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    coldseat said:
    These are the types of good things that happen when you properly fund a government agency and give it a clear mission and support. Kudos to the Biden Administration.

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    The Biden administration plans to stop businesses and wealthy individuals from manipulating the value of assets in arcane ways such as using the same assets over and over again to lower their taxes.

    High-end business partnerships like hedge funds and wealthy individuals such as real estate investors have inappropriately used labyrinthine structures to shield tens of billions of dollars from taxation, Treasury Department officials said Monday as they vowed to crack down on the practice. They announced several steps to address a tax planning strategy known as basis shifting, in which complex business partnerships can move assets from one entity to another on paper for no reason other than to avoid taxes.

    “These transactions don’t create any economic activity for the U.S. “Their sole purpose is to reduce tax bills,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, adding that shutting down inappropriate basis shifting could increase tax collections from partnerships by at least $5 billion a year over the next decade.

    Robert Kovacev, a lawyer at Miller & Chevalier who represents partnerships being audited by the IRS, argued that the tax code allows changes in basis, that businesses are doing nothing wrong by taking advantage of the practice and that the new rules, if enforced, are likely to be challenged in court.

    “I don’t think it’s tax evasion at all,” Kovacev said of basis shifting. “That has a fraudulent tinge to it that I don’t think exists here. It’s a tax planning tool that follows what Congress said you can do.”
    A partnership is a “pass-through” business structure of linked entities that passes income and losses directly to investors, rather than being taxed at a corporate level. When a partnership sells assets such as land or equipment, the taxes are determined only after subtracting the asset’s original cost — the “basis” — from the proceeds.

    Certain rules in the tax code allow partnerships to recalculate that basis when other assets move in or out of the business. The IRS asserts that partnerships are regularly manipulating the basis of assets to avoid taxes.

    In some cases, the business might repeatedly depreciate the same asset.

    “What you do is things like, you’ve depreciated the asset in one entity, so now the basis is zero,” said Mark Luscombe, a Wolters Kluwer tax lawyer who serves on the American Bar Association’s committee on partnerships. “If you sold it, you’d have a big gain and you don’t have any more depreciation. You instead sell it to a related party so you can start the depreciation all over again.”

    An existing rule requires that transactions have “economic substance” rather than merely reducing tax bills. A top IRS official mentioned the economic substance rule as the root of the agency’s belief that most of these closely related partnership transactions are illegal.

    “It is possible that taxpayers believe their transactions meet the literal regulation,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the new rule before specific regulations are announced. “However, they do not have economic substance. We believe they are illegal under current law.”

    The tax agency will publish guidance for accountants and lawyers meant to make clear that the federal government believes basis shifting purely to avoid taxes is illegal and will be subject to audits. It will propose regulations to require large partnerships to provide more detail to the IRS about certain transactions when they occur. And it will create teams within the IRS’s legal arm and its large-business auditing unit to focus on such partnerships, staffed by some of the hundreds of auditors the IRS has hired this year.

    Those new employees have already turned up many basis-shifting transactions that they believe to be illegal, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a call with reporters. “In the audits we’re doing today, we are seeing this systemic use of basis shifting where there is no economic basis to the transaction,” Werfel said. “That is not allowed.”

    If Adeyemo’s projection of $50 billion in additional tax collections over the next decade comes to pass, it would go a long way toward recouping the billions in additional funding that Congress allotted to the IRS at President Biden’s urging. The Biden administration and others have argued that the investment would more than pay for itself as new auditors hired with the money crack down on wealthy tax evaders.
    ==============

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    All of that is exactly why Republicans in Congress are trying to gut IRS funding and lying about how the IRS is increasing staffing to audit people in the middle and lower income brackets.

    They know they can't get the middle and lower income people riled up against the IRS getting more agents to make sure the upper income people are paying the taxes they are supposed to, so they lie and they lie to protect the wealthy. Wealthy people don't need protection. They have more than enough of everything they will ever need.
     
    SaintForLife said:
    The Democrats are so desperate to beat Trump that they are running a guy who has to be led off the stage by Obama. Anyone who claims Biden is fine isn't telling the truth for political reasons.

    Click to expand...




    Video from a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles for President Joe Biden on Saturday is circulating on social media with claims that he froze up onstage as he exited the event.

    “Biden froze again last night and had to get escorted out by Obama,” reads one post on X that had received approximately 22,000 likes and 5,600 shares as of Monday. “Is this normal?”

    Members of his campaign and administration say the president stopped to take in cheers and applause as he left a sit-down with former President Barack Obama and comedian Jimmy Kimmel that helped raise more than $30 million for his reelection campaign. A spokesperson for Kimmel echoed this view.

    The video is the most recent in a series of clips taken at public events, some of them edited, that are being used to suggest Biden is mentally and physically unfit for office.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: Biden froze onstage during his fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night and had to be led away by Obama.

    THE FACTS: Biden paused amid cheers and applause as he exited the stage with his predecessor following an interview moderated by late-night host Kimmel.

    Former President Donald Trump shared a video on his social media platform Truth Social that showed a grainy version of Biden stopping and looking out into the audience as he departed. “Is this really who you want to be your president?” Trump asked in the post.


    Separate footage from the event provided to The Associated Press by Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer shows the president waving, pointing, clapping and giving the thumbs-up to the audience alongside Obama while Kimmel waits off to the side.

    Biden then stands still for about seven seconds looking out at the crowd. He starts moving again when Obama briefly takes his arm and puts his hand on his back as the pair walks offstage.

    White House spokesperson Andrew Bates described the moment as “the President taking in an applauding crowd for a few seconds.”

    Singer attributed the negative characterizations as a distraction tactic from those who “are so scared of losing to Joe Biden, they’ll make anything up to distract from the fact that their candidate for president, Donald Trump, has been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, committed financial fraud, and only cares about himself.”……

    apnews.com

    FACT FOCUS: Biden's pause as he left a star-studded LA fundraiser becomes a target for opponents

    Members of Biden's campaign say the president stopped to take in cheers as he left a sit-down with former President Barack Obama and comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
    apnews.com apnews.com
     
    LA - L.A. said:
    Wait, what? I was just using it as a short cut for "peeing your pants in terror." I had no idea it was a thing and I'm definitely not searching on it. My apologies to those who have searched it.
    Click to expand...
    I know, I was making a joke

    (I think I was making a joke, I’m not going to google it to find its not a joke at all)
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    Video from a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles for President Joe Biden on Saturday is circulating on social media with claims that he froze up onstage as he exited the event.

    “Biden froze again last night and had to get escorted out by Obama,” reads one post on X that had received approximately 22,000 likes and 5,600 shares as of Monday. “Is this normal?”

    Members of his campaign and administration say the president stopped to take in cheers and applause as he left a sit-down with former President Barack Obama and comedian Jimmy Kimmel that helped raise more than $30 million for his reelection campaign. A spokesperson for Kimmel echoed this view.

    The video is the most recent in a series of clips taken at public events, some of them edited, that are being used to suggest Biden is mentally and physically unfit for office.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: Biden froze onstage during his fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night and had to be led away by Obama.

    THE FACTS: Biden paused amid cheers and applause as he exited the stage with his predecessor following an interview moderated by late-night host Kimmel.

    Former President Donald Trump shared a video on his social media platform Truth Social that showed a grainy version of Biden stopping and looking out into the audience as he departed. “Is this really who you want to be your president?” Trump asked in the post.


    Separate footage from the event provided to The Associated Press by Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer shows the president waving, pointing, clapping and giving the thumbs-up to the audience alongside Obama while Kimmel waits off to the side.

    Biden then stands still for about seven seconds looking out at the crowd. He starts moving again when Obama briefly takes his arm and puts his hand on his back as the pair walks offstage.

    White House spokesperson Andrew Bates described the moment as “the President taking in an applauding crowd for a few seconds.”

    Singer attributed the negative characterizations as a distraction tactic from those who “are so scared of losing to Joe Biden, they’ll make anything up to distract from the fact that their candidate for president, Donald Trump, has been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, committed financial fraud, and only cares about himself.”……

    apnews.com

    FACT FOCUS: Biden's pause as he left a star-studded LA fundraiser becomes a target for opponents

    Members of Biden's campaign say the president stopped to take in cheers as he left a sit-down with former President Barack Obama and comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
    apnews.com apnews.com
    Click to expand...
    The AP running cover for Biden? It's comical. We have the full video from a Hollywood Reporter:

     
    SaintForLife said:
    The AP running cover for Biden? It's comical. We have the full video from a Hollywood Reporter:

    Click to expand...

    And? It doesn’t show what you and the RWNJs say it does.

    AP is an independent high quality media source. They don’t “run cover” for anyone. What you are doing is peddling lies in service to MAGA. It’s almost all you do these days.
     
    MT15 said:
    And? It doesn’t show what you and the RWNJs say it does.

    AP is an independent high quality media source. They don’t “run cover” for anyone. What you are doing is peddling lies in service to MAGA. It’s almost all you do these days.
    Click to expand...
    Are you saying the video doesn't show Obama grabbing Biden by the arm to lead him off the stage?

    The AP is without a doubt running cover for Biden because anyone who watches the video can see Obama doing that. The AP also shifted to debunking if Biden froze whereas the big takeway from the video is Obama grabbing Biden's arm and not the claim that he froze. A journalistic sleight of hand.

    The Press Secretary is calling the unedited video from a Hollywood Reporter employee(not a right winger or Trump supporter) a deep fake video.

     
    They aren’t “deep fakes” as I understand the term, the word I have seen media use is “cheap fakes” because they use editing to paint a false picture.

    What I saw was two men with great affection for each other - one with his arm around the other’s shoulders walking off the stage. There was no “leading”. Obama touched his sleeve to get his attention, because it was probably too loud to hear.

    You call this leading?

    IMG_1441.jpeg

    You lose credibility with this, SFL. It’s patently ridiculous.
     
    SaintForLife said:
    Are you saying the video doesn't show Obama grabbing Biden by the arm to lead him off the stage?
    Click to expand...
    YES. Are you saying it does? That’s cringeworthy. He touches Biden’s sleeve to get his attention - it was loud. Then they walk off the stage together with the kind of contact that 2 old friends often have.

    I’m sorry you cannot discern friendship and affection when you see it.
     
    SaintForLife said:
    The Press Secretary is calling the unedited video from a Hollywood Reporter employee(not a right winger or Trump supporter) a deep fake video.
    Click to expand...
    No she is not. She is referring to the selectively edited videos that RW media has been running. She does not specify the unedited Hollywood Reporter video.
     
    Joe Biden wandered off.

    Standing among the west’s major leaders in Italy last week, the US president turned away, seemingly in confusion, and had to be alerted back to the group to take a photo – at least, that’s what rightwing media showed.

    “WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?” the Republican National Committee’s research Twitter account wrote.


    In actuality, it was nothing strange at all. Biden had turned toward skydivers and given them a thumbs up, a broader view of the video showed.

    It happened again at a fundraiser with former president Barack Obama. Biden “appears to freeze up” on stage, the New York Post wrote, saying Obama had to lead Biden off the stage in the latest example of the president being “dazed or confused”.

    A zoomed-out video of the incident showed Biden waving and taking in the applause from the crowd after a lengthy discussion moderated by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

    For viewers of rightwing media or social media feeds tailored toward conservatives, these videos of Biden surface near-daily in an attempt to underscore one of the president’s key liabilities, his age.

    They’re often selectively edited to make Biden look, well, old. They kick off a series of headlines about how his age or senility is showing, then another series of headlines about how the videos are created to mislead.

    The videos, and the subsequent hand-wringing over them, show how bifurcated today’s political and social media ecosystems are. Few watch a full speech or a full newscast, instead getting a quick example of what they missed from an account they align with. Your view of a given event – of a speech by a president, or a campaign rally - is colored first, and often predominantly, by the way it’s presented by the people you follow.


    An NBC News editor referred to these video news cycles as a reflection of the online media ecosystem this election, calling them “a bizarre Rorschach test in which some people see one thing and most everyone else sees something else”.

    They also show that the looming threat of deepfakes – AI-generated content that makes people say or do things they haven’t actually done – doesn’t hold a candle to the much more common, and easier to create, cheap fakes – videos edited specifically to mislead.

    “This old-fashioned, sort of low-level kind of manipulation has been perfectly capable of misleading and manipulating people for quite a long time,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow for media and digital disinformation for the Alliance for Securing Democracy.……

    www.theguardian.com

    Videos of Biden looking lost are a viral political tactic: ‘low-level manipulation’

    The edited videos are often posted to question the US president’s mental fitness at 81
    www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
     
    MT15 said:
    They aren’t “deep fakes” as I understand the term, the word I have seen media use is “cheap fakes” because they use editing to paint a false picture.

    What I saw was two men with great affection for each other - one with his arm around the other’s shoulders walking off the stage. There was no “leading”. Obama touched his sleeve to get his attention, because it was probably too loud to hear.

    You call this leading?

    IMG_1441.jpeg

    You lose credibility with this, SFL. It’s patently ridiculous.
    Click to expand...
    You picked a picture that didn't show Obama grabbing Biden's hand to lead him off the stage.

    What do you think your picture proves?

    Here's the picture of when he grabbed his hand to tell him it was time to go.

    But people can watch the video and see that what you are claiming isn't true.

    1000005380.jpg



    Also:

     
    MT15 said:
    YES. Are you saying it does? That’s cringeworthy. He touches Biden’s sleeve to get his attention - it was loud. Then they walk off the stage together with the kind of contact that 2 old friends often have.

    I’m sorry you cannot discern friendship and affection when you see it.
    Click to expand...
    This is North Korea type propaganda. Anyone can watch the video and see clearly that the narrative that White House and you are talking about is 100% false.
     
    MT15 said:
    No she is not. She is referring to the selectively edited videos that RW media has been running. She does not specify the unedited Hollywood Reporter video.
    Click to expand...
    What edited videos by the RW? There isn't any need to edit the video because it clearly shows Obama grabbing Biden's arm.

    Can you post any edited videos from someone on the right?

    The only edited videos I've seen are people on the left who edited the video so the part where Obama grabs his arm isn't shown. Sort of like you posting that picture that was after Obama grabbed his arm.
     
    SaintForLife said:
    What edited videos by the RW? There isn't any need to edit the video because it clearly shows Obama grabbing Biden's arm.

    Can you post any edited videos from someone on the right?

    The only edited videos I've seen are people on the left who edited the video so the part where Obama grabs his arm isn't shown. Sort of like you posting that picture that was after Obama grabbed his arm.
    Click to expand...
    How do you get someone’s attention when it’s loud on stage? When there are people cheering and music playing? He grabbed his arm to get his attention and they then walked off the stage together. Just as I showed in the still. Obama wasn’t “leading” Biden, they were walking together.

    There were definitely edited videos by the RNC, which were picked up by NY Post, Fox and others. The most famous one was the one where they cut out the other paratroopers and tried to say Biden just aimlessly wandered over to an empty area without revealing he was watching two other paratroopers. That’s dishonest editing. If you cannot admit that, there’s no hope to have any sort of honest conversation with you, as much as I keep trying.

    You will not say a word about the completely crazy shirt Trump keeps saying - every time he talks he shows his lack of mental acuity, and complete lack of honesty. He lies every time he opens his mouth. And I saw a picture of Trump actually being led by the hand down a ramp to get to the podium just the other day. I don’t think it’s worth throwing a hissy fit over, he’s old and overweight and out of shape. He probably should be assisted when walking on a ramp.

    It’s Trump’s mental state everyone should be worried about. He has so many actually crazy ideas that he is totally unfit for office.
     
    SaintForLife said:
    Sort of like you posting that picture that was after Obama grabbed his arm.
    Click to expand...
    You said Obama “lead” Biden off the stage. That still photo from the video completely refutes that. They walked together. I’m not trying to show something that didn’t happen, you are the one making shirt up.
     
    Speaking of making things up, Trump likes to make up names. I just saw this and had to share, it’s too funny.

     
    SaintForLife said:
    Here's the picture of when he grabbed his hand to tell him it was time to go.
    Click to expand...
    1000005380.jpg


    The picture on why you have such a distorted view of actual events has become clearer.

    You can't even tell the difference between a hand and a wrist, so how you gonna tell the difference between fact and fiction.

    My sympathies for your struggles.
     

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