Business

Supreme Court upholds a tax on corporate wealth held overseas

Published

6 days ago

June 21, 2024

Supreme Court upholds a tax on corporate wealth held overseas

WASHINGTON —

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to put new limits on Congress’ power to tax wealth that is not paid out in annual dividends.

In a setback for anti-tax conservatives, the justices upheld a provision of a 2017 tax law that imposed a one-time levy on the profits of foreign corporations whose shares were owned by Americans.

In a 7-2 decision, the justices said Congress has the power to tax corporate shareholders based on the company’s “undistributed income.”

“This court has long upheld taxes of that kind, and we do the same today,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh for the court.

The case came to the court as a test of whether the conservative majority would put constitutional limits on “wealth taxes.”
Instead, the justices upheld an income tax that is not based on annual dividends.

While the decision upheld a Trump-era tax, progressives and tax experts cheered the ruling.

“Today’s decision will allow Congress to continue to exercise its power to tax income to fund the government and to make sure that all taxpayers — including multinational corporations and wealthy taxpayers — pay their fair share,” said Chye-Ching Huang, executive director of the Tax Law Center at NYU Law.

Alexandra Thornton of the Center for American Progress said the ruling “means that wealthy people attempting to avoid taxes by offshoring their money have to pay their fair share, just like every other American. The court’s decision avoids an outcome that would have thrown the American tax system into disarray and put at risk other forms of taxation that raise billions of dollars in revenue.”

Some noted that the ruling was limited to an unusual tax provision.

“The court makes clear it is not opening the door to a wealth tax, which would still face constitutional problems as a tax on property,” said Joe Bishop-Henchman of the National Taxpayers Union.

Thursday’s decision did not resolve a persistent dispute over whether the Constitution’s approval of income taxes includes taxing shares of corporate stock, or instead is limited to “realized” gains, such as wages, stock sales and stock dividends.

“So the precise and narrow question that the court addresses today is whether Congress may attribute an entity’s realized and undistributed income to the entity’s shareholders or partners, and then tax the shareholders or partners on their portions of that income,” Kavanaugh wrote for the majority. “This court’s longstanding precedents, reflected in and reinforced by Congress’s longstanding practice, establish that the answer is yes.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.

Thomas wrote that the 16th Amendment says income is “only income realized by the taxpayer. The text and history of the amendment make clear that it requires a distinction between ‘income’ and the ‘source’ from which that income is ‘derived.’ And, the only way to draw such a distinction is with a realization requirement.”

Some conservatives fear that a future Congress led by progressive Democrats would impose taxes on accumulated wealth.

They urged the court to hear the case of Moore vs. United States and to rule that Congress may not impose a tax on “property or wealth.”

At issue in the case was the meaning of the 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913. It says Congress has the power to “lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.”

A few years later, the Supreme Court said corporate shares held by taxpayers could not be taxed as income unless they were “realized or received” as income. That decision was generally understood to mean that the government may impose taxes on wages or stock dividends, but not necessarily on property or corporate wealth that grows in value. These are referred to as “unrealized gains.”

But many constitutional scholars and tax experts had questioned that interpretation of the 16th Amendment. And in recent decades, Congress has imposed taxes on individuals who are earning income in partnerships and have ownership shares in some corporations, even if dividends are not paid out each year.

The case of Charles and Kathleen Moore began when they received a $14,729 tax bill for their ownership shares of a company based in India.

The Moores, who are retired and live in Washington state, said they received no income or dividends from their investment in the company, which supplies equipment to small farmers. They sued, alleging the tax was unconstitutional under the 16th Amendment.

But a federal judge and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with them and upheld part of the 2017 tax bill passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Trump. It imposed a one-time tax on Americans who owned shares in foreign corporations that gained in value. The tax measure included large tax breaks for the wealthy, but to offset those losses in tax revenue, lawmakers sought to recoup some profits that Americans held abroad.

With the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, the Moores petitioned the court with the help of Washington attorney David B. Rivkin and urged the justices to strike down the tax on overseas profits.

Some had called for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to recuse himself from the matter.

Rivkin who helped write the appeal petition, interviewed Alito for two articles that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last year.

“There was no valid reason for my recusal in this case,” Alito wrote in response in September. “When Mr. Rivkin participated in the interviews and co-authored the articles, he did so as a journalist, not an advocate. The case in which he is involved was never mentioned; nor did we discuss any issue in that case either directly or indirectly.”

Alito concurred in the outcome Thursday.

Business

Supreme Court upsets $10-billion opioid settlement because it shields the Sacklers

Published

4 hours ago

June 27, 2024

Press Room

Supreme Court upsets $10-billion opioid settlement because it shields the Sacklers

WASHINGTON —

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a mass settlement related to the nation’s opioid crisis that would have paid an estimated $10 billion to victims, hospitals, states and others, and shielded the Sackler family from further liability.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled that a bankruptcy judge does not have broad power to arrange a mass settlement of thousands of claims that includes protections for people who are not bankrupt.

The justices were split in an unusual way. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch spoke for the majority, while Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh dissented.

“We hold only that the bankruptcy code does not authorize a release and injunction that, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11, effectively seeks to discharge claims against a nondebtor without the consent of affected claimants,” Gorsuch said.

“Today’s decision is wrong on the law and devastating for more than 100,000 opioid victims and their families,” Kavanaugh said in dissent. “The court’s decision rewrites the text of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and restricts the long-established authority of bankruptcy courts to fashion fair and equitable relief for mass-tort victims.”

The Sacklers, owners of the Purdue Pharma company, had denied wrongdoing but agreed to contribute $6 billion to the settlement fund if they would be protected from future lawsuits.

The case has been closely followed not just because of the opioid settlement but also because of the use of bankruptcy laws to settle other mass lawsuits involving the Boy Scouts of America and some Catholic dioceses.

Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy in 2019 facing thousands of lawsuits alleging its marketing of OxyContin as a nonaddictive pain relief pill had triggered an opioid epidemic that led to more than a half-million deaths since the mid-1990s. In the decade prior to the bankruptcy, the company had distributed about $11 billion to members of the Sackler family and their offshore accounts.

Their lawyers maintained that more than half of this amount was paid in taxes.

But the scale of the damage and the liability for OxyContin was extraordinary. A bankruptcy court later put a hold on new lawsuits, while the pending claims against Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers were estimated to seek in total more than $40 trillion.

A coalition of creditors, including victims, hospitals, local and state governments and tribal nations, negotiated a settlement that was that expected to pay out about $10 billion. Most of the funding — about $6 billion — came from the Sacklers.

In 2021, a bankruptcy judge approved the settlement and described it as the “only reasonably conceivable” way to fairly resolve the mass of lawsuits. Without the money from the Sacklers, he said the company would be liquidated, leaving most of the creditors with nothing.

While more than 95% of the creditors said they approved the deal, including all 50 states, the Biden administration’s bankruptcy trustee opposed it. He did so because the settlement shielded the Sacklers from any further or future liability.

In Harrington vs. Purdue Pharma, the trustee argued that the Sacklers were not bankrupt and therefore, cannot take advantage of the shield provided by a bankruptcy settlement.

Last year, the Supreme Court put the settlement on hold to consider that argument.

Business

Inflation’s Wild Ride

Published

10 hours ago

June 27, 2024

Press Room

“The signal that we’re taking is that it’s likely to take longer for us to gain confidence that we are on a sustainable path down to 2 percent inflation,” Mr. Powell said in May, after price increases had stalled for months. Inflation has recently cooled again, and policymakers are waiting to see if the trend lasts.

The question now is just how much continued progress on lowering inflation Fed officials will need to see to feel comfortable lowering interest rates.

Investors still think it is possible that the central bank will cut rates in September, based on market pricing. Fed officials themselves predicted one reduction this year and four in 2025, as of their June economic forecasts.

For politicians, that means that the November election will almost certainly happen against a backdrop of high interest rates that are making car leases, credit card borrowing and new mortgages pricey for consumers.

After years of elevated inflation, Americans are also still seeing much higher price levels at the grocery store, on car repair bills and at hotels than before the pandemic.

Price increases have slowed, but getting used to new price levels could take time for consumers.

Business

Irvine-based EV maker Rivian gets $5-billion lifeline from Volkswagen

Published

11 hours ago

June 27, 2024

Press Room

Irvine-based EV maker Rivian gets $5-billion lifeline from Volkswagen

Irvine-based Rivian Automotive got a big financial boost on Tuesday, as Volkswagen agreed to invest up to $5 billion in a joint venture with the struggling manufacturer of electric trucks.

Under a partnership announced by the companies, the German automaker will provide $1 billion initially and as much as $4 billion more over time.

The infusion will give VW the ability to tap the company’s technology to develop “next generation” battery-powered vehicles and software.

The surprise investment comes during a tough time for the electric vehicle market, which has posed economic headwinds for Rivian and other EV makers.

With their sleek design, Rivian trucks and sport utility vehicles initially drew plenty of interest among investors, fueling a massively successful initial public offering of stock in 2021; the company ended its first day of trading valued at nearly $88 billion. Amazon.com is Rivian’s largest shareholder.

But analysts said some car buyers were put off by the high price of Rivian’s latest offering of vehicles — the company’s R1T electric pickup truck starts at nearly $70,000, while its R1S SUV starts at almost $75,000.

Rivian reported a net loss of $1.52 billion for the three-month period that ended Dec. 31, compared with $1.72 billion during the same period a year earlier.

Signs of stress mounted. In March, Rivian postponed plans to build a new $5-billion manufacturing plant in Georgia to save money amid heavy losses.

A month earlier, Rivian announced a 10% cut to its workforce and lower production expectations.

Last week another local EV manufacturer — Fisker Group Inc. of Manhattan Beach — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after it failed to secure financing from undisclosed automakers.

Early this year, Apple pulled the plug on its self-driving electric vehicle program, reportedly after spending $10 billion over a decade.

And Lucid Motors, a maker of luxury electric vehicles in the Bay Area city of Newark, received a $1-billion infusion last month from an affiliate of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund — the kind of big backer that Fisker didn’t have.

Rivian’s shares, which were pummeled earlier this year, jumped 30% in extended trading on Tuesday. The shares closed at $11.96.

Tesla Inc., the biggest player in the business, also has been squeezed by weak sales and declining profits. The company said in April that it would lay off more than 10% of its workforce.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.