Treasury Yields Decline as Global Stock Markets Seek Direction
Treasury yields were slightly lower early in Europe after stabilizing in the previous session, after President Trump's tax bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Investor concerns about a ballooning budget deficit, however, remain.
The dollar continued to edge lower, while global stock markets were struggling for meaningful direction following a mixed close on Wall Street.
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San Francisco Chronicle
33 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How Senate Republicans want to change the tax breaks in Trump's big bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — House and Senate Republicans are taking slightly different approaches when it comes to the tax cuts that lawmakers are looking to include in their massive tax and spending cuts bill. Republicans in the two chambers don't agree on the size of a deduction for state and local taxes. And they are at odds on such things as allowing people to use their health savings accounts to help pay for their gym membership, or whether electric vehicle and hybrid owners should have to pay an annual fee. The House passed its version shortly before Memorial Day. Now the Senate is looking to pass its version. While the two bills are similar on the major tax provisions, how they work out their differences in the coming weeks will determine how quickly they can get a final product over the finish line. President Donald Trump is pushing to have the legislation on his desk by July 4th. Here's a look at some of the key differences between the two bills: Tax break for families The child tax credit currently stands at $2,000 per child. The House bill temporarily boosts the child tax credit to $2,500 for the 2025 through 2028 tax years, roughly the length of President Donald Trump's second term. It also indexes the credit amount for inflation beginning in 2027. The Senate bill provides a smaller, initial bump-up to $2,200, but the bump is permanent, with the credit amount indexed for inflation beginning next year. Trump campaign promises Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would seek to end income taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits. Also, he would give car buyers a new tax break by allowing them to deduct the interest paid on auto loans. The House and Senate bills incorporate those promises with temporary deductions lasting from the 2025 through 2028 tax years, but with some differences. The House bill creates a deduction on tips for those working in jobs that have customarily received tips. The House also provides for a deduction for overtime that's equal to the amount of OT a worker has earned. The Senate bill comes with more restrictions. The deduction for tips is limited to $25,000 per taxpayer and the deduction for overtime is limited to $12,500 per taxpayer. The House and Senate bills both provide a deduction of up to $10,000 for interest paid on loans for vehicles made in the United States. And on Social Security, the bills don't directly touch the program. Instead, they grant a larger tax deduction for Americans age 65 and older. The House sets the deduction at $4,000. The Senate sets it at $6,000. Both chambers include income limits over which the new deductions begin to phase out. More SALT The caps on state and local tax deductions, known in Washington as the SALT cap, now stand at $10,000. The House bill, in a bid to win over Republicans from New York, California and New Jersey, lifts the cap to $40,000 per household with incomes of less than $500,000. The credit phases down for households earning more than $500,000. The Senate bill keeps the cap at $10,000. That's a non-starter in the House, but Republicans in the two chambers will look to negotiate a final number over the coming weeks that both sides can accept. Medicaid providers The House bill prohibits states from establishing new provider taxes or increasing existing taxes. These are taxes that Medicaid providers, such as hospitals, pay to help states finance their share of Medicaid costs. In turn, the taxes allow states to receive increased federal matching funds while generally holding providers harmless through higher reimbursements that offset the taxes paid. Such taxes now are effectively capped at 6%. The Senate looks to gradually lower that threshold for states that have expanded their Medicaid populations under the Affordable Care Act, or 'Obamacare,' until it reaches 3.5% in 2031, with exceptions for nursing homes and intermediate care facilities. Industry groups have warned that limiting the ability of states to tax providers may lead to some states making significant cuts to their Medicaid programs as they make up for the lost revenue in other ways. The Medicaid provision could be a flashpoint in the coming House and Senate negotiations. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was highly critical of the proposed Senate changes. 'This needs a lot of work. It's really concerning and I'm really surprised by it,' he said. 'Rural hospitals are going to be in bad shape.' Tax breaks for business The House bill would allow companies for five years to fully deduct equipment purchases and domestic research and development expenses. The Senate bill includes no sunset, making the tax breaks permanent, which was a key priority of powerful trade groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Clean energy tax credits Republicans in both chambers are looking to scale back the clean energy tax credits enacted through then-President Joe Biden's climate law. It aimed to boost the nation's transition away from planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions toward renewable energy such as wind and solar power. Under the Senate bill, the tax credits for clean energy and home energy efficiency would still be phased out, but less quickly than under the House bill. Still, advocacy groups fear that the final measure will threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs and drive up household energy costs. Odds and ends The House bill would allow millions of Americans to use their health savings accounts to pay for gym memberships, with a cap of $500 for single taxpayers and $1,000 for joint filers. The Senate bill doesn't include such a provision. The House reinstates a charitable deduction for non-itemizers of $150 per taxpayer. The Senate bill increases that deduction for donations to $1,000 per taxpayer. Republicans in the House bill included a new annual fee of $250 for EV owners and $100 for hybrid owners that would be collected by state motor vehicle departments. The Senate bill excludes the proposed fees.
Forbes
35 minutes ago
- Forbes
New Jersey Anti-SLAPP Law Applies In Part In Federal Court In Paucek
The U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals are split on the application of Anti-SLAPP laws in the federal ... More courts. Chip Paucek had been the CEO of a company (U2, Inc.) which had failed under some negative circumstances. Paucek is now the CEO of a new company (Pro-Athlete Community, Inc. a/k/a "PAC") which provides educational and other support to professional athletes who have ceased playing. Paucek came to the attention of Dahn Shaulis, who is a blogger covering the education industry through his publication Higher Education Inquirer ("HEI"). After following Paucek's failure with U2, Shaulis then began to investigate and cover Paucek's new venture, PAC. Long story short, Shaulis made some unflattering comments about Paucek on social media. Paucek had his attorney send Shaulis a cease-and-desist letter which also called for Shaulis to retract the offending comments. Shaulis agreed to do so, but only on terms that were unacceptable to Paucek. The day after receiving Paucek's cease-and-desist letter, Shaulis then posted on social media that he had received the letter but that he stood by the statements therein based on a variety of information. Paucek then sued Shaulis in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Paucek alleged that Shaulis' social media posts were defamatory and that Shaulis had intentionally interfered with Paucek's prospective business relations. Shaulis responded by filing a motion to first determine if the New Jersey Uniform Public Expression Protection Act ("UPEPA") applied in federal court and which of several states' Anti-SLAPP laws should be applied to this controversy. The idea here was that the court would decide these threshold issues before Shaulis filed his UPEPA motion to dismiss (which had not yet been filed as of the time of this opinion). Shaulis also answered Paucek's complaint with a counterclaim under the UPEPA. All of this led to the opinion in Paucek v. Shaulis, 2025 WL 1298457 (D.N.J., May 6, 2025), that you can and should read for yourself here, and which we will next review. The first question addressed by the court was whether the New Jersey UPEPA would be recognized in federal court. The issue here is that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) already provide a means for the early dismissal of a case, which is by way of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. If a defendant attaches evidence to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, then that motion is converted to a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56. As I have often written, a special motion to dismiss or strike under the UPEPA is essentially an early summary judgment motion and akin to a "motion to dismiss on steroids". In fact, the UPEPA deliberately uses the summary judgment standard to test whether the plaintiff's complaint should be dismissed because that standard is well-understood by the courts and has already withstood constitutional challenges based on the plaintiff's right to a jury trial. So, the question becomes: if the Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss is already employed by the federal courts, then why substitute it with the UPEPA? The answer is twofold. First, in diversity of citizenship cases (as here), the federal courts will apply their own procedural rules but they are also required to apply the substantive rules of the state from where the action arises. This is known as the Erie doctrine, after a 1938 U.S. Supreme Court opinion of that name. But there is an important limitation, being that if the state substantive law "is in direct collision" with the federal procedure on some issue, then the federal procedure will govern that issue. Second, there are some differences between a Rule 12(b)(6) motion and a UPEPA special motion, mostly being the UPEPA special motion triggers a stay of discovery and the UPEPA automatically awards attorney fees to a defendant who successfully asserts a UPEPA special motion. A Rule 12(b)(6) motion does neither of these things. This is not the first time that a federal court has addressed whether the state law UPEPA should apply in the federal courts. In fact, throughout the nation, the state law UPEPA has been asserted in many federal court cases. The problem is that the federal courts have not all agree on the outcome, but rather there has been a split of opinion by the various federal circuits. The Fifth, Tenth, Eleventh and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals have held that Anti-SLAPP laws do not apply in federal court, while the 1st and 9th Circuits have held that they do. For its part, the Second Circuit has opinions going both ways, but with the latest opinions stating that Anti-SLAPP law do not apply in federal court. Obviously, the U.S. Supreme Court is eventually going to have to step in and resolve this split of decisions among the Circuits, but we're not there yet. The District of New Jersey, where this case was heard, sits in the 3rd Circuit which hasn't ruled yet on the issue. The court here declined to look at the issue as merely being one of whether an Anti-SLAPP law should apply in federal court or not. Rather, the court thought that the correct analysis was whether a particular Anti-SLAPP law (here, New Jersey's UPEPA) through its text and structure was in conflict with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This would be the analysis to be followed by the court. To this end, it was obvious to the court that some provisions of the UPEPA do indeed conflict with the FRPC. One example is that of the UPEPA mandating that a defendant who successfully brings a UPEPA special motion will be awarded attorney's fees. By contrast, the FRPC instead requires that before such attorney fees can be awarded, a successful party would have to prevail on either summary judgment or at trial. This means the defendant must prove that the plaintiff has no case, which is different than the UPEPA which requires the plaintiff to establish that he can make at least a prima facie case to avoid dismissal. Other conflicts of the UPEPA with the FRPC include an immediate appeal of right to the defendant if the UPEPA special motion is unsuccessful, and also the automatic stay of discovery upon the filing of a UPEPA special motion. So, there were conflicts between the UPEPA and the FRPC where their provisions collided. But that did not mean to the court that the entire UPEPA would be disallowed in federal court, but rather only that the conflicting provisions of the UPEPA would be surgically excised and in those places the federal rules would be substituted in their stead. This is known as "severability" and it is essentially the same process as where the illegal provisions of a contract are cut out but the surviving operating provisions will be enforced. This is the approach that has been followed by the Second and Ninth Circuits, which allows a court to enforce the state Anti-SLAPP procedures where they do not conflict with the federal rules, but replace those procedures with the corresponding federal rule where they do conflict. Now the court returned to the Erie doctrine which, it will be recalled, requires a federal court sitting in diversity jurisdiction to apply state substantive law but federal procedural law. Thus, it would only be the procedural parts of a state's Anti-SLAPP laws, including the UPEPA, that would be replaced by the federal rules. The substantive parts of the state's Anti-SLAPP laws would survive and be utilized under the Erie doctrine. This brought the court to one of the questions before it: Was the UPEPA's mandatory award of fees to a defendant who successfully asserted a UPEPA special motion to be considered substantive or procedural in nature? Under the Erie doctrine, a fee-shifting provision is typically considered to be substantive in nature because it is tied to the outcome of the litigation (a procedural rule is not). But there are times when a fee-shifting provision would be procedural, such as when such fees are awarded because of a party's bad faith conduct ― but that is not tied to the outcome of the litigation. Because the UPEPA's mandatory fee award is tied to the outcome, since it can only be awarded if the defendant prevails on the UPEPA special motion, the court held that the UPEPA fee-shifting provision is substantive and not procedural. But the UPEPA in fact has two fee-shifting provisions. As mentioned, the first provision awards attorney fees to a defendant who wins on the UPEPA special motion. This is different than the second provision, by which a court has the discretion to award attorney fees to the plaintiff and against the defendant if the defendant filed the UPEPA special motion in bad faith or for purposes of delay. This latter provision is not tied to the outcome of the case, since the case continues if the defendant loses the UPEPA special motion, and thus is procedural in nature. The upshot to this is that if the defendant wins the UPEPA special motion, then the mandatory fee award in favor of the defendant is substantive and determined by state law. However, if the defendant loses the special motion then the issue of whether fees can be awarded against the defendant would be procedural in nature and determined if at all by the FRCP. The court also noted another factor in determining the UPEPA's mandatory fee award to be substantive: One of the purposes of that mandatory fee award is to deter the filing of abusive litigation. Disposing of a minor issue, the court also held that UPEPA relief is only obtainable through the filing of a UPEPA special motion and not by way of a counterclaim. The balance of the opinion deals with a conflict of law issue; namely, which state's Anti-SLAPP law would apply. The court ultimately concludes that the New Jersey UPEPA applies, and although the court's discussion of the issue is quite interesting, it is beyond the scope of this article. ANALYSIS Anti-SLAPP laws such as the UPEPA are indeed a mix of substantive and procedural law ― they are not purely one or the other. It therefore makes sense for the federal courts in applying the Erie doctrine to apply the substantive portions but reject the procedural ones. This may be the best that we get until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves the split between circuits (and that could go either way) or Congress adopts a federal Anti-SLAPP law (which is regularly introduced, but never seems to go anywhere). But in the words of the Rolling Stones: "You can't always get what you want. You get what you need."
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Few Stocks Match Coca-Cola's Dividend Stability
The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) is among the best dividend stocks for a bear market. The company has paid a dividend since 1920 and has raised its annual payout for 63 consecutive years, a streak topped by only a few publicly traded companies. A row of factory workers assembling bottles of sparkling soft drinks on a conveyor belt. The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) operates in a space that offers rare stability, even when the economy takes a hit. Its strength lies in two key factors: consistent demand and the ability to raise prices without losing customers. As a provider of consumer staples, the company benefits from steady demand even during economic downturns. While it isn't immune to challenges, its core operations tend to hold up well when the broader market struggles. In addition, when sales volume dips, Coca-Cola can often raise prices without losing customers. This resilience is reflected in its valuation, both its price-to-sales and price-to-earnings ratios are above their five-year averages. Given its strong fundamentals and track record, The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) is well-positioned to continue increasing its dividend in the years ahead. The company's five-year average payout ratio is around 80%, and given its solid cash generation, investors expect growing dividends in the coming years as well. The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) offers a dividend yield of 2.88%, as of June 17. While we acknowledge the potential of KO as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure. None.
