell behind in later months. Since it cant be proven that Paychex takes a representative sample, and its the only indicator Parson cites, we rate this comment as Mostly True. On July 14, 2021, former U.S. President Donald Trump released a statement via email praising a new book by Fox News host Jesse Watters. As screenshots of Trump's statement started making their way around social media, some people noticed that the text of this statement was, in part, a direct copy of the book's description on Amazon.com.  noticed This is a genuine statement released by Trump and this is the genuine description of Watters' book from Amazon.com and other booksellers' websites.  description of Watters' book from Amazon.com Here's the text of Trump's full statement. We highlighted the portion that was lifted directly from the book's description: Great new book out by Jesse Watters, How I Saved the World. Interspersed are his thoughtful suggestions for overcoming left-wing radicalism, maintaining American democracy, moving beyond aging hippies (like his long-suffering, loving parents), saving the world from social justice warriors and the deep stateall while smirking his way through life in only the nicest way. Get your copy today, congratulations Jesse! Trump's statement did not contain any punctuation to indicate that this was a quote, nor was this plagiarized portion of his statement preceded by any indications that this was a quote from the book's promotional copy. As written, it appeared that Trump was giving a personal testimony about Watters' book, but that is not the case.  Trump was banned from social media in the days following the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as the companies feared that the former president might incite more violence by pushing falsehoods about his election loss on their platforms. Without social media, Trump has started to issue statements via email which are then reposted to social media by his supporters and journalists. As social media users can't see these statements posted on Trump's own timeline for themselves, they are often left wondering if they are authentic.  We've been asked about a few of these statements in the past. For example: Yes, Trump wished a happy Father's Day to the "the losers of the world," and yes, he wished a Happy Easter to the "radical left crazies." the losers of the world, radical left crazies New Jersey has long held the title of most densely populated state in the country.But the Garden State has an even more prestigious ranking, according to a recent advertisement placed by Choose: New Jersey in the Wall Street Journal.The July 30 ad reads in part: New Jersey has a rich tradition of bringing the world some very big thinking. In fact, we have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world, making ours one of the most highly skilled and educated workforces available.Thats quite a claim for any state to make so for this fact check, we are focusing only on the statistic about scientists and engineers. And it seems Choose: New Jerseys calculations add up.Lets look at how Choose: New Jersey, a nonprofit group that markets the state to attract businesses and jobs, came up with their statistic. Choose: New Jersey is part of the Partnership For Action, the Business Action Center and state Economic Development Authority.Melissa Hensley, chief marketing officer for the group, said the group compared geographic and employment data from four organizations: the Census Bureaus American Community Survey, the CIAs World Fact Book 2012, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the National Science Board.All of it came down to an apples-to-apples comparison to the extent possible between a state and country, Hensley said.The Census Bureaus Population Reference Bureau listed New Jersey as having 260,655 scientists and engineers in 2010. That number divided by New Jerseys total land area of 8,722.58 square miles equals 29.88 scientists and engineers  the highest number among all states and a list of 37 countries.I read somewhere that New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the U.S., so I guess you could extrapolate from that that there are more scientists per square mile than anywhere else, Brian Bell, a spokesman for the California Institute of Technology said in an e-mail. Although Massachusetts might give N.J. a run for its money. California has lots of smart people, but we have huge deserts and lots of empty space too.Bells guess is accurate.Massachusetts has the second highest number of scientists and engineers, at 23.47 per square mile, followed by Maryland, at 20.97. California is 10th on the list.A similar calculation was used for other countries by measuring the number of researchers  a more broad term that includes scientists and engineers  per 1,000 of employed people. Breaking that figure down and comparing it against country size, we determined that Israel tops the international list, with 5.10 scientists and engineers per square mile (Choose: New Jerseys calculations were adjusted to consider countries in square miles instead of kilometers). Rounding out the top three are Japan, at 4.46, and Belgium, at 3.16.If both lists are put together, New Jersey and 11 other U.S. states lead the world in number of engineers and scientists per square mile before Israel joins the rankings.The numbers reflect what we regularly hear from businesses considering locating or expanding in New Jersey  that if a company is looking to benefit from a high concentration of very skilled talent, New Jersey is a prime location, Hensley said in response to our findings.Our rulingChoose: New Jersey said in an advertisement that we have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world, making the states workforce one of the most skilled and highly educated.Choose: New Jersey used a variety of data to reach its conclusion, from the U.S. Census Bureau to the CIA World Fact Book and more. PolitiFact New Jersey vetted the calculations and found that the Garden State does top the world in number of scientists and engineers per square mile: 29.8.We rate this statement True. To comment on this story, go toNJ.com. Claim:  After a bank failure, the FDIC has 99 years to pay back insured deposits.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2008] I heard an "expert" on KFI AM 640 in LA say the FDIC has up to 99 years to repay you in the event of a bank failure. Sounds like a misrepresentation but when asked by the host, she said "it's in the fine print."  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] I have been hearing of a story of a man entering a bank week after week and making a deposit of a government check in some sort of insignificant amount (the number I heard was $0.35 per check). The teller asks why is he depositing such a small check. His response is that his bank went bust and that the checks are from the F.D.I.C. The gist of this apocryphal tale is that FDIC insurance is not a good thing and that if it does pay out it will take forever to recover your "insured" loss. This tale was repeated yesterday to my sister-in-law by a bank teller trying to dissuade her from moving an UNINSURED money market account to an F.D.I.C. insured CD with another bank. Origins:   Economic turmoil in the United States in recent years has given many Americans pause to consider just how safe their money is, especially in light of some bank failures that have reminded us that even such seemingly secure investments as ordinary savings accounts are not  completely risk-free.   And although most bank customers are aware their deposits are insured, they aren't necessarily familiar with the details of how that insurance works, a circumstance that has fostered the spread of rumors which create additional insecurity. After a wave of bank failures that came in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the prolonged economic depression that followed, the U.S. federal government created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to restore public confidence in (and help stabilize) the U.S. banking system.  The FDIC provided federal government guarantees of deposits up to $100,000 per account holder per bank (and up to $250,000 per account holder for deposit retirement accounts), subject to certain conditions, at insured financial institutions.*    FDIC Bank failures in the U.S. have been a relatively uncommon phenomenon since the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, so many consumers have had little or no exposure to the process by which FDIC deposit insurance works, a circumstance that has led to the uncertainty reflected in the examples cited above.  Widely-believed rumors hold that FDIC insurance actually covers just a small fraction of the original deposit amount  (e.g., 1.5%), or that the FDIC only reimburses depositors in full over a very long period of time (e.g., 99 years), the net result being the mistaken belief that FDIC insurance isn't really much of a guarantee at all.  In fact, these rumors are so prevalent that they were both included (as numbers #3 and #4) in a list of the top ten misconceptions about the FDIC published in the Spring 2006 edition of the FDIC Consumer News newsletter, where they were addressed thusly: If a bank fails, the FDIC could take up to 99 years to pay depositors for their insured accounts. This is a completely false notion that many bank customers have told us they heard from someone attempting to sell them another kind of financial product. The truth is that federal law requires the FDIC to pay the insured deposits "as soon as possible" after an insured bank fails. Historically, the FDIC pays insured deposits within a few days after a bank closes, usually the next business day. In most cases, the FDIC will provide each depositor with a new account at another insured bank. Or, if arrangements cannot be made with another institution, the FDIC will issue a check to each depositor. The FDIC only pays failed-bank depositors a percentage of their insured funds. All too often we receive questions similar to this one: "Is it true that if my FDIC-insured bank fails, I would only get $1.31 for every $100 in my checking account?" As with misconception number 3, this misinformation appears to be spread by some financial advisors and sales people. Federal law requires the FDIC to pay 100 percent of the insured deposits up to the federal limit  including principal and interest. If your bank fails and you have deposits over the limit, you may be able to recover some or, in rare cases, all of your uninsured funds. However, the overwhelming majority of depositors at failed institutions are within the insurance limit, and insured funds are always paid in full. As noted, this type of misinformation is often passed along by unscrupulous or misinformed financial advisors who are trying to steer customers towards investments or accounts that are not insured, so if you have any doubts about exactly what is or is not covered by FDIC insurance, you may want to undertake some additional verification on your own. *Note: In October 2008 the FDIC insurance limit was temporarily increased to $250,000 per account, with that increase slated to remain in effect through the end of 2009, but subsequently extended through the end of 2013. In July 2010 the FDIC insurance limit was permanently increased to $250,000 per depositor, per insured depository institution for each account ownership category. increased Last updated:  8 April 2014