Latest news with #tax
Fox News
4 hours ago
- Business
- Fox News
Hawaii Passes a Climate Change Tax on Visitors
This state becomes the first to introduce a climate change tax on visitors and hint, it's actually not California! I'm Tomi Lahren, more next. Despite blue states generally being the most geographically beautiful in the country, their taxes, regulations, woke policies and deranged populations make them less appealing than perhaps they ought to be. Here's another example of just that, Hawaii became the first state in the nation to introduce a 'climate change tax' on visitors. Their Democrat governor signed the so-called 'green fee' into law this week which will be slapped on tourists in an effort to make THEM pay for their 'fair share' of the carbon footprint. The fee will begin next January and will consist of a .75% tax on visitors staying at hotels and vacation rentals. Hmm.. penalizing tourists doesn't seem like the best way to attract them, especially as you essentially blame them for ruining your state. But this idea got me thinking, perhaps we should start slapping a Liberal tax on all the folks who visit or move to our great red cities and states and then proceed to RUIN THEM! Now THAT I could get behind. I'm Tomi Lahren and you watch my show 'Tomi Lahren is Fearless' at Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Germany Considers 10% Digital Tax On Tech Giants Alphabet, Meta: Report
In a move that could escalate trade tensions with the U.S., Germany is reportedly contemplating imposing a 10% tax on major online platforms, including Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META). What Happened: Wolfram Weimer, the new German Minister of State for Culture, disclosed this proposal in an interview with Stern magazine. This revelation comes before Chancellor Friedrich Merz's anticipated visit to Washington, although no official confirmation has been provided yet, reported Reuters. Trending: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — President Donald Trump has previously expressed his disapproval of foreign governments taxing American companies, pledging not to let them 'appropriate America's tax base for their own benefit.' Weimer accused big online platforms like Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. of 'cunning tax evasion.' He suggested that these companies, which generate billions in profits in Germany, contribute minimally to the country's tax base and society. Weimer also criticized the monopolistic tendencies of these digital platforms, arguing that they pose a threat to freedom of It Matters: This proposal comes amid growing international scrutiny of tech giants. The Trump administration has been critical of Europe's digital regulations, asserting that they pose a risk to free speech and American commercial interests. Furthermore, in April, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that the EU is preparing retaliatory measures that could include levies on digital advertising revenues from U.S. tech companies like Meta and Alphabet Inc. This was followed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging President Trump to respond aggressively to these threats. If the German government proceeds with this tax, it would join Britain, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, India, Austria, and Canada, which have imposed similar taxes on digital service providers. The shares of Alphabet fell 0.24% to close at $172.96 on Thursday, meanwhile Meta rose 0.23% to $645.05. Read Next: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — Invest before it's too late. Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – Many are rushing to grab 4,000 of its pre-IPO shares for just $0.30/share! Photo courtesy: JHVEPhoto / Send To MSN: Send to MSN Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Germany Considers 10% Digital Tax On Tech Giants Alphabet, Meta: Report originally appeared on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Insane amount of money baby boomer has in his self-managed superannuation fund - and how he did it
A software billionaire has a breathtaking $1.7billion in his superannuation fund - and he's set to be one of those hit hardest by Labor's new super tax. Charles Gibbon, 76, a director of software developer WiseTech, could be as one of Australia's most enthusiastic investors in self-managed super. His family's Fabemu No. 2 self-managed super fund has 15,594,630 shares in WiseTech - but will be thumped by Labor's new tax if it becomes law on July 1. If his stock rises 10 per cent during the next financial year, taking its price to $119.65, the value of the super fund would increase from $1.696billion to $1.866billion. Labor plan to bring in a new 15 per cent tax on unrealised gains - based on purely notional profits, not real ones - in super accounts with balances above $3million That $169.67million increase in value in Mr Gibbon's super fund would land him a tax bill of $25.4million just on those notional him selling a single share. The reclusive entrepreneur, originally from New Zealand 's South Island, has been a WiseTech board member since 2006. He made his eye-watering $2billion fortune as an early investor in WiseTech, founded in 1994. During the early days of the internet, the company started writing code for the freight industry. It is now the 21st biggest firm on the Australian Securities Exchange and a world leader in supply chain software. Mr Gibbon was instrumental in the success of the $36billion firm and stood by embattled WiseTech founder Richard White when others directors quit in February, following a string of revelations and allegations about White's lovelife. He splits his time between Sydney's eastern suburbs, where he lives in a Woollahra mansion with his wife Claire, and the NSW South Coast, where he has a six-hectare weekender at Bellawongarah, near Berry, and beachfront land at Gerringong. He grew up in Invercargill before studying a Bachelor of Science majoring in pure maths at the University of Otago and becoming a London-based stock analyst. Despite his wealth, he shuns the spotlight and rarely makes an appearance on Australia's glamorous social circuit for the well-heeled wealthy. Mr Gibbon joined The Australian Financial Review's elite billionaire Rich List in 2022 after his company's share price surged from $11.80 in March 2020 to $55.95. As of Thursday, WiseTech's share price had climbed to $108.77 - almost doubling in just three years despite some hiccups earlier this year during boardroom turmoil. The share price has catapaulted his super fund portfolio through the billion-dollar mark - and left him in the crosshairs for Labor's new super tax, which is aimed at the super rich. But experts warn the tax could have unintended consequences and punish budding start up companies before they have a chance to flourish like WiseTech did. Tax planning accountant Ben Johnston, a director of Johnston Advisory, predicts that tech start-ups would be worse off if the the new law comes into force on July 1. Wealthy self-managed super funds may be forced to sell-off assets to avoid paying the new tax on the notional unrealised gains, hampering the growth of young firms 'They rely on those big backers to have their investment in there to see them through the start-up phase,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'If they start cashing out of them in response, to free up liquidity within their SMSF, that will potentially be an issue for start-ups.' Tax office data showed that of the start-ups with more than $50million in assets, 23.2 per cent invested in listed shares on the Australian Securities Exchange while 7.5 per cent had investments in unlisted entities, which can include start-ups that aren't on the share market. Australia was home to 616,941 self-managed super funds at the end of June last year. They had 1.142million members with multiple people allowed to be members. The Greens want the threshold reduced to $2million but indexed for inflation. Labor is proposing a $3million threshold that isn't indexed for inflation. Overall earning taxes would double to 30 per cent above this threshold, which includes the new 15 per cent tax on unrealised gains, based on the change in a total superannuation balance. The total headline tax take includes a 15 per cent tax on earnings over a financial year, including income from a self-managed super fund investment like a house that is being rented out, proceeds from an asset sale or appreciation in the value of an asset. Earnings would only be taxed at the accumulation but not the retirement phase of super when someone can access their superannuation at 60. The re-elected federal government now only needs the Greens to get its legislation through the Senate. But until that occurred, Mr Johnston said it was hard to give advice to clients about whether they had to sell high-performing assets to avoid Labor's proposed new tax. 'I'm just telling them to review their liquidity first and foremost because a lot of it's crystal ball,' he said. 'The problem with this too is the uncertainty - it's hard to truly respond to it because the taxes on the unrealised gain. 'If you're going to take really fundamental action around it, not knowing on what gain you may make; again you're assuming you are going to make a gain in the first place. 'To then go and sell property or shares in potentially profitable companies just for the sake of a potential tax problem down the track, it's also a big call and not necessarily the right one.' The problem would be more pronounced in self-managed super funds that have a higher concentration of assets like farms that were lucrative but harder to sell to have cash to pay a tax bill. 'If you've got a self-managed super fund with $10million in say real estate or in rural property or land or whatever, and you've got very limited cash reserves, you've got a real problem then,' Mr Johnston said. After new senators take their seats in July, Labor could pass the Treasury Laws Amendment (Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures) Bill in 2023 after that date, with support from 11 Greens senators, and backdate it to July 1. Labor would no longer need the support of moderate, left-leaning crossbenchers like Jacqui Lambie or David Pocock, who have expressed concerns about taxing unrealised gains. Fabemu sold 1.5million shares for $200million in early December.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Australian Labor considers new tax measures affecting many citizens
A Labor MP has issued a call for a new tax on sugary drinks such as Coke, fruit juices and sports drinks - a year after a controversial national inquiry into the diabetes epidemic recommended the levy. Dr Mike Freelander, MP for the federal seat of Macarthur on Sydney's south-western edge, told Daily Mail Australia this week that he supports a levy on sugar-sweetened beverages. Dr Freelander, a medically-trained doctor, called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to support a proposal, pushed by a parliamentary inquiry he chaired, to force beverage producers to make healthier drinks. The 20 per cent tax would also raise an additional $1.4billion of government revenue over four years - coming at a time where tobacco excise collection dropped almost $5billion this financial year. 'The levy is a way to encourage manufacturers to reduce sugar content in their products and there is increasing global evidence of the benefits on community health and wellbeing,' said Dr Freelander, a backbencher. Sugar-sweetened beverages are defined as water-based drinks with added caloric sweeteners such as sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, or fruit juice concentrate. The tax would include soft drinks, sports drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks, cordials and drinks made with added fruit juice concentrate. A number of Coalition members of the diabetes inquiry committee opposed the introduction of a levy in the final report. Deputy chair of the committee Julian Leeser (pictured), Liberal MP for Berowra, said the tax would disproportionately fall upon Australia's lowest earners. 'People are doing it tough and struggling to pay bills and put food on the table,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald last year. 'There's also a real issue about whether a sugar tax would change behaviour.' Dr Freelander's (pictured)comments come as a new study showed public support for a sugar tax. The study was published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health on Wednesday and led by professor Caroline Miller, president of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA). More than half (56 per cent) of the study's 1800 respondents supported a health levy tax on sugary drinks in line earlier research from 2017. Dr Miller said sugary drinks were a significant contributor to obesity - a disease which has overtaken cancer as the leading cause of Australia's preventable disease burden. She said Australia is facing a serious public health issue, one that warrants a policy approach defined by 'strong leadership'. Critics of the sugar tax claim dietary choices should be left to the individual and that lower-earning Australians would be hardest hit by the levy. The Australian Beverages Council has led the opposition against the sugary drinks tax - claiming declining consumption rates suggested something else was to blame. 'The tax is a misguided attempt to address a complex problem like obesity that lacks real world evidence it has any discernible impact on weight,' Geoff Parker, chief executive of the Council said in a statement last year. 'Consumption of sugar from drinks in Australia has decreased significantly over the last 20 years at the same time overweight, obesity and diabetes rates have continued to rise. Clearly soft drinks aren't driving the nation's expanding waistline which makes this call for a tax illogical and clearly just a revenue raiser for public health groups.' Sugar taxes are already in place in a number of European and American countries including the UK, France, Norway, Mexico and Chile. One study suggested the daily sugar intake of UK children fell by five grams within a year of the tax being introduced in 2018, while adults cut their intake by 11 grams. But chief executive of the PHAA Terry Slevin said the study proved there was 'genuine community concern about unhealthy drinks'. 'Health Minister Mark Butler and the Albanese government have implemented strong and effective measures to curb smoking and vaping, we believe similarly decisive action is needed to tackle obesity. 'We know what needs to be done, now is the time to do it.' The Australian Medical Association, the peak representative body for doctors in Australia, advocates for a tax of $0.40 per 100 grams of sugar.
Zawya
2 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Wall Street fears foreign tax in budget bill may reduce allure of US assets
NEW YORK - Wall Street analysts are cautioning that a tax targeting foreign investors in the U.S. budget bill progressing through Congress could end up weighing on demand for U.S. Treasuries and the dollar. The U.S. House of Representatives last week approved a sweeping tax and spending bill that includes the possibility of imposing a progressive tax burden of up to 20% on foreign investors' passive income, such as dividends and royalties. The levy, included in section 899, would be paid by entities or individuals from countries that impose taxes the U.S. considers unfair. If it is also approved by the Senate, it could raise $116 billion in taxes over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. "We see this legislation as creating the scope for the U.S. administration to transform a trade war into a capital war if it so wishes," George Saravelos, head of FX research at Deutsche Bank, said in a note on Thursday, adding the new tax could have an adverse impact on demand for U.S. Treasuries. If passed by the Senate, the rising tax rate on foreigners' investments would come at a time global investors have started to question so-called "U.S. exceptionalism," or its unique ability to outperform other financial markets, amid growing fiscal deficits and a new trade policy based on tariffs. Morgan Stanley said in a note that the new tax would weaken the dollar, as it would reduce the foreign appetite for U.S. assets. Morgan Stanley's strategist Michael Zezas singled out European investors with passive income in the U.S. as particularly vulnerable to the tax. The bank did not provide any estimate for the impact. According to law firm Davis Polk, nations that could be considered 'discriminatory foreign countries' include many that are part of the European Union, as well as India, Brazil, Australia and United Kingdom. The White House did not immediately comment on the impact of the new tax burden. (Reporting by Carolina Mandl, in New York; additional reporting by Elisa Martinucci, in London, and Lewis Krauskopf, in New York; Editing by Megan Davies and Sonali Paul)
