The Alternative Minimum Tax...was created by Congress in 1969 to affect 155 wealthy Americans. Because it was never indexed for inflation, those original 155 taxpayers has increased to affect about 3.5-million in 2006.
On Jan. 17, 1969, Treasury Secretary Joseph W. Barr told Congress that 155 taxpayers making $200,000 or more did not pay any taxes on their 1966 income. That shook lawmakers into creating the alternative minimum tax in the Tax Reform Act of 1969. It was created as separate income tax system to ensure people did not use loopholes to avoid paying any taxes at all. Because of the law, people who are able to use deductions and legal shelters to lower their tax bill too much must pay a minimum income tax, the AMT. Under the law, taxpayers who meet the AMT threshold must pay the higher tax bill, whether it's their actual bill or the AMT. The trouble is that, unlike the standard income tax system, the AMT is not indexed for inflation. So as time moved on, growing numbers of people have fallen into the AMT program and, as a result, are paying higher taxes. In 2006, 3.5-million taxpayers fell under the AMT, which equates to about 4 percent of American taxpayers, according to the Congressional Research Service. But that was with a special limit  a patch  imposed by Congress. So, Giuliani has it right. All of it.
Claim:  President Obama is using his personal funds to keep the International Museum of Muslim Cultures open during the government shutdown.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2013] I recently read an article online stating that president Obama is using his personal funds to keep the international museum of Muslim culture open during the government shutdown. I was wondering if your site had any information regarding this.   Origins:  On 2 October 2013,  the National Report published an article positing that President Obama would be using his personal funds to keep the International Museum of Muslim Cultures open during the current government budget shutdown: article While up to 800,000 federal workers faced life without a paycheck as Day One of the government shutdown kicked in, President Barack Obama held a press conference to announce  that he is using his own money to open the federally funded International Museum of Muslim Cultures. "During this shutdown, people will have to deal with some of their favorite parks and museums being closed," Obama told reporters. "Just keep in mind, they will always be there. The Grand Canyon and the Smithsonian are not going anywhere." Obama continued, "The International Museum of Muslim Cultures is sacred. That is why I have taken it upon myself to use my own personal funds to re-open this historic piece of American culture." The International Museum of Muslim Cultures closed its doors as parts of the federal government shut down after Congress failed to reach an agreement on spending. The fiscal standoff stems in large part from Republican attempts to block President Obama's healthcare initiative. By the following day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article.  However, the article was just a bit of satire from the National Report,  a web site that publishes outrageous fictional stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples." The National Report's (since removed) disclaimer page notes that: disclaimer National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways.  All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental. Nonetheless, Fox News host Anna Kooiman fell for this spoof during a Fox & Friends segment, reporting that "[W]e're going to talk a little bit later in the show  about some things that are continuing to be funded. And President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture ...":  (For the record, we note that there is indeed an International Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson, Mississippi, but it is an independent museum and not a federally funded one.) International Museum of Muslim Cultures Last updated:  5 October 2013 On 28 May 2015, a news-like link began to circulate on Facebook claiming popular actor Channing Tatum came out as gay. The link's headline stated "Channing Tatum comes out as Gay," and the preview text read "Channing Tatum comes out as Gay following a number of rumours":  While the rumor was briefly popular on sites like Twitter and Facebook among Tatum's fans, it was generated by the site Feednewz.com. Feednewz.com is not a news site; rather, its primary purpose is the generation of user-submitted links that appear to be news stories. As with a similar viral hoax involving EastEnders actor Danny Dyer, the Channing Tatum hoax spread atypically far for a FeedNewz.com link due to user interest in the fabricated claim. Danny Dyer Claims like the one about Tatum often spread due to a compelling headline alone. Readers who clicked through to the appended link were greeted with the following image revealing the prank:  Channing Tatum did not reveal any new information about his sexuality, and he remained married to actress Jenna Dewan until they separated in March 2018.  Jenna Dewan On 25 October 2015 the web site Huzlers published an article reporting that "Jake," the character seen in State Farm Insurance's ubiquitous "State of Unrest" television commercial, had been murdered by his wife in a fit of rage over his infidelity: State of Unrest It is being reported that Jake From State Farm was reportedly found dead in his apartment bedroom Saturday night. According to authorities, Jake was killed by his wife after finding him in bed with another woman. Jake From State Farm was murdered by his own wife for allegedly cheating on her. Very Ironic, considering that the original Jake From State Farm commercial was about being unfaithful. According to State Farm, Jake would be a good neighbor to all of his clients, but when he needed help, nobody was there for him. Jakes wife was arrested a few hours following the murder. A true hero quoted State Farm. Nothing about this story is true, as it originated on Huzlers, a well known fake news site.  Also, real news articles (especially those reporting on deaths) tendto include the real names of actors and not refer to them solely by the names of characters they played on television. Finally, "Jake from State Farm" has dispelled this himself rumor on Twitter: dispelled  (This story might have made more logical [satirical] sense if the putative murder victim were actor Justin Campbell, who played the husband suspected of infidelity by his wife in the popular "State of Unrest" State Farm commercial, and not actual State Farm agent Jake Stone, who filled the role of the innocent insurance agent Jake.)      Justin Campbell Huzlers bills itself as "the most notorious urban satirical entertainment website in the world with the most shocking headlines and articles shared by trillions around the world." Newsbrokeon May 27, 2015 that an agreement was close on how to pay for a new $500 million arena for the Milwaukee Bucks, the basketball team that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once led to glory. Some details of the proposed arrangement between the Bucks and state and local government officials were new. But the overallcost sharing was, more or less, what hadlong beenexpected: The Bucks owners would pay half and taxpayers would pay half. According to Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, such a split would be good for taxpayers. Here is whathe saidApril 10, 2015 on Here and Now, a Wisconsin Public Television show: If this comes out close to a 50-50 partnership, it will be much better -- in terms of the portion of the public financing -- than most of the other arena projects done around the country. In other words, Sheehy, who supports the new arena, is saying that taxpayers picking up half the tab for a new Milwaukee arena is relatively low, compared to how much taxpayers have contributed toward arenas for other National Basketball Association teams. The parties set a self-imposeddeadlineof May 29, 2015 to try and finalize the financing deal, which would have to be approved, likely within the next few weeks, as part of the 2015-17 state budget. So, lets take a look. The Bucks and their arenas The Bucksjoined the NBA in the 1968-69 season. Led byAbdul-Jabbarand another future Hall of Famer, Oscar Robertson, they won their only league championship in the 1970-71 season. That,according tothe team, meant the Bucks went further, faster, than any expansion team in the history of major professional sports. In recent years, however, the Bucks have struggled, and that is one reason there has been a drive to build a new arena. The teams current home -- the $90 millionBMO Harris Bradley Center, which was built through a donation by the late Milwaukee philanthropist Jane Bradley Pettit -- opened in 1988. The 18,600-seat arena is thethird-oldestand the third-smallest in the 30-team NBA. Momentum for a new arena picked up in April 2014, when the Bucks longtime owner, former U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl of Milwaukee,announcedhe was selling the team to New York hedge-fund investors Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens. Kohl and the new owners pledged to contribute $250 million toward a new arena. Coming up with the other $250 million has been the sticking point,leading to months of negotiations involvingGov. Scott Walker, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele. There is time pressure in that the NBA has said a new arena must be built by the fall of 2017, or Milwaukee would risk losing the team to another market. Other arena deals To see how other NBA arenas have been financed, we turned to two sources: The 2012 edition of Financing Economic Development in the 21st Century,  a textbook that includesa chapteron financing professional sports facilities. And a database,last updatedin August 2014, that is maintained by Marquette University Law Schools National Sports Law Institute. Weve listed the 15 NBA arenas -- comprising half the arenas in the league -- that have been built since 1999. We went back to 1999 because a wave of NBA arenas -- seven of them -- went up that year. As well see, there is some disagreement between the figures provided by the textbook and by Marquette. Holy Cross College sports economistVictor Matheson, who wrote the sports facilities chapter in the textbook, told us thats not surprising because there are different ways to define a public contribution and because stadium financing deals arent always transparent. Based on the two sources we checked, at least eight of the 15 NBA arenas built since 1999 were financed with more than 50 percent taxpayer support. Indeed, although there is some variation in the figures in the two sources, seven of the eight arenas were built with at least 82 percent public money (the total cost figures are according to the textbook). Arenas built with more than 50% public money NBA city Year arena built Total cost Portion paid by taxpayers per the texbook Portion paid by taxpayers per Marquette Orlando 2010 $480 million 90% 87.5% Charlotte 2005 $265 million 100% 100% Memphis 2004 $250 million 100% 83% Houston 2003 $235 million 82% 100% San Antonio 2002 $186 million 85% 84% Oklahoma City 2002 $89 million 100% 100% Miami 1999 $213 million 100% 59% New Orleans 1999 $114 million 100% 100%  Conversely, the textbook and Marquette agree that only four of the arenas were built with taxpayer contributions of 50 percent or less. Arenas built with 50% or less public money NBA city Year arena built Total cost Portion paid by taxpayers per the textbook Portion paid by taxpayers per Marquette Dallas 2001 $420 million 50% 30% Toronto 1999 $265 million 0% 0% Denver 1999 $160 million 22% 3% Los Angeles 1999 $375 million 16% 19%  There was not agreement between the between the two sources on the public portion paid for arenas in Brooklyn, Indianapolis and Atlanta: NBA city Year arena built Total cost Portion paid by taxpayers per the texbook Portion paid by taxpayers per Marquette Indianapolis 1999 $183 million 100% 43% Atlanta 1999 $214 million 29% 91% Brooklyn 2010 $637 million 24% N/A  Our rating Sheehy said a 50-50 public-private split for paying for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena would be much better in terms of the portion of the public financing than most of the other arena projects done around the country. Of the 15 NBA arenas -- comprising half the cities in the league -- built since 1999, at least eight were built with more than 50 percent of the money coming from taxpayers. Seven of those eight were built with at least 82 percent public money. We rate his statement True. After giving his fifth State of the Union address, President Barack Obama hit the road. One of hisfirst stopswas a GE gas engines plant in Waukesha, a city about 20 miles west of Milwaukee. In both theHouse chamberand on thefactory floor, the president insisted that over the past four years, corporate profits and stock prices soared while wages fluttered. In the State of the Union, Obama claimed that average wages have barely budged. PolitiFact National rated his statementTrue, finding the average had risen no more than 1.7 percent above inflation from 2008 to 2012. In Waukesha on Jan. 30, 2014, the president alluded to a slightly different statistic and was more bold. He said: Because the truth is -- and you know this in your own lives, and you see it in your neighborhoods among your friends and family -- even though the economy has been growing for four years, even though corporate profits have been doing very well, stock prices have soared, most folks' wages haven't gone up in over a decade. We wondered: Even taking inflation into account, is it true the majority of Americans havent seen their wages increase in more than 10 years? Obamas evidence Income inequalitywas a big topic in the weeks leading up to the State of the Union. So, one thing to make clear upfront is that in his Wisconsin remarks, the president singled out wages -- the paycheck you get from your job. Thats a narrower category than income, which can include money taken in from other sources such as investments or government benefits. When we asked for evidence to back the presidents wages claim, a White House spokesman citeda databasefrom the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows the median weekly earnings for full-time workers in the final quarter of each year from 1999 through 2013. The median wage means half of workers earned more than that amount and half earned less. From the database, we assembled the following table. The wage figures are adjusted for inflation. Year Weekly wages, 4th quarter of each year 1999 $335 2000 334 2001 340 2002 336 2003 337 2004 337 2005 332 2006 337 2007 332 2008 340 2009 344 2010 341 2011 335 2012 334 2013 334 So, the inflation-adjusted median wage during the final quarter of 2013 was $334 --  $1 lower than during the final quarter of 1999, more than a decade earlier. However, the table also shows that the median wage went up in some years and down in others during the period cited by the president. It was as high as $344 and as low as $332. Outside experts We put Obamas claim and the database to four experts: economistAparna Mathurof the conservative American Enterprise Institute; economistEugene Steuerleof the Urban Institute, who served as a deputy assistant Treasury secretary under President Ronald Reagan;Michael Tanner, senior fellow of the libertarian Cato Institute; and Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance research directorDale Knapp. They agreed that its not possible to track the wages of actual individuals over a period of more than a decade, and so it cant be known whether most of them had a higher wage in 2013 than in 2009. But the experts also agreed the median wage figure cited by The White House is the best available. As Steuerle told us: Looking at the median tells us what is happening across the economy, but not what is happening to each individual worker over time. Two other points, neither of which bears directly on the accuracy of Obamas wage claim: Mathur said the broader measure of income gives a better picture of the standard of living of low- and moderate-income people, since it includes assistance such as the earned income tax credit, food stamps and Medicaid. And Tanner said total compensation, including things such as health and retirement benefits, has risen in recent years even if wages havent. Our rating Obama said: Most folks wages havent gone up in over a decade. Its not possible to know, considering all Americans, whether most of them saw a wage increase in the period cited by the president. But he cites the best-available figure, which shows the  median weekly wage, adjusted for inflation, was $1 less at the end of 2013 than it was in 1999. We rate the presidents statement Mostly True. Follow us onTwitterandFacebook. Claim:  E-mail claims a Mexican woman attempted to abduct a tot from a store in Tupelo, Mississippi. Status:  False. Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] Ok this is freaky but it really happened at the mall in Tupelo. Everyone please beware this Holiday Season. A couple of weeks ago a lady with two kids was shopping at JCPennys in the mall here at Tupelo.  One of her sons was pretty small and he was in a stroller buckled in and the other one was older and he was walking beside her. A mexican woman came by and told the lady how cute her little baby was...well the lady told her "Thank You" and went on her way. A couple of minutes later the mexican woman approched the lady again telling her how cute her little baby boy was. The lady again replied with thank you. As the lady turned her back to look at a piece of clothing the oldest son started screaming. The lady turned around to find that the mexican lady had unbuckled the baby and grabbed him out of the stroller and took off with him.  The lady ran after them and caught the mexican woman as the was getting out the door with her son. The only way that she caught her was the mexican woman had long hair and she pulled it and knocked her down. The lady held her in her custody until the authorities arrived. The lady  was shocked when the authorities asked her if she wanted to press charges. The lady replied back with heck yeah this is my son your talking about. Come to find out the mexican lady was here illegally. They are coming here to steal our kids and carry them across the border to sell to the black market... scary I know....but I had to pass on. Now you do the same.. Thanks and have a Great Day  This really happened to a relative of a girl that goes to church with me. They have the lady in custody that tried to take the baby. She was hispanic and finally admitted that she was taking the baby across the border to sell it. This was last Wednesday night, Nov. 15 at the JC Penneys at Barnes Crossing. They did not catch anyone that was accompanying the lady andwe don't know if she gave up any names. So there could still be predators out there. Warn everyone you know with small children. Very scary... Last night as our family was out eating out at a local resturant , one of my aunts shared with us a very disturbing event that happened this past Wednesday night at JC Penny. A lady was shopping with her 2 small children  one a baby in a stroller and the other a toddler that was just old enough to talk. The lady had her children both right next to her as she was looking at clothes and the toddler said "Mama that lady just got my sister". This mother started chasing this Hispanic lady and finally caught her by reaching out and grabbing her hair from behind. She then started screaming this woman has my baby. Security came and took care of the horrible situation and told the Mom - we can almost bet you the lady had a car waiting outside with a driver and ready to take off and sell your baby on the black market in Mexico. This mother's grateful thought was Thank Goodness my toddler could talk and tell me - because she never thought this could happen since her children were right next to her within arms reach. I am sure with the Holiday Season approaching us all, the distractions as we shop will be more - but I hope this will help us all to stay a little more alert while out and about doing our shopping. And better Yet lets all each day Ask for the Lord to Guide and protect us and our families! Origins:  In November 2006, these accounts describing a foiled child abduction at a store in Tupelo, Mississippi, began arriving in our e-mail. Akin to other Internet-circulated tales about attempted childnappings at large stores (such as the venerable canard about kids being pulled in store washrooms to be drugged and have their hair dyed by those attempting to make off with them, or the 2006 hoax about a failed child grab at a Blockbuster in North Texas), this one also proved to be a fiction. dyed Blockbuster According  to Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and Tupelo Police Chief Harold Chaffin, the story about a Mexican woman who initially admired a shopper's baby, then grabbed it from the stroller and ran off with it was pure invention. There hadn't been any such incident  no brave mom who seized the would-be abductor by her long hair and held her until police arrived, no baby-stealing illegal immigrant now behind bars awaiting trial, no ring of kidnappers frequenting Tupelo-area stores in search of product for a Mexican black market in American infants. The Mall at Barnes Crossing, a venue where the alleged foiled abduction was said to have taken place, did succeed in tracing the e-mails to their source. Mall manager Jeff Snyder indicated no legal action was contemplated against the rumor's originator, but he noted that this could well be the last time the Mall would be inclined to be so lenient regarding damage done to its reputation. The false story spread from inbox to inbox because it invoked not just the specter of the child-abducting stranger (a frightening enough figure all on its own) but melded into it a bogeyman of the moment, the illegal immigrant from south of the border. While illegal immigration into the U.S. from Mexico has long been a problem, prior to 2006 it was less of a concern to those not living in border states. In 2006, however, the illegal immigration issue was pushed to the center of the political arena, with some of that pushing taking the form of unsubstantiated rumors positioning all those who come into the U.S. on the sly as violent criminals. The fictive Mexican woman of this tale is presented as a kidnapper of small children, and not even one propelled by misguided maternal desire into taking youngsters so she could become their mother, but one motivated purely by avarice, in it for the cash that selling the purloined tots would bring. She is wholly and irredeemably evil and therefore held up as an example of the sort of person a "look the other way" attitude towards illegal immigration has allowed into the country. Her theft is not merely that of social services, it is of defenseless children; the cost of having her here is not merely a small increase in taxes paid by the typical family, but the risk that the next tot she or her compatriots snatch will be yours. Barbara "bogeyman the barricades" Mikkelson Last updated:  15 December 2006    Sources:  Gray, Lloyd.  "Today's Falsehoods Spread Faster, Wider."  Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.  10 December 2006  (p. B4). On 18 September 2016, the "Donald Trump for President" Facebook page posted a photograph of Hillary Clinton along with the claim that the Democratic presidential nominee had spent over $1 billion on negative attack ads targeting Trump, but she had spent no money at all on political ads touting her own political record and accomplishments:  The image asks viewers to "share if you agree," but its claims are not up for debate. They are false.  First, the Hillary Clinton campaign has not spent "over $1 billion on negative Trump ads on TV." Although Clinton has run a number of negative TV spots attacking her rival, she has not spent anywhere near $1 billion on such ads. Shortly after this image was published in September 2016, NBC partner Advertising Analytics released a report detailing how much money each of the candidates had spent on ads. They recorded that Clinton's campaign spent about $90 million on ads during the general election (up to 20 September 2016), while pro-Clinton groups had spent an additional $60 million or so: report Hillary Clinton and her allies continue to dominate Donald Trump and pro-Trump outside groups in the 2016 advertising race. According to ad-spending data from NBC partner Advertising Analytics, Clinton's campaign has spent $96.4 million in ads in the general election, versus $17.3 million for Trump's campaign. That's more than a 5-to-1 advantage for Clinton. And then when you factor in outside groups, it's $156.6 million for Team Clinton, and $33.6 million for Team Trump. That's almost a 5-to-1 advantage. It's also false to say that Clinton has never released a political ad touting her own accomplishments. The Clinton campaign has issued a number of videos touting her accomplishments from her 30-plus years of public service, including one that highlighted her work with children and health care and another featuring President Obama talking about Clinton's many achievements (including becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party).  children and health care achievements Even if we assume the original image referred only to paid television advertising, it's still wrong in light of examples such as a June 2016 Clinton TV spot that showcased several highlights of her political career: Claim:  African-Americans are entitled to a $5,000 slavery reparation tax credit.  Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] This goes out to all my friends, family, and everyone in the African American community. Once you receive this message please write down the number and then pass it along to every AfricanAmerican you know. As you my know, all African Americans living here in the United States are descendants of slavery,therefore our government has finally passed a bill to pay all descendants back. The way they are paying us back is through a refund called the, "Black Inheritance Tax Refund/40 Acres and a Mule". When you call this number you'll give them your name, address, and phone number and they'll send you out a packet, which includes further details and information on how to receive the refund. I was informed that it will take only two weeks to receive the packet and then two weeks to receive themoney. Now, if you know our government I bet they are not expecting a lot of people to call for this refund, and they may be right, because many of us will not be informed of this. Therefore, this is why I am taking it upon myself to pass on this information, so our community will soon be informed through word-of-mouth about what has been owed to our ancestors all these years. Black Inheritance Tax Refund 1-800-441-5629 press #3 to direct you to the appropriate line open betweenEast Coast: 8am and 12amWest Coast: 5am and 9pm Expect to wait anywhere from 5mins-25mins (There will not be any music to entertain you while you wait!) Ps: You must be 18 years or older and I'm assuming a legal residence of the United States. So, request an application for yourself, husband, wife, sister, brother, father, mother, etc, or just pass the number along. God Bless You All and please check this out!!!!!!!! Origins:  In 2000, bogus letters claiming certain senior citizens were eligible for slavery reparations or higher Social Security payments were circulating in black churches in the South and elsewhere. The letters claimed blacks born before 1928 were eligible for a $5,000 "Negro Inheritance Tax Refund" due to a "Slave Reparation Act," and folks born between 1911 and 1926 might be entitled to higher monthly Social Security payments.  This was but one of the many forms the "slavery reparation tax credit" misinformation has taken over the years.  An April 1993 Lena Sherrod commentary entitled "Forty Acres and a Mule" which appeared in Essence magazine dealt with the concept that reparations were owed to the descendants of African-Americans who were forced to work unpaid for 246 years, and that African-Americans were owed a tax rebate for years of legalized racial discrimination.  Sherrod wrote: The government also owes African-Americans a tax rebate for the 60 years of segregation and Jim Crow that followed slavery. Although we were consigned by law to second-class citizenship, we were still forced to pay first-class taxes . . . the delinquent tax rebate [is] now estimated . . . to be at $43,209 per household."  Since de facto racial discrimination continues to function as a hidden Black tax, it ought to be deductible. So when income-tax time rolls around, on line 59 of form 1040  which asks you to list 'other payments'  simply enter $43,209 in 'Black taxes' and compute accordingly. This commentary undoubtedly helped to foster the belief that a real income tax deduction was available as a form of reparation to the descendants of slaves. In 2002, people were being urged in e-mail to call an 800 number. Yet it's all the same  hoax. No matter whether you got the letter from your church or read about the give-back in a magazine, the "reparations credit" does not and never has existed. Those who claim the deduction because they are black can be subject to fines and penalties, so really, really think twice before trying to wring it out of Uncle Sam. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can fine a taxpayer $500 for filing a frivolous claim. Moreover, if the tax department fails to catch the erroneous deduction at the time of filing, it has an additional six years to right its error. Upon catching the error, the taxmen would not only strike off the deduction, but would calculate interest owed on the new balance of tax due, dating it to the year of the original return. (For example, if you claimed the credit in 1994, and the IRS caught it in 1998, your 1994 return would be re-computed to remove the effect of the bogus deduction. You'd now get a bill from the IRS for the re-computed difference between tax paid and tax due, plus all the interest that had piled up on it across those four years, and maybe even a $500 penalty for trying to pull the wool over the tax department's eyes.  Eeesh.) IRS offices across the nation have received thousands of requests daily for Form 2439, which some people have been mistakenly led to believe reimburses the descendants of slaves. Form 2439 is actually for shareholders trying to claim undistributed capital gains.  Form 2439 Though word of the phony benefits is most often spread by well-meaning individuals whose only motivation is ensuring those who are supposedly in line for the break hear about it, at times unscrupulous tax preparers have stepped in to turn what is already a heart-wrenching disappointment into an out-and-out fraud perpetrated on the unwary by charging fees of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to "help" people apply for these nonexistent benefits.  In a common version of this take-down, a con man promises his unwary clients that he can obtain up to $40,000 in "slave reparation" credits for them from the government and offers to file the necessary tax forms on their behalf in exchange for a percentage of their refunds.  He then loads up his clients' tax returns with all manner of deductions and credits they're not entitled to take and thereby scams the government into sending them refund checks.  When the IRS later goes over the returns more thoroughly and starts clamoring for their money back, the victims are left holding the bag. The $43,209 "Black tax refund" figure one sometimes hears bandied about is said to be based on the estimated value of "40 acres and a mule," a reparation supposedly laid out in an 1866 bill which lore claims was passed by Congress but was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson. The truth is a bit more complicated than that. The origins of the belief that the U.S. government promised 40 acres of land and a mule to freed slaves after the Civil War are indefinite.  One possible source of this claim is Special Field Order No. 15, issued in January 1865 by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, which set aside a coastal strip of land from Charleston, South Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, for the exclusive use of freed slaves, with each freed-slave family receiving a 40-acre chunk of this holding. As Eric Foner noted in his history of Reconstruction: Special Field Order No. 15 Sherman was neither a humanitarian reformer nor a man with any particular concern for blacks. Instead of seeing Field Order 15 as a blueprint for the transformation of Southern society, he viewed it mainly as a way of relieving the immediate pressure caused by a large number of impoverished blacks following his army. The land grants, he later claimed, were intended only to make "temporary provisions for the freedmen and their families during the rest of the war," not to convey permanent possession. Understandably, however, the freedmen assumed that the land was to be theirs, especially after Gen. Rufus Saxton, assigned by Sherman to oversee the implementation of his order, informed a large gathering of blacks "that they were to be put in possession of lands, upon which they might locate their families and work out for themselves a living and respectability." Debate continues over whether Sherman acted solely on his own authority in issuing Special Field Order No. 15 or whether he had the approval of the War Department (or even President Lincoln himself), but the end result was that a new policy (known as Howard's Circular 15) issued by the White House in September 1865 ordered the restoration of land to pardoned owners and thereby took away from freedmen the land appropriated for them by Sherman under Special Field Order No. 15  (The order made no provisions for giving mules to freedmen, but Foner notes that after issuing it, "Sherman later provided that the army could assist [freedmen] with the loan of mules.") Another possible source of the "40 acres and a mule" belief is the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau (originally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands), a federal agency established as a subsidiary of the War Department  in March 1865 (a month before the end of the Civil War) to deal with issues concerning refugees and freedmen within states under reconstruction, including the management of abandoned and confiscated property.  One of the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Act directed that the bureau's commissioner should "have authority to set apart, for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land."  However, this act did not propose giving property to freed slaves (the land was to be leased to freedmen for three years, then made available for purchase by them), nor did it make any mention of mules.   Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau Act President Johnson did not veto the Freedmen's Bureau Act, which was passed by Congress in March 1865 and signed by President Lincoln.  (Johnson did not assume the presidency until Lincoln's assassination the following month.)   Two events occurred in February 1866, both of which have been misstated as overturning the "forty acres" provision of the Freedmen's Bureau Act:  An amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill (also known as the "Second Freedmen's Bureau Act") proposed by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, to add "forfeited estates of the enemy" to the land available to blacks, was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives.  (At that time, the only group of slaveholders who were compelled to provide their former slaves with land were Indians who sided with the Confederacy.)  President Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau Bill, which sought to extend the life of the bureau indefinitely (it had originally been chartered only for one year after the end of the Civil War) and to greatly increase its powers.  Congress passed the bill again (in modified form) over Johnson's veto in July 1866. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 did in fact make land in five southern states available to freed blacks, but only public land, not plantations or other property confiscated from former slaveholders.  Unfortunately, most of the land still available in the South for homesteading was too swampy and too far away from transportation links to be of much good to freedmen, and even then the largest portion of this inferior land was claimed by whites (often for quick resale to lumber companies).   Although the notion of a "Black Inheritance Tax Refund" has long since been debunked and disclaimed, it nonetheless lives on and continues to cause headaches to the IRS and taxpayers alike.  In April 2002, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had received more than 100,000 tax returns seeking nonexistent slavery-tax credits and had mistakenly paid out more than $30 million in erroneous refunds in 2000 and 2001.  And in April 2005, the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office obtained a temporary restraining order enjoining a New York man from preparing income tax returns for others because he had "been including bogus tax credits such as reparations for African-American slavery and segregation." Barbara "taxing the imagination" Mikkelson Last updated:  27 May 2011    Brown, Timothy.  "Black Churches in the South Targeted in Mail Hoax."   The Associated Press.  31 August 2000.     Deibel, Mary.  "IRS Warns Black Taxpayers About Reparation-Claim Scam."   The Washington Times.  7 October 2000  (p. A2).     Fennell, Edward.  "Slavery Reparations Program Labeled Lie."   The [Charleston] Post and Courier.  24 September 2000  (p. B1).    Foner, Eric.  Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.  New York: Harper & Row, 1988.  ISBN 0-060-91453-X  (pp. 70-71, 245-246).     Foner, Eric and John Garraty.  The Reader's Companion to American History.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.  ISBN 0-395-51372-3  (pp. 987-988).      Josar, David.  "IRS Warns Against Trying to Get Refund for Reparations."   The Detroit News.  28 August 1996  (p. D1).     Kessler, Glenn.  "IRS Paid $30 Million in Credits for Slavery."   The Washington Post.  13 April 2002  (p. A1).     La Hay, Patricia.  "Slavery Reparations Tax Break Is Illegal."   The Arizona Republic.  9 August 1997  (p. A1).     McLeod, Ramon.  "Even Street Gangs Are Among Those Involved in Fraud."   The San Francisco Chronicle.  13 April 1996  (p. A17).     Moore, Linda.  "League Explains Nonrole in Slavery Reparations Hoax."   The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal.  15 September 2000  (p. C2).     Oubre, Claude F.  Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.  ISBN 0-807-10298-9.     Sherrod, L.G.  "Forty Acres and a Mule."   Essence.  April 1993  (p. 124).     Stiehm, Jamie.  "IRS Official Warns of Tax Hoax Using Slave Reparations."   The Baltimore Sun.  12 February 2002.     The Associated Press.   "Blacks Targeted in Slavery Reparation Scam."   6 October 2000.     Chicago Sun-Times.  "Reparations Scam Preys on Ignorance."   17 July 1996  (p. 47).     Chicago Tribune.  "Tax Myths Don't Add Up at IRS."    23 February 1997  (p. C7).     Reuters.  "Man Barred from Making Slavery Tax Claims."    15 April 2005. In August 2020, readers asked us to examine the accuracy of claims that before he took office, U.S. President Donald Trump had made donations to a previous election campaign of Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., whom presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden named as his vice-presidential running mate.  Shortly after Biden named Harris as his running mate on Aug. 11, the president's reelection campaign denounced her as "phony Kamala," claiming she was willing to "abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat party." named denounced In an email sent to supporters, the Trump campaign also labeled Harris "a corrupt former California Attorney General":   Paul Begala, a former advisor to former President Bill Clinton, alluded to a degree of irony in this allegation, claiming in a tweet that "Trump donated to Kamala Harris when she was [attorney general]." claiming In widely shared tweets, NBC News correspondent Tom Winter claimed that Trump had twice contributed to Harris' election campaign, in 2011 and 2013, donating a total of $6,000. Winter also said that Trump's daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump had herself donated $2,000 to Harris' campaign in 2014: claimed   Those claims were accurate. Records available through the campaign finance database on the website of the California secretary of state show that Trump made two contributions to Harris' 2014 campaign for reelection as California attorney general: a $5,000 donation on Sep. 26, 2011, and a $1,000 donation on Feb. 20, 2013. Harris first took office in January 2011, which means Trump contributed to her reelection when she had already been in office for eight months, and two years, respectively.  database In March 2019, The Sacramento Bee reported that a spokesperson for Harris' presidential primary campaign had said she "donated the $6,000 Trump had contributed to a non-profit that advocates for civil and human rights for Central Americans," with the newspaper adding that Harris' donation of the money took place in 2015.  reported We contacted spokespeople for both Harris and Biden, requesting further details about that claim, including the name of the charity in question, and the date on which Harris purportedly donated $6,000 to the charity. We did not receive a response in time for publication. The campaign finance database also reveals that the future president made several other campaign contributions in California, to both Republicans and Democrats. He donated $2,500 to the unsuccessful 2010 gubernatorial campaign of Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who was ultimately elected to that office in 2019; he gave a total of $3,500 to Democrat Jerry Brown's successful 2006 bid to become California attorney general; he donated a total of $12,000 to committees supportive of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; and gave $25,000 to the state's Republican party, in 2005.   The database also corroborates Winter's claim that in June 2014, Ivanka Trump  adviser to, and daughter of, the president  herself made a $2,000 donation to Harris' successful campaign to be reelected as the state's attorney general. She also contributed $500 to the unsuccessful 2010 gubernatorial campaign of Newsom:   Ronayne, Kathleen; Weissert, Will. "Biden Picks Kamala Harris as Running Mate, First Black Woman."
 The Associated Press. 11 August 2020. Cadei, Emily. "Big-Dollar Donors, Including Donald Trump, Fueled Kamala Harris' Political Rise in California."
 The Sacramento Bee. 4 March 2019. In June 2023, paid ads were displaying on Facebook and Instagram that led to a claim that said Simon Cowell would be leaving "America's Got Talent," NBC's performance-competition TV show that's perhaps better known as "AGT." However, not only was this false, but the reason for these ads was to lure users to a scam that might end up costing those users thousands of dollars a year. The claim made by this scam was that Cowell had endorsed an "amazing miracle gummy product" for weight loss called G6 Keto ACV Gummies, with "ACV" standing for apple cider vinegar. To be clear, none of this was true. Cowell never endorsed any CBD or keto weight loss gummy products. His image and likeness were being used without permission. Further, we don't recommend placing trust in weight loss promises that feature the words "amazing miracle." In this story, we'll walk through how this scam worked, including shedding light on the strange return addresses that appeared on packages that customers who ordered similar gummies had received in the past. The Facebook and Instagram ads with Cowell featured before-and-after pictures that appeared to show a weight loss transformation. "Simon Cowell Shares How He Dropped 56 In Just Weeks," the ads read.  The link in the ads directed users to a specific page on the website brownnature.art. Before clicking on the link in the ad, we decided to check out the homepage for brownnature.art. According to what we found, this website appeared to have been created for the sole purpose of running scams. How did we know this? A fake bookstore served as the facade for the scam operation on the website. This bookstore didn't have any payment options enabled, which meant that users couldn't order any of the books the website claimed to offer. Back to the subject about the ads that featured Cowell, we clicked the link that took us to a specific page on brownnature.art. An article loaded in our browser that featured a People magazine logo. "Simon Cowell Confirms He is 'LEAVING' America's Got Talent After His Accidental 'Live' Confession On-Air," the false headline of the story read.  The article also falsely claimed that celebrities Kelly Clarkson and Melissa McCarthy had lost weight with G6 Keto ACV Gummies. Both Clarkson and McCarthy have been featured in these scams for years, even though they have nothing to do with any keto weight loss gummies. This was not a story that People magazine had ever published. Scammers had replicated on brownnature.art the design of how articles are displayed on people.com, the official website for the magazine, all as a way to try to fool users into believing they were reading an authentic story put out by the publication. After clicking on one of the many links in the fake People magazine article on brownnature.art, we were led to the G6 Keto ACV Gummies website,secure.get6gproducts.com/v1/. The creator or creators of the product's website published several false statements that were an extension of the scam seen in the social media ads and the fake People magazine article. secure.get6gproducts.com/v1/ For example, Dr. Mehmet Oz never called the product the "holy grail" of weight loss, nor did the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism medical journal publish any pieces about the gummies, as the G6 website claimed. never called the product The G6 website also included mentions of CBS News, NBC, CNN, Women's Health, Woman's World, and Honolulu Magazine, even though these publications never featured, mentioned, or endorsed anything about the product. Perhaps worst of all was the fact that no phone number was available on the G6 website, not even in its privacy policy or terms and conditions documentation. In fact, part of the terms and conditions left two spaces after "TOLL FREE" where the phone number belonged: "Please contact Customer service at TOLL FREE between the hours of 9am EST - 9pm EST Mon - Sat with any questions regarding your product, payment or return." We've seen phone numbers be omitted like this on CBD and keto weight loss gummies websites for more than a year. This was not a one-time issue. For many months, we've been observing comments from purported customers who complained about being victims of CBD and keto weight loss gummies scams. Many of these comments were posted to YouTube and contained detailed accounts of how they were scammed. These customers often said in their comments that they were charged around $200 after believing they would only be paying about $40. They also said that they were surprised that making a purchase enrolled them in a subscription that would charge their credit card hundreds of dollars per month, charges that would end up totaling thousands of dollars per year. Additionally, customers said that when the gummy packages arrived at their doorstep, they contained no real identifying information about a parent company or anything about the people behind the products. According to the customers, the packages only would include the two words "fulfillment center" with a P.O. Box physical mailing address for Tampa, Florida, or Las Vegas, Nevada. Customers often reported a return address with the city of Smyrna, Tennessee. If any readers ordered CBD or keto gummies that promised an "amazing miracle" involving weight loss, we recommend they contact their credit card company to inform them of the scam. Again, these scams sign customers up for subscriptions. Unless action is taken, a new charge for hundreds of dollars will be placed on customers' credit cards every month. As for how Cowell truly lost weight, he once credited dropping pounds to hisvegan diet. We found no credible reporting that said anything about him ever consuming gummies. vegan diet To be completely clear, we have never found even one real example of a celebrity who endorsed CBD or keto weight loss gummies. DeSantis, Rachel. "Simon Cowell's Vegan Diet Helped Him Lose 20 Lbs.: 'I've Found It Quite Enjoyable.'" People Magazine, 14 Aug. 2019, https://people.com/health/simon-cowells-vegan-diet-helped-lose-20-lbs/. Liles, Jordan. "Did Dr. Oz Endorse Keto Weight Loss Gummies?" Snopes, 30 May 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dr-oz-keto-weight-loss-gummies/.