Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 1

Struggling Americans that have been affected by the coronavirus have been patiently waiting for the second coronavirus stimulus package for several weeks now. Unfortunately, discussions between lawmakers completely collapsed.

As a result of the negotiations failing, President Trump has ushered in executive orders that will assist struggling Americans, but have since come under question by economists. Republicans and Democrats couldn't agree on the total price tag of the second coronavirus stimulus package, as the Democrats proposed a $3.4 trillion bill back in May, and last month Republicans introduced their own with a price tag of $1 trillion.

The total price has yet to be agreed on, and now negotiations seem somewhat dead in the water. White House officials are saying that the President's executive orders issued out over the weekend have bought time, while also giving the administration the upper hand argumentatively, as they claim that they are the ones who have provided relief to Americans while Democrats have failed to act.

Amazon caused the great retail decline, and now it may go full circle to resurrect the very malls it helped killed.

Amazon may buy up all defunct Sears and JC Penney stores and transform them into fulfillment centers. Sources tell The Wall Street Journal that Amazon is in talks with Simon Malls, the largest US mall operator in the United States, to utilize the empty stores for its massively-growing delivery business.

Before both companies closed down a majority of stores, JC Penney and Sears were cornerstones to pretty much every mall in America. Now these empty buildings are eyesores that don't generate revenue. Amazon centers could revitalize revenue for Simon Malls and solve one of Amazon's biggest problems.

Over the weekend, President Trump signed an executive order that extended economic relief for Americans after lawmakers couldn't reach an agreement on the coming stimulus package.

So, what did these new executive orders change? In a recent article from Forbes, it's explained that the new orders include an extension on the enhanced unemployment benefits through to the end of the year at a rate of $400 per week. Trump also signed in a Payroll Tax Holiday that will start on September 1st and go through until the end of the year. Additionally, Trump said that the holiday might be retroactive to August 1st.

So what is a Payroll Tax Holiday? American workers earning less than $100,000 a year will be eligible for the Payroll Tax Holiday, which reduces the amount of tax taken out of workers' paychecks to fund Social Security and Medicare. Tax cuts require Congressional approval, but Trump does have the option of using emergency powers to delay tax collection. The executive order also adds an extension to the Federal Eviction Moratorium, which expired last week.

Many Americans are patiently awaiting the coming second coronavirus stimulus check, but now we are hearing that some people have already received it.

According to a recent article from Forbes, some Americans are seeing a second coronavirus stimulus check arriving in their bank accounts this week. So, why has this happened? According to the first stimulus check under the Cares Act signed into law back in March, eligible Americans who earned less than $75,000 a year and joint filers who earned less than $150,000 a year received $1,200 or $2,400, respectively.

Additionally, those people who have dependents aged 16 years or younger received $500 per dependent. Unfortunately, some people saw an extreme underpayment in the first round of stimulus checks, and now the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is getting around to fixing that problem. So, how did this happen? Americans that qualified for the stimulus check, but weren't required to file a tax return and also used the IRS Non-Filers: Enter Payment Info Here Tool to enter their information before May 17 could have encountered a programming error.

If you happened to miss the news, over the weekend, President Trump signed in a new executive order aimed at providing relief for Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

This past Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi commented on the executive order signed in by President Trump, saying to CNN that they're "unconstitutional slop". The signing happened on Saturday after both Republicans and Democrats couldn't reach an agreement on the second stimulus bill.

Pelosi spoke to CNN's Dana Bash, saying, "Well, the fact is, is that whether they're legal or not takes time to figure out. I associate my remarks with what the Senator (Ben) Sasse, who says, they're 'unconstitutional slop.' Right now, we want to address the needs of the American people. As my constitutional advisers tell me, they're absurdly unconstitutional." So, what does this mean for the second coronavirus stimulus check?

Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced a new tax bill that would tax the top billionaires on the wealth they made during the coronavirus pandemic.

The new tax bill is called "Make Billionaires Pay Act", and would impose a one-time 60% tax on the wealth generated by the billionaires between March 18, 2020, and January 1, 2021. The tax bill's goal would be to redirect the taxed funds to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare expenses for all Americans for a year.

Under this new bill proposed by Sanders, top tech leaders and other billionaires that fall into the 0.001% category would be forced to hand over $731 billion in wealth accumulated by 467 billionaires since March 18. Companies such as Amazon and Walmart have seen their stocks grow significantly throughout the pandemic, as more Americans are relying on stay-at-home orders. Sanders wants to redirect a portion of those generated funds back into the American healthcare system.

The entire TikTok mess right now is taking over headlines, with Microsoft reportedly buying the entire global operations of TikTok and not just the US portion -- but now things just got more serious.

President Trump has just signed a new executive order that gives just 45 days for both TikTok and WeChat, and their respective Chinese-owned parent companies from operating in the US and doing business with American companies, if they're not sold.

In his letter to Congress, President Trump explains: "Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users -- threatens to allow the CCP access to Americans' personal and proprietary information".

The last week has been an interesting one for both Microsoft and TikTok, with the Trump administration and China thrown into the mix over rumors that the Windows giant was going to acquire the TikTok's US business.

But now we have new reports from the Financtial Times that says they've had sources tell them Microsoft is reportedly mulling a complete buyout of TikTok's entire global business from ByteDance. ByteDance is based in China, and has the Trump administration keeping a close eye over the deal.

The Financial Times reports that this deal would reportedly not include ByteDance's sister Chinese app, Douyin. One of the roadblocks of this huge acquisition of TikTok is that Microsoft is looking into whether it is able to add regions like India and Europe into the deal.

On Wednesday, the United States government announced that it would be investing $1 billion into a new coronavirus vaccine being developed.

The vaccine is being developed by Johnson & Johnson, and according to the announcement, the $1 billion dollar investment guarantees 100 million doses. Johnson & Johnson's subsidiary company Janssen has already received $456 million in March, and this new investment by the US government will allow the company to increase its production, so doses are ready for shipping when the vaccine gets regulatory approval.

This new deal has raised President Trump administration's investment in vaccine agreements to $9.4 billion. One of the coronavirus vaccines that are in the final stage of human trials (Phase 3) is from Moderna, and according to top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci, "somewhere towards the end of the year, the beginning of 2021, we will know whether they have a safe and effective vaccine." If you are interested in any more information about this topic, check out this link here.