President Donald Trump is expected to sign the tax bill, his first major legislative achievement and the biggest rewrite of the US tax code in a generation, in the coming days.
The bill slashes taxes for corporations and the wealthy, while offering mixed, temporary relief to working people.
However, Democrats have labeled the GOP tax bill “government for sale” as Congress sent the historic measure to the president’s desk.
Prominent Democrat Elizabeth Warren said: “It’s a heist.”
Meanwhile, President Trump, hosting Republican leaders at the White House, said: “We are making America great again.”
The president thanked congressional leaders for pushing through what he called “the largest tax cut in the history of our country”.
House Speaker Paul Ryan praised Donald Trump’s “exquisite presidential leadership” for the success of the bill.
Earlier, in a statement, President Trump said: “I promised the American people a big, beautiful tax cut for Christmas. With final passage of this legislation, that is exactly what they are getting.”
Image source Public Domain Pictures
Because of a procedural glitch, the bill had to be voted on for a second time in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. The bill passed 224 to 201 on December 20.
Democrats say that error was caused by Republicans rushing the most sweeping overhaul of the tax system since 1986 through Congress.
In an often secretive process, no public hearings were held and multiple last-minute amendments that were pushed by lobbyists cropped up in the final version.
President Trump tweeted: “The Tax Cuts are so large and so meaningful, and yet the Fake News is working overtime to follow the lead of their friends, the defeated Dems, and only demean. This is truly a case where the results will speak for themselves, starting very soon. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!”
The unpopular bill is likely to be a major issue during the 2018 mid-term congressional elections.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 52% of adults said they opposed the tax plan, while only 27% supported it.
Non-partisan analysts say the greatest beneficiaries of the package will be the super-wealthy, multinational corporations and the commercial property industry.
In the immediate future, the plan will see the vast majority of taxpayers having lower tax bills, but those cuts expire in 2025.
By 2027, the Tax Policy Center estimates the overall change would be negligible.
And 53% of taxpayers would face higher bills, many of them in the lower income brackets.
The tax bill is projected to add $1.5trillion over the next decade to the $20 trillion US debt, which President Trump promised last year he would eliminate.
However, Republicans argue it will boost economic growth.
The legislation reaches beyond fiscal matters to tick off a wish list of conservative priorities.
It strikes a serious blow to ObamaCare, scrapping the fine levied on Americans who do not buy health insurance.
The Congressional Budget Office says this will increase premiums for people who have medical coverage.
The bill also opens Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, a major defeat for environmentalists.
Giorgio Armani fashion house has paid 270 million euros ($374 million) to the Italian authorities to settle a tax bill.
An Armani spokesman confirmed reports that the payment concerned the group’s subsidiaries abroad but declined to comment further.
Giorgio Armani fashion house has paid 270 million euros to the Italian authorities to settle a tax bill
Last year the designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were convicted of concealing millions of euros in tax.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have appealed against a 20-month jail sentence.
All tax claims against Armani, which saw sales rise to more than 2 billion euros in 2012 according to Reuters news agency, are now closed, the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reports.
William H. Millard , former ComputerLand CEO was one of the world’s most-wanted tax exiles and allegedly totalled astonishing unpaid tax bills of more than $100 million for over 20 years.
William H. Millard, the 79 year-old founder of retail chain ComputerLand, was last seen by tax authorities on the remote Pacific island of Saipan in 1990.
Despite vanishing soon after selling his company, Millard has now been tracked down to the Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean, court papers said.
William H. Millard was one of the world’s most-wanted tax exiles and totalled unpaid tax bills of more than $100 million for over 20 years
The astonishing news about the man once listed as one of the US richest men was revealed by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.
The U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which includes Saipan, is now using a law firm and investigators’ help to get the money.
William H. Millard is linked to a vast network of more than 50 shell companies, trusts and bank accounts, according to Wall Street Journal.
“This is one of the most sophisticated and complicated cases of offshore asset structuring that we have ever seen,” Michael Kim, prosecuting, said.
“Last Christmas an investigator spotted their target at dinner with one of his daughters in Florida,” Mariana government officials said.
William H. Millard has not yet commented, but his former attorney Terry Giles said it was “ludicrous and insulting” to suggest he was hiding.
College dropout William H. Millard was a 1970s technology pioneer in California and he turned ComputerLand into a huge PC retail chain.
The retail chain had around 800 stores and his stake in the company was valued at $1 billion at one point, reported the Wall Street Journal.
William H. Millard was known for his lavish spending, private jets and working 18-hour days whilst eating peanut-butter sandwiches.
William H. Millard left ComputerLand, having a fallout with franchisees and management, and soon moved with his family to Saipan.
Former ComputerLand CEO sold his remaining shares in 1987 and the family left Saipan, where William H. Millard had half-built a turreted castle on the coastline, in 1990.
The commonwealth got a tax judgment against William H. Millard and his wife for $36 million in court in 1994, according to Wall Street Journal.
Commonwealth authorities then picked up traces of his movements in Singapore, Ireland, Brussels, Hong Kong and the Caymans.
Then the commonwealth hired New York law firm Kobre & Kim and a private investigator tracked William F. Millard’s daughter’s home to Orlando, Florida, in December.
The private investigator soon spotted William H. Millard talking a walk outside and they tracked him to the Grand Cayman Island, lawyers said.
“I hope he will do the right thing and pay his debts,” Michael Kim told the Wall Street Journal. “But most people do not let go of $100 million easily.”
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