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Full Title: WH Budget: Claiming Child Care Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit Now Require a Social Security Number(CNSNews.com) – The president’s budget requires that those receiving the child care tax credit and the earned income tax credit now must have a Social Security number to claim those tax credits. “We talk about how to prioritize spending and how to look at programs that work and don't work. The childcare tax credit and the earned income tax credit. One of our proposals is that we are going to require you to have a Social Security number now to collect those,”...

One-fourth of IRS payments for several major refundable tax credits are being improperly made, costing the government billions of dollars, the Treasury's inspector general for tax said. In a report released Tuesday, the inspector general found that the rate of improper payments remains high, at nearly 25 percent, for the earned income tax credit, the refundable portion of the child tax credit, and the American Opportunity tax credit, a benefit for college students. While the IRS has acknowledged that the earned income tax credit is a high risk, it "still does not provide a valid assessment" of the rate of...

House Freedom Caucus declines to take united position, which is probably good news for the bill I assume you already know enough not to take anything Justin Amash says seriously, so the fact that my ex-congressman isn’t satisfied means nothing. For people who don’t live in the utopian fantasyland of their adolescent dreams, here’s how House Republicans have improved the American Health Care Act in the past 24 hours: Under the modified version of the GOP replacement bill, states would be allowed to require able-bodied Medicaid recipients without dependents to work beginning in October — and would get a funding...

TRENTON -- A tech company is choosing to relocate to Trenton over Wilmington, Delaware, after securing more than $17 million in state tax credits. The state Economic Development Authority on Thursday approved the Grow New Jersey tax credits for Maestro Technologies, a technology consulting and data management systems firm. Now headquartered in Edison, Maestro has a small office in Watchung and several employees who work remotely or at client sites across the country. CEO Kamal Bathla says the company wanted to centrally locate the staff into a new headquarters to better facilitate training, efficiency and product development. Maestro was deciding...

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was chief lobbyist for the Republican Obamacare replacement bill Thursday, but conservatives and moderates in the Senate were indicating that their votes may not be there. Ryan spent his weekly press conference giving a lengthy professorial lecture on the basics and benefits of the American Health Care Act, assisted by visual aids. "We are going to repeal and replace Obamacare and we're going to do it with a three-pronged approach. Number one is what we're talking about right now... that's called reconciliation. That's the American Health Care Act. There are only so many...

A Look Into the Opaque Crystal Ball for Infrastructure Initiatives in the First 100 Days of the Trump Administration President Donald J. Trump's "America's Infrastructure First" plan is one of the Trump Administration's priorities during his first 100 days in office. Throughout the campaign, President Trump heralded his plan to build and restore highways, tunnels, airports, bridges, and water systems across America and promised a $1 trillion investment in the infrastructure sector over a 10-year period. Leaders from both parties acknowledge the nation's deteriorating infrastructure, and there have been expressions of support from both sides of the aisle for some...

Rep. Marsha Blackburn says she has been discussing legislation to make child care more affordable for working Americans with the President-elect's daughter, Ivanka Trump. "I am delighted to see that we're looking at options for tax credits, tax incentives, ways for moms and dads to be able to write-off this child-care cost," Blackburn told CNN's...on "State of the Union,"...-snip- The Tennessee Republican, who owns a small business, said she had concerns about child care as she was raising her kids. "It was so very difficult. It's one of the things I struggled with as my children were growing up," she...

County leaders are hopeful that the $1 trillion infrastructure investment promised by Republican president-elect Donald Trump will have a big impact on the region. Trump has promised to prioritize infrastructure spending in his first 100 days in office. The move is one that Democrats, now in minority positions in both houses of Congress, have said they're willing to support. The plan, which is not yet fully fleshed out, looks to rely heavily on billions of dollars of infrastructure tax credits to private entities. And while Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen warned recently that weighing down the national debt with...

Link only - Bloomberg

A rare point of agreement between President-Elect Trump and Congressional Democrats is that America has an infrastructure deficit: The nation’s transportation, power, water and sewerage facilities are too often outdated and unable to reliably serve a growing population. But while the diagnosis crosses party lines, solutions are more controversial. Democrats may not be too worried about the recent increase in federal deficits, but Republicans who have made an issue of the national debt will be reluctant to produce more red ink. Likewise, tax increases to pay for new federal construction spending are off the table under Trump and a Republican-controlled...

If recent votes are any indication, Texans don’t like toll roads, but they do like Donald Trump. At some point, maybe soon, they’re going to have to make a choice between the two. President-elect Trump in late October laid out some of his plans should he win the White House, among them the American Energy & Infrastructure Act, which he plans to pass in his first 100 days. In his action plan that includes abolishing the Affordable Care Act and restraining immigration, Trump said the infrastructure plan “leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives.” Over a decade, Trump...

y all conventional measures, 2016 is a good time to be a wind developer. Wind provided a record 4.7% of U.S. electricity last year and accounted for 41% of all generation capacity additions — well outpacing solar and natural gas, which each accounted for about 28%. That growth is expected to continue after the five-year extension of vital federal tax credits at the end of 2015. But as they phase out in the coming years, the extensions now appear to lead to unforeseen trouble. “The PTC has helped wind get to its current position, but a day of reckoning is...

When Bob Lutz speaks, automotive journalists listen. Well, at least they usually do. When a recent Automotive News roundtable discussion showed Lutz blasting General Motors' Chevy Bolt (and electric vehicles like it), mainstream journalists failed to pick up on the story. Lutz was right on the money when he exposed the EV folly, which is costing automakers billions of dollars and driving up prices of conventional, gas-powered vehicles. Bob Lutz certainly has credibility in the automotive world. As an ex-GM executive he was known as the father of the Chevy Volt, a taxpayer-subsidized vehicle that I have had plenty...

At least $335 million of the state’s controversial film tax credits have been sold off to corporations and individuals that critics say likely have nothing to do with the movie the perk was intended for, in a secondary market largely shrouded from public view, a Herald review of state records has found. --SNIP-- Established in 2006, the film tax credit is a 25 percent rebate filmmakers earn if they spent at least $50,000 in Massachusetts. But many don’t end up owing enough in state taxes, and the credits are legally transferable, meaning that filmmakers can sell them — on average...

President Obama and Donald Trump see immigration differently. The President’s aggressive executive action on immigration is still being litigated, and Mr. Trump proposes action of a different kind. In the meantime, tax credits and refunds for illegal immigrants have become controversial. Mr. Trump says illegal immigrants get $4.2 billion in tax credits. He can point to a 2011 audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. It confirms that individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States were paid $4.2 billion in refundable credits.

Crony Capitalism: Not content with the billions it gets in government help, Tesla Motors now wants tougher fuel economy standards that would cripple its competitors. Is this what passes for entrepreneurship today? In 2012, President Obama announced a new "Corporate Average Fuel Economy" standard that will require all the cars each automaker sells to get an average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Given the lead time that automakers need to design and test new cars, they now have only a few years to figure out how to achieve that goal. And since there are only a couple non-plug-in cars...

It’s been six years sinceelectric vehiclemanufacturers enjoyed their windfall from U.S. taxpayers via the stimulus, but the thirst for subsidies, and pain from financial losses, have not waned. The pursuit of government goodiescontinues apace forTesla Motors, even more vigorously after the Los Angeles Timesreported last month that CEO Elon Musk depends on more than $4.9 billion in corporate welfare for his companies, which also include SolarCity and SpaceX. Tesla’s quest may more accurately be portrayed as preservation of the golden goose that is California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) credit scheme. The Golden State requires the six largest auto manufacturers to...

Targeting youth unemployment, Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to propose tax credits to encourage businesses to train young people and offer apprenticeships to develop lifelong job skills. Clinton’s campaign said she would outline a proposed tax credit of $1,500 for every apprentice that a business hires during a forum Wednesday at Trident Technical College in North Charleston, South Carolina. The state holds the first-in-the-South presidential primary. The Democratic presidential candidate said last weekend she would begin outlining policy proposals during the summer, and the economic agenda item aims to connect with young workers and black young adults. …

WASHINGTON — (...) The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the subsidies can continue for 6.4 million people in 34 states who use the federal insurance marketplace at HealthCare.gov. (...) More than 4.1 million people, or nearly two out of three who could lose their subsidies in the case this year, live in just 13 Southern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2015/06/16/3799971/loss-of-health-care-subsidies.html#storylink=cpy

Well, somebody did it, and it was the mainstream media. Congratulations to the Los Angeles Times for taking the time to research and estimate the total amount of U.S. public (local, state, and federal) subsidies for companies owned or run by South African-born Canadian-American Elon Musk. The total amount calculated by reporter Jerry Hirsch for taxpayer-backed incentives – of many different forms, including tax credits and rebates provided to customers – was $4.9 billion. The corporate beneficiaries have been Tesla Motors and SpaceX, where Musk is CEO, and SolarCity Corp., where he is chairman. The sum does not include SpaceX’s...