Podcasts about schedule b

It's tax season crunch time, so we are resharing a timely episode debunking the 1120-S tax return. In this episode, Brian will walk you through the S-Corporation income tax return to help you better understand what you're filing and hopefully catch mistakes before it's too late. He provides a section-by-section analysis of Form 1120-S and highlights key areas that business owners and tax professionals make mistakes. Episode Highlights Part 1: Heading, Income, Deductions, Tax and Payments Most of this information is drawn from your business's Profit and Loss Statement. Here's a breakdown of what's on the first page: Calendar year: The very top of the form asks for the calendar year. If the corporation has a calendar year-end, leave this blank. If a fiscal year or short year put in the appropriate dates. Address: Underneath the calendar year, the form asks for a name and address. Use the name set forth in the charter or other legal documents, such as your Employer Identification Number (EIN) letter. Item A: Located to the left of the address, Item A asks for your S election effective date. You should have a letter from the IRS (CP 261) with your S-Corp starting date. This date should stay the same every year. Item B: Your business activity code. This code shows the IRS exactly what you do. Item C: Item C only applies if you have assets of $10 million or more. Most of the time, Item C will not be checked. Item D: Put your EIN in Item D. Make sure to verify it's correct before you file your form. Item E: Your date of incorporation should match the articles of incorporation. This date may or may not be the same date as your S-election. Like the S-election date, the date of incorporation won't change. Item F: Total assets at the end of the year. Item G: If the corporation is electing to be an S-Corp beginning with the current filing tax year, check the appropriate box. If the S-Corp did not already file the S-Election, attach Form 2553 with the return. Item H: These boxes should be self-explanatory. Check the boxes that apply. Item I: Enter the number of shareholders in the firm (e.g. yourself and your partners). Item J: Most of the time, Item J will not be checked. If you believe that one of the Item J items applies, follow up with your tax accountant. Income: Report gross revenue your business has earned for the year and any additional income or interest income that you may have incurred. Only report trade or business income. Do not list rental income, portfolio income, or tax exempt income (those go on your Schedule K). Expenses: Report all deductions on your Profit and Loss statement. Pay special attention to the following lines: Line 7: Compensation of officers should have something on it. S-Corporations must pay shareholder/employee reasonable compensation for services rendered, and failing to put reasonable compensation could lead to an IRS audit. Also included on this line are fringe benefits, including employer contributions to health plans and group term life insurance, for shareholders/employees owning more than 2% of the corporation stock. If your S-Corp has total receipts of $500,000 or more, you'll need to attach Form 1125-E to explain what was paid to each officer. Line 8: Salary and wages paid to employees (other than officers) of the corporation. Line 17: An S-Corporation can deduct contributions made for its employees under a qualified pension, profit sharing, annuity, SEP plan, Simple plan, or any other retirement deferred compensation plan. This includes shareholders/employees owning more than 2% of the corporation stock. Line 18: Employee fringe benefits provided to officers and employees owning less than 2% go on this line, such as health insurance, disability insurance, and educational assistance. Line 19: Line 19 includes any other deductions. There should be an attached statement, and it should match your profit and loss. The numbers should be close to your Profit and Loss statement. Taxes and payments: In general, an S-Corporation does not pay taxes at the corporate level, so this section will be blank. Signature: It's important to sign the return only after verifying all of the information, including the following sections. Part 2: Schedule B This section is mostly self-explanatory questions. Make sure to read and understand each question. Below are two lines to pay special attention to: Box 1: This easy-to-miss box can change your entire return if you're not careful, since it's where you select whether you're a cash or accrual basis taxpayer. Once you choose an accounting method, you generally cannot change without approval from the IRS. Box 2: Here is where you explain what you do. Part B is an either/or question, so state whether you sell products or services. Also, if you hire contractors, say yes to question 14 -- and hopefully you got out your 1099 forms by January 31. Part 3: Schedules K and K-1 Schedule K reports the pro rata share items in total for the Corporation. Schedule K-1, which you receive in your personal name, reports the percentage of pro rata share items allocable to each shareholder.  Lines 1-17 on Schedule K correspond to Boxes 1-17 on Schedule K-1. Most items on Schedules K and K-1 are self-explanatory and come from other parts of the return. Part 4: Schedule L  This is where many taxpayers make a mistake. Schedule L matches your business' balance sheet and should agree with your books and records. If it doesn't, find out why before you file. The first two columns match what your accounts were at the beginning of the year and should match what the accounts were at the end of last year. If this is your first year filing an 1120-S return, these two columns should be blank. The second two columns are for what the accounts had on December 31 of the previous year and will carry over to next year's return. Some of the most common assets on Schedule L are: Line 1: Write the amount of cash in your bank account on the last day of the year. Line 7: Loans to shareholders are loans from the corporation to the shareholder. Keep in mind, these loans need to be documented and should have a repayment schedule and interest rate. Line 10a: Buildings and other depreciable assets are fixed assets that the business owns that have been depreciated, such as real estate, furniture, or machinery  Some of the most common liabilities on Schedule L are: Line 18: Other current liabilities are expenses incurred at the end of the year but not paid until January of the next year. Current expenses often include wages, state taxes, federal taxes, and payroll taxes payable at the end of the year.  Line 19: Loans from shareholders are loans from the shareholder to the corporation. As with the other loans, these loans should be documented and include a repayment schedule and interest rate. Line 22: The par value or stated value of the capital stock issued by the corporation. This amount stays the same each year unless the S-Corporation issues additional stock after incorporation. The corporate charter or minutes should identify the stock. Line 23: Enter the beginning and ending balances of additional paid-in capital. This includes the amount contributed to the S-Corp by shareholders for which the corporation did not issue stock or amounts contributed in excess of the stated or par value. Line 24: This section is especially tricky. You should base the retained earnings on the S-Corporation's books and records. Most of the time, retained earnings should match the Accumulated Adjustments Account (AAA), other adjustments account (OAA), and previously taxed income (PTI) balances on Schedule M-2. Line 27: This line represents the total liability and shareholders equity. This line must match line 15. If you answered “yes” to question 11 on Schedule B that your total receipts were less than $250,000 and total assets were less than $250,000, then you aren't required to file a Schedule L. However, it may be beneficial to file Schedule L anyway because it will be crucial for future balance sheets. Part 5: Schedules M-1 and M-2 Schedule M-1 helps explain discrepancies between the books and your tax return. This section should explain any differences you notice.  Some common items reported on Schedule M-2 include: Meal expenses (100% on books, 50% on taxes) Entertainment (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Life insurance premium expense (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Certain fines and penalties (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Political contributions (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Book depreciation expense (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Tax depreciation expense (%0 on books, 100% on taxes) Tax-exempt income (100% on books, %0 on taxes)  Schedule M-2 tracks the income and losses and separately states items that the shareholder should report on their tax return. Resources + Links  Bank Reconciliation 101 Lessons from the 1099-NEC deadline Follow Brian Thompson Online: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Forbes About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and certified financial planner who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit. On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.

Dr. Friday explains the importance of Schedule B for investors, covering capital gains, interest, and the tax benefits of qualified dividends. Transcript: G’day, I’m Dr. Friday, president of Dr. Friday’s Tax and Financial Firm. To get more info, go to www.drfriday.com. This is a one-minute moment. Schedule B's—very important papers for us investors, right? Because it tells us about our capital gains, our wash sales, our interest, and whether our dividends are qualified or ordinary. What's the difference between qualified dividends and ordinary income, you ask? Well, it's pretty straightforward, but it's important. Ordinary income is taxed at ordinary income rates, while qualified dividends are taxed at capital gains rates. If you’re in the higher tax brackets, you might like that qualified rate. You may be in the 24%, 28%, or 30% tax bracket, but you may only pay 15% or less on qualified dividends. Need help? Give us a call. You can catch the Dr. Friday Call-In Show live every Saturday afternoon from 2 to 3 p.m. right here on 99.7 WTN.

The Rich Zeoli Show- Full Episode (08/06/2024): 3:05pm- On Tuesday, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris announced her running mate: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Almost immediately, videos of Walz making outlandish, progressive statements began circulating social media. In one clip, Walz explains that socialism is synonymous with neighborliness. While speaking at the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Convention in 2018, Walz told attendees that his pro-abortion stance was so radical that even former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested he should moderate his position. 3:15pm- In response to Kamala Harris's Vice Presidential selection of Tim Walz, former Obama Administration Advisor Van Jones said it's likely Harris caved to anti-Semitic elements within the Democrat Party who didn't want to see Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro on the ticket due to his religion. 3:40pm- Dr. Ben Carson—Former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development & a Retired Neurosurgeon and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University—joins The Rich Zeoli Show and says he was “delighted” to hear that Kamala Harris selected Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, as Walz provides very little to her campaign and further illustrates to commonsense voters that Harris is a radical progressive. Dr. Carson is author of the new book: “The Perilous Fight: Overcoming Our Culture's War on the American Family”—which he co-authored with his wife, Candy Carson. It's available now: https://a.co/d/5RggqEs 4:05pm- Monica Crowley—Former United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs—joins The Rich Zeoli Show and reacts to Kamala Harris's selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Crowley notes that Walz provides nothing to the ticket electorally while simultaneously being unpalatable to moderates. Has the Harris campaign given up on winning independents and moderates? 4:30pm- Dave McCormick— Republican Candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania & former Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs during the George W. Bush Administration—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss earning the endorsement of the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police, which had previously supported Sen. Bob Casey. Plus, what are his thoughts on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz? You can learn more about his campaign here: https://www.davemccormickpa.com 4:50pm- In clip that has now gone viral on social media, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz insists that China is not an American adversary. He also pledged to build a “ladder factory” in response to Donald Trump's border wall. 5:05pm- While speaking to the press in Philadelphia, PA, Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance implored the media to begin asking Kamala Harris tough questions about her far-left record. Despite becoming the party's presumptive nominee over two-weeks ago, Harris has not answered any serious questions from the press or conducted an interview. Rich wonders, is she copying Joe Biden's “basement campaign” strategy? 5:10pm- Disturbing Kamala Clip: In December 2003, then-District Attorney of San Francisco Kamala Harris speaks on Google's campus: “The power I have as a prosecutor is that with a swipe of my pen, I can charge someone with a misdemeanor—the lowest level offense possible. And by virtue of that swipe of my pen you will have to go to a courthouse…you will have to come out of pocket and hire an attorney, you may get arrested for a few hours, you will be embarrassed in your community.” 5:20pm- Kamala Harris & The First Amendment: The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes: “We keep looking for an issue, any issue, on which Kamala Harris differs with the Democratic left, but we keep coming up empty. That includes her party's use of lawfare against political opponents, as an episode while she was California Attorney General reminds us. Ms. Harris made headlines a decade ago by threatening to punish nonprofit groups that refused to turn over unredacted donor information. She demanded they hand to the state their federal IRS Form 990 Schedule B in the name of discovering ‘self dealing' or ‘improper loans.' The real purpose was to learn the names of conservative donors and chill future political giving—that is, political speech…The [Supreme Court] said California's claim that it would protect donor information lacked credibility, since during the litigation plaintiffs discovered nearly 2,000 Schedule B forms ‘inadvertently posted to the Attorney General's website' It noted that the petitioners and donors faced ‘threats' and ‘retaliation.'” You can read the full editorial here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/kamala-harris-california-attorney-general-lawfare-americans-for-prosperity-foundation-v-bonta-supreme-court-611a96f7?mod=opinion_lead_pos2 5:40pm- Tim Walz is the King of Covid Waste: Jim Geraghty of National Review writes that “the state's handing hundreds of millions of dollars to Minnesota's Feeding Our Future, the largest Covid-aid fraud scheme in the country. Announcing the federal fraud indictment against the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, FBI director Christopher Wray called it ‘an egregious plot to steal public funds meant to care for children in need in what amounts to the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme yet. The defendants went to great lengths to exploit a program designed to feed underserved children in Minnesota amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, fraudulently diverting millions of dollars designated for the program for their own personal gain.' The nonprofit reportedly used a quarter of a billion dollars in federal funds to purchase luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property abroad. What does this have to do with Governor Tim Walz, you ask? Well, a state legislative audit concluded that the Minnesota Department of Education was asleep at the wheel and for years had ignored red flags concerning the nonprofit…Every state government deals with waste, fraud, and abuse. But no other state has ever gotten taken to the cleaners to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars.” You can read the full article here: https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/harris-vp-short-lister-comes-loaded-with-baggage/ 6:00pm- On Tuesday, Kamala Harris introduced her Vice Presidential pick—Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—while appearing at a campaign event at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, PA. Will Walz provide any sort of electoral advantage in the 2024 presidential race? Analyzing Walz's 2022 gubernatorial race, NBC election analyst Steve Kornacki concludes that Walz relied heavily on traditional Democrat voters—but didn't have much luck appealing to rural voters or moderates. 6:30pm- Tim Walz Speaks from Philadelphia: Almost immediately after being selected as Kamala Harris's running mate, videos of Gov. Tim Walz making outlandish, progressive statements began circulating social media. In one clip, Walz explains that socialism is synonymous with neighborliness. While speaking at the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Convention in 2018, Walz told attendees that his pro-abortion stance was so radical that even former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi suggested he should moderate his position.

The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 3: 5:05pm- While speaking to the press in Philadelphia, PA, Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance implored the media to begin asking Kamala Harris tough questions about her far-left record. Despite becoming the party's presumptive nominee over two-weeks ago, Harris has not answered any serious questions from the press or conducted an interview. Rich wonders, is she copying Joe Biden's “basement campaign” strategy? 5:10pm- Disturbing Kamala Clip: In December 2003, then-District Attorney of San Francisco Kamala Harris speaks on Google's campus: “The power I have as a prosecutor is that with a swipe of my pen, I can charge someone with a misdemeanor—the lowest level offense possible. And by virtue of that swipe of my pen you will have to go to a courthouse…you will have to come out of pocket and hire an attorney, you may get arrested for a few hours, you will be embarrassed in your community.” 5:20pm- Kamala Harris & The First Amendment: The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes: “We keep looking for an issue, any issue, on which Kamala Harris differs with the Democratic left, but we keep coming up empty. That includes her party's use of lawfare against political opponents, as an episode while she was California Attorney General reminds us. Ms. Harris made headlines a decade ago by threatening to punish nonprofit groups that refused to turn over unredacted donor information. She demanded they hand to the state their federal IRS Form 990 Schedule B in the name of discovering ‘self dealing' or ‘improper loans.' The real purpose was to learn the names of conservative donors and chill future political giving—that is, political speech…The [Supreme Court] said California's claim that it would protect donor information lacked credibility, since during the litigation plaintiffs discovered nearly 2,000 Schedule B forms ‘inadvertently posted to the Attorney General's website' It noted that the petitioners and donors faced ‘threats' and ‘retaliation.'” You can read the full editorial here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/kamala-harris-california-attorney-general-lawfare-americans-for-prosperity-foundation-v-bonta-supreme-court-611a96f7?mod=opinion_lead_pos2 5:40pm- Tim Walz is the King of Covid Waste: Jim Geraghty of National Review writes that “the state's handing hundreds of millions of dollars to Minnesota's Feeding Our Future, the largest Covid-aid fraud scheme in the country. Announcing the federal fraud indictment against the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, FBI director Christopher Wray called it ‘an egregious plot to steal public funds meant to care for children in need in what amounts to the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme yet. The defendants went to great lengths to exploit a program designed to feed underserved children in Minnesota amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, fraudulently diverting millions of dollars designated for the program for their own personal gain.' The nonprofit reportedly used a quarter of a billion dollars in federal funds to purchase luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property abroad. What does this have to do with Governor Tim Walz, you ask? Well, a state legislative audit concluded that the Minnesota Department of Education was asleep at the wheel and for years had ignored red flags concerning the nonprofit…Every state government deals with waste, fraud, and abuse. But no other state has ever gotten taken to the cleaners to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars.” You can read the full article here: https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/harris-vp-short-lister-comes-loaded-with-baggage/

In this week's Flat Chat Wrap podcast we look at a report that building commissioner David Chandler has issued a stop-work order at a Wollongong construction site after structural defects were discovered in a 149-unit apartment block.According to a story in on the ABC news site, Mr Chandler said the prohibition order followed the detection of a number of issues in the Crownview building in the last few years with $37m already spent on remediation but new problems with critical cable tensioning were discovered during remediation work.As a result, he announced that he was pushing to have regional offices across the state because standards are so lax outside of Sydney – and we have a take on that too.We glance in the direction of government moves to nudge baby strata managers to get themselves qualified and gain expertise in a bit more than gouging Schedule B fees from unsuspecting apartment owners.And we look at news that already has the trendoids of Sydney's inner-west suburbs in a tizz; the NSW government wants councils in these areas close to the city centre to stop blocking low-to-medium rise apartment blocks.Add that to the Greens' demand that the Federal Government should build 360,000 homes to be available for low-cost rents and purchases and all those former workers cottages in streets with no parking will be swallowed up … or probably not.We look at what you really want in the shops in your block and a slight change of direction for Great Escapes.That's all in this week's Flat Chat Wrap.____________________________________________________Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.Send comments and questions to mail@flatchat.com.au.Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai; Transcription tidied up and sensified by Raphie.Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Welcome to Nonprofit Insights, a podcast focused on tax, auditing, accounting, and other topics in the nonprofit world. In this episode, BerryDunn's Katy Balukas, Emily Parker, and Joe Byrne discuss gift and contribution recording for nonprofits. They cover the accounting methods used by development and business offices, tips to establish solid communication between the two offices, Schedule B instructions, unintended restrictions, and more.

I'm Tony Sargis with the U.S. Dept. of Commerce Commercial Service, Connecticut office, and we're holding webinars for manufacturing month in October, we've received a lot of feedback regarding the Trade Talk Tuesday series. You'll note that the sessions are kind of quick, so we're here for about 20 minutes. We'll address a few questions in the Q&A at the end of the presentation.Our speaker today is Jill LaMadeleine, Vice President at International Tariff Management. Jill is a duty drawback and classification specialist. ITM has been in the industry for over 40 years, helping clients find the correct answer Schedule B number for their products. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So the classification of goods process is extremely intricate and can be rather complex to navigate.  Today, we will talk about some tools that are available to assist you during the process.We hope you will gain some valuable insight into the world of customs tariffs. With all the supply chain challenges the world is facing, our aim is to maximize your duty drawback dollars and boost your bottom line. We hope you'll subscribe to our podcast to stay current with each new episode in which will unveil numerous ways to improve your international trade profitability. Thanks for listening.

Episode 269: On April 12, 1991, a group of teens attended a woodland party near Oromocto, New Brunswick, involving alcohol and drugs, including LSD. Pamela Gail Bischoff, 14, and William Wayne Dale (Billy) Stillman, 17, left the gathering together, marking the last sighting of Pamela Bischoff alive. Stillman returned home later, wet from the thighs down, cold, shaking, and sporting a cut above his eye with mud and grass on his pants. Six days later, Pamela's body was discovered in the Oromocto River, a short distance from the party site. The time of death correlated to the evening she had left with Billy Stillman. Eyewitnesses confirmed seeing a male accompanying Pamela near the discovery site, and Stillman was seen departing the area, his pants muddied. An autopsy showed that Pamela's death resulted from head wounds, and there was evidence of sexual assault, which included semen inside her body. Billy Stillman was arrested, released, arrested again and eventually charged and convicted in Pamela's murder. Stillman's appeals were based on alleged inappropriate conduct by the RCMP officers collecting important DNA evidence. This resulted in the case being heard and decided in Canada's highest court in 1997, and a new trial was ordered. Sources: 1995 CanLII 5579 (NB CA) | R. v. Stillman | CanLII R. v. Stillman (W.W.D.) (1997), 192 N.B.R.(2d) 298 (TD | vLex Justis 1997 CanLII 384 (SCC) | R. v. Stillman | CanLII Pamela Gail Bischoff – Life Through My Eyes Pamela Gail Bischoff 1976-1991 - Ancestry® The Constitution Act, 1982, Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11 | Federal Statutes Oromocto — Deer Park The Vancouver Sun 21 Mar 1997, page 7 - Newspapers.com The New Brunswick Telegraph Journal 22 Sep 1992, page 3 - Newspapers.com YouTube — What Happened To 14-Year-Old Pamela Bischoff? | Dark Waters Of Crime | Real Crime ARCHIVED - Kingsclear Investigation Report | Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP ROBERT FREDERICK BISCHOFF: obituary and death notice on InMemoriam Criminal AND Civil LAW Assignment - Regina vs. Stillman Criminal and Civil Law - Case Law Assignment - StuDocu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's tax season crunch time. In this episode, Brian will walk you through the S-Corporation income tax return to help you better understand what you're filing and hopefully catch mistakes before it's too late. He provides a section-by-section analysis of Form 1120-S and highlights key areas that business owners and tax professionals make mistakes. Episode Highlights Part 1: Heading, Income, Deductions, Tax and Payments Most of this information is drawn from your business's Profit and Loss Statement. Here's a breakdown of what's on the first page: Calendar year: The very top of the form asks for the calendar year. If the corporation has a calendar year-end, leave this blank. If a fiscal year or short year put in the appropriate dates. Address: Underneath the calendar year, the form asks for a name and address. Use the name set forth in the charter or other legal documents, such as your Employer Identification Number (EIN) letter. Item A: Located to the left of the address, Item A asks for your S election effective date. You should have a letter from the IRS (CP 261) with your S-Corp starting date. This date should stay the same every year. Item B: Your business activity code. This code shows the IRS exactly what you do. Item C: Item C only applies if you have assets of $10 million or more. Most of the time, Item C will not be checked. Item D: Put your EIN in Item D. Make sure to verify it's correct before you file your form. Item E: Your date of incorporation should match the articles of incorporation. This date may or may not be the same date as your S-election. Like the S-election date, the date of incorporation won't change. Item F: Total assets at the end of the year. Item G: If the corporation is electing to be an S-Corp beginning with the current filing tax year, check the appropriate box. If the S-Corp did not already file the S-Election, attach Form 2553 with the return. Item H: These boxes should be self-explanatory. Check the boxes that apply. Item I: Enter the number of shareholders in the firm (e.g. yourself and your partners). Item J: Most of the time, Item J will not be checked. If you believe that one of the Item J items applies, follow up with your tax accountant. Income: Report gross revenue your business has earned for the year and any additional income or interest income that you may have incurred. Only report trade or business income. Do not list rental income, portfolio income, or tax exempt income (those go on your Schedule K). Expenses: Report all deductions on your Profit and Loss statement. Pay special attention to the following lines: Line 7: Compensation of officers should have something on it. S-Corporations must pay shareholder/employee reasonable compensation for services rendered, and failing to put reasonable compensation could lead to an IRS audit. Also included on this line are fringe benefits, including employer contributions to health plans and group term life insurance, for shareholders/employees owning more than 2% of the corporation stock. If your S-Corp has total receipts of $500,000 or more, you'll need to attach Form 1125-E to explain what was paid to each officer. Line 8: Salary and wages paid to employees (other than officers) of the corporation. Line 17: An S-Corporation can deduct contributions made for its employees under a qualified pension, profit sharing, annuity, SEP plan, Simple plan, or any other retirement deferred compensation plan. This includes shareholders/employees owning more than 2% of the corporation stock. Line 18: Employee fringe benefits provided to officers and employees owning less than 2% go on this line, such as health insurance, disability insurance, and educational assistance. Line 19: Line 19 includes any other deductions. There should be an attached statement, and it should match your profit and loss. The numbers should be close to your Profit and Loss statement. Taxes and payments: In general, an S-Corporation does not pay taxes at the corporate level, so this section will be blank. Signature: It's important to sign the return only after verifying all of the information, including the following sections. Part 2: Schedule B This section is mostly self-explanatory questions. Make sure to read and understand each question. Below are two lines to pay special attention to: Box 1: This easy-to-miss box can change your entire return if you're not careful, since it's where you select whether you're a cash or accrual basis taxpayer. Once you choose an accounting method, you generally cannot change without approval from the IRS. Box 2: Here is where you explain what you do. Part B is an either/or question, so state whether you sell products or services. Also, if you hire contractors, say yes to question 14 -- and hopefully you got out your 1099 forms by January 31. Part 3: Schedules K and K-1 Schedule K reports the pro rata share items in total for the Corporation. Schedule K-1, which you receive in your personal name, reports the percentage of pro rata share items allocable to each shareholder.  Lines 1-17 on Schedule K correspond to Boxes 1-17 on Schedule K-1. Most items on Schedules K and K-1 are self-explanatory and come from other parts of the return. Part 4: Schedule L  This is where many taxpayers make a mistake. Schedule L matches your business' balance sheet and should agree with your books and records. If it doesn't, find out why before you file. The first two columns match what your accounts were at the beginning of the year and should match what the accounts were at the end of last year. If this is your first year filing an 1120-S return, these two columns should be blank. The second two columns are for what the accounts had on December 31 of the previous year and will carry over to next year's return. Some of the most common assets on Schedule L are: Line 1: Write the amount of cash in your bank account on the last day of the year. Line 7: Loans to shareholders are loans from the corporation to the shareholder. Keep in mind, these loans need to be documented and should have a repayment schedule and interest rate. Line 10a: Buildings and other depreciable assets are fixed assets that the business owns that have been depreciated, such as real estate, furniture, or machinery  Some of the most common liabilities on Schedule L are: Line 18: Other current liabilities are expenses incurred at the end of the year but not paid until January of the next year. Current expenses often include wages, state taxes, federal taxes, and payroll taxes payable at the end of the year.  Line 19: Loans from shareholders are loans from the shareholder to the corporation. As with the other loans, these loans should be documented and include a repayment schedule and interest rate. Line 22: The par value or stated value of the capital stock issued by the corporation. This amount stays the same each year unless the S-Corporation issues additional stock after incorporation. The corporate charter or minutes should identify the stock. Line 23: Enter the beginning and ending balances of additional paid-in capital. This includes the amount contributed to the S-Corp by shareholders for which the corporation did not issue stock or amounts contributed in excess of the stated or par value. Line 24: This section is especially tricky. You should base the retained earnings on the S-Corporation's books and records. Most of the time, retained earnings should match the Accumulated Adjustments Account (AAA), other adjustments account (OAA), and previously taxed income (PTI) balances on Schedule M-2. Line 27: This line represents the total liability and shareholders equity. This line must match line 15. If you answered “yes” to question 11 on Schedule B that your total receipts were less than $250,000 and total assets were less than $250,000, then you aren't required to file a Schedule L. However, it may be beneficial to file Schedule L anyway because it will be crucial for future balance sheets. Part 5: Schedules M-1 and M-2 Schedule M-1 helps explain discrepancies between the books and your tax return. This section should explain any differences you notice.  Some common items reported on Schedule M-2 include: Meal expenses (100% on books, 50% on taxes) Entertainment (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Life insurance premium expense (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Certain fines and penalties (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Political contributions (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Book depreciation expense (100% on books, 0% on taxes) Tax depreciation expense (%0 on books, 100% on taxes) Tax-exempt income (100% on books, %0 on taxes)  Schedule M-2 tracks the income and losses and separately states items that the shareholder should report on their tax return. Resources + Links  Bank Reconciliation 101 Lessons from the 1099-NEC deadline Brian's Social Media: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and certified financial planner who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit. On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.

These Agreements obligate an owner to pay a real estate commission, contain covenants running with the land, and potentially create a lien against the property that could be adverse to a buyer. Don’t be caught off guard if one of these appears in your title search. Melissa Jay Murphy 0:05 Welcome to The Fund's Title Now Pop-up webinar. I'm Melissa Murphy with The Fund and we do these webinars from time to time, on relevant or developing topics. They're free. So we don't offer CLE because we want them to be as spontaneous and conversational as much as possible rather than instructional. That's why we discourage PowerPoints because we really want there to be a conversation between the speakers and we also have a an ulterior motive, which is to push the audio out to our podcast, which is also called Title Now. You can get the podcast wherever you subscribe to other podcasts. So sign up now. We are going to take questions at the end of our prepared remarks. So if you have a question about any of the information that we talked about, just put something in the chat, and we have John Benson, who is very overqualified to monitor the chat, but he offered to do it, so I took him up on it. And then at the end of our prepared remarks, we'll see what questions you might have. Joining me today is Brian Stringer. Brian is one of our Fund underwriting counsels. We are here to talk about memorandums of agreement that are popping up in the public records around the state, in fact, around the country. And these agreements create what many people feel are surprising obligations on the part of an owner of property who might become a seller of that property in the future. And some of these obligations may bleed over to the buyer also. So Brian, tell us what these agreements are all about. Brian Stringer 2:06 Well, these agreements basically what they provide us is in exchange for an up front payment of money, which can be anywhere from a few $100 to several $1,000. The owner obligates themselves to list their home with a specific broker if they decide to sell because on provide that the owner role of commission typically 6% upon the sale. Melissa Jay Murphy 2:23 Well, how long did these obligations typically run? Brian Stringer 2:28 Well, that's the thing that makes things a bit unique. The typical listing agreement may last for a few months or up to a year, but we've seen these agreements with terms for as long as 40 years Melissa Jay Murphy 2:37 40 years. Does it apply only if the owner wants to list a property with a broker? What I'm getting at is the owner allowed to sell their home on their own a FSBO? Brian Stringer 2:53 Well, that's a great question and unlike a typical agreement the owner can't sell their home on their own. These agreements, again, it's gonna depend on the individual agreements, because there's a few that are out there, but the commission is likely due even if they sell without the use of any broker at all. Even if the commission is not due, for some reason, many of the agreements that we've seen have a fee that's triggered by any transfer of the property, even a gift or a conveyance with no consideration. Melissa Jay Murphy 3:17 Well, I would, I would hope that it only covers a voluntary sale or conveyance, but do the typical agreements that you've seen cover any type of transfer of ownership? I mean, what if the owner dies? Brian Stringer 3:34 Well, yes or no. That's an interesting wrinkle with these agreements as well. If the owner dies and title transfers to an heir beneficiary there's no fee due, but only if the heir beneficiary agrees to assume the obligations under the current agreement. Melissa Jay Murphy 3:49 So these agreements that you've seen would cover a transfer resulting from death if the heirs don't agree to assume the obligations that would obligate them upon the future sale of a property. Brian Stringer 4:03 That's correct. Melissa Jay Murphy 4:05 What about other types of involuntary conveyances like a foreclosure or something of that nature? Are those transfers also covered? Brian Stringer 4:17 So they are and so some of those are specifically outlined in the agreements that say a transfer and foreclosure voluntary/involuntary transfer are often listed as what they call the triggering events which requires a payment, not typically the full 6%, but some other amount is calculated based upon the value of the property. Melissa Jay Murphy 4:35 So it sounds as if the exact terms of these agreements are dependent upon the wording of the agreement, which of course is true of any contract. And these vary depending upon who the broker is and what iteration of their contract they happen to be using at that time. But what are other types of provisions that you are commonly seeing in these agreements? Is there any way for the owner to opt out of this obligation? Brian Stringer 5:11 There is. Once they've agreed to list with the broker, they're sending these agreements most of the agreements have come from an early termination or cancellation provision, and they usually provide that the owner can opt out by paying an early termination fee, which is typically equal to a certain percent of the fair market value of the property as determined by the broker or the other party to the agreement. So that's the difference is that the broker is the one that's going to calculate the early termination fee at the time the other seats determine. Melissa Jay Murphy 5:38 Is there any provision for the owner to challenge or arbitrate or negotiate that value that the broker determines? Have you seen anything like that in these agreements? Brian Stringer 5:51 I have in respect to arbitration. I have seen that there is a requirement to arbitrate disputes or new agreements but specifically with respect to the calculation, that early termination fee and fair market value, which you would typically see in a contract where an each party would say, "I think this is a fair market value," and other people would say "I don't think that's the fair market value" and a third arbitrator would come in and say "This is a fair market value." The ones that I've seen just provide that the broker is going to determine the fair market value. Melissa Jay Murphy 6:17 Well, I can see where that would be a possible point of contention. But let's move away from the provisions of the agreement and talk about what you've seen happen out in the real world. What have you seen happen if the home is sold, and the broker that was a party to these agreements is not "Hey, what's happening?" Brian Stringer 6:44 We've seen that and the odd thing about these is they don't make a demand for payment from the party. We enter into the brokerage agreement. They're making demands for payment from the buyer, subsequent owner, not the seller of the product. Melissa Jay Murphy 6:57 On the buyer? how can they leverage the buyer to pay this fee when they weren't even a party to the agreement to start with? Brian Stringer 7:08 As we've seen from these agreements, the brokers have hired very competent and clever attorneys and the obligations that they create in these agreements, they purport to be covenant with the land. So that's how they get the buyer or any other successor an interest obligated is that these obligations attached to the property and they're not independent contractors. Melissa Jay Murphy 7:27 So the obligation to list with this particular broker is an ongoing obligation for every future owner of the property? Brian Stringer 7:41 It appears the plain reading of these agreements is that they are going to be obligating every future owner of the home for up to four decades versus they could expire on their terms for the passage of time, but in the intervening term, they obligate everyone who owns that property. Melissa Jay Murphy 7:55 Well, I have read some of these agreements and the ones that I have read, contain language to the effect that the broker has a lien against the property, if title transfers and they aren't paid their commission, so it's a springing lane, or lane that will come into existence. And so is that part of the demand that's made on the buyer? You know, something to the effect that foreclosure of that lane will begin if they don't pay this fee? Brian Stringer 8:32 That's exactly what we've seen. So we've seen demands for payment on a subsequent owner, and they're not used to demand for payment. They've been accompanied oftentimes by a draft foreclosure complaint. This way the owner knows that they don't fulfill the demand that the broker is ready, willing and able to go to court or close their lien interest. Melissa Jay Murphy 8:50 Well, this seems to be the real heart of the problem from The Fund's perspective. I mean, certainly we want to make Members aware of these agreements, they are out there in the practice. But what we are focused on and most concerned about is delivering clear title to our proposed insured. So how are we dealing with a potential assertion of this lien when one of these agreements show up in a title chain? And, and by the way, what exactly shows up in the public records? Brian Stringer 9:31 Good point, what we're seeing in the public record typically, we're not seeing, at least I have not seen that full agreement. What we're seeing is either a memorandum of agreement or a memorandum of interest, which is signed witnessed notarized in part by the owner. So it can be recorded. And it's very similar, to what you see with a memorandum of lease. It's just putting the public on notice that this agreement exists and here are the basic terms. You can contact this party in order to proceed. Melissa Jay Murphy 9:58 So are we addressing these things in our commitments? Brian Stringer 10:05 We are and just started with creating a new Schedule B-1 requirement. It's going to be included in the commitments on the properties where we find these memorandum of agreement because the we've drafted requires that the period be terminated in any lien released. This is a new clause that Members likely have not seen yet. From what we have gathered, we're going to begin seeing these quite frequntly. So the Members should pay really close attention to the commitments when they come in and see where this requirement is called. Melissa Jay Murphy 10:33 And you you mentioned the word "They will start seeing these frequently." I have heard anecdotally, I can't say I've done any kind of independent verification, but I have heard anecdotally that there are 1000s of these memorandum of agreement are recorded in the public records just in Florida, just in Florida. So it does seem as though this will be something that Members will see. So it's going to be a Schedule B-1 requirement. That they get a termination and release. So how do they go about getting that? Brian Stringer 11:12 Well, as you can imagine, there's contact information for the broker in these memorandums of agreement. They they've made it quite straightforward to obtain and release the agreement. What they're going to do the the owner, the seller is going to have to contact the broker and confirm either confirm the amount for the release or negotiated release the payment in exchange for the release and termination. And because these things are so new, and we've not seen many of them satisfactions and releases we're going to underwriting review any proposed release termination. So if a Member does see this on the Schedule B-1, the owner wants to get through release termination, Members should send it to underwriting. So we can review the terms and make sure that it adequately releases the property not just the lien for the commission, but the covenant running with the land. Melissa Jay Murphy 11:56 Yeah, I was gonna make that point. Our position is we not only want to terminate or release the lien, but we want to terminate the agreement so it's no longer a covenant running with the land. Brian Stringer 12:12 Absolutely, because it's not clear from from my analysis, whether once you listed with the broker and paid a commission that you've satisfied the agreement from the plain terms of the agreement is going to continue for every subsequent sale. Melissa Jay Murphy 12:23 Got it. So I may have missed this in your comments, but is there a contact information in the agreement so that the Member knows where to go to talk about getting this termination and release? Brian Stringer 12:41 So that's a great question. In the memorandums of interest there we've seen do have a contact information for the broker, because they've actually made it quite easy to contact them and get the release and they tell you how they're going to give it to you. So these problems are not insurmountable title problems that we're going to see that are going to be completely derail a transaction. They are solvable. There's contact information in the Memorandum of Agreement and there's a mechanism for determining. Melissa Jay Murphy 13:07 So, Brian, if you're going to sum this situation up for a Fund Member, what points would you make? Brian Stringer 13:17 Well, I would reiterate one of our primary points that we always tell our Members and that's first of all, review your commitments very carefully to see what are your requirements, what are the exceptions, see if one of these things does in fact affect your property and if you have a commitment that was delivered prior to this webinar, or prior to The Fund, to the your general counsel blog. Look at your B-2s because sometimes these exceptions were showing up on the B-2s and some Members were looking at it very similar to the declaration of condominium or CCR is to just keep it on B-2 moving forward because the property is subject to so if you do have a commitment that was delivered some weeks ago, I advise that they look at the B-2 exception very carefully. Melissa Jay Murphy 13:56 Very good point because we are undertaking to train our examiner's on what these agreements are and the requirement that they be treated such that there's a B-1 requirement, but just to be sure Members ought to also check the B-2 exceptions agreed. And if there's nothing there at all, do you have any advice for a Member? Brian Stringer 14:23 I suggest that even there's nothing there, you know, ask your seller if you sign any sort of a listing agreement, do you have any outstanding agreements with respect to listing or selling your property? And if there is an agreement of record, talk this seller about what needs to be done just as an explained to them there is a mechanism to release them. There is a way to terminate the covenant running with the land and does this needs to be counseled with the seller and they can satisfy the requirement. If you do if the seller is going to satisfy be sure to get a proper release and termination, and we would advise the Member to obtain the release and termination record of themselves. Melissa Jay Murphy 14:57 I would agree with that. Particularly if it's a B-1 requirement. And it's interesting that you make the comment that you should talk to the seller and explain to them what needs to be done. I agree with that 100%. Because if in fact the Member has been sent a transaction and there's no listing agreement or a broker involved, or a listing agent involved in the transaction, but you then see one of these agreements shown on your commitment, and it may very well be that the seller does not understand clearly or has ignored their obligation under this agreement to list with that particular broker. So it would be important for you to reach out to to the seller and ask them questions and explain to them that this agreement is there and we need to arrange for a release. Very good point. John Benson. Are there any questions in the chat so far? John Benson 16:05 I just got unmuted by the master. No Melissa, there are no questions being asked at this point. Melissa Jay Murphy 16:13 Perfect. Then we will wrap this up here by first thanking Brian for his time and energy and putting together all this information but I also want to offer some comments. These agreements are new, and to some people really a bit shocking. And I want to be clear that we are not expressing any opinion on their legality or their fairness or the business practices of any of the companies involved in this. The sole purpose of the webinar today is to make Fund Members aware that these agreements exist. Explain to them how they affect title and and how you can address the issue in connection with your particular closing. So Brian, and I hope that this has been useful information to you. Melissa Jay Murphy 17:17 And this is a perfect example of what we're trying to do with these pop up webinars. Just sort of in and out quick information, new issues out there for you to deal with. So thank you so much for attending. And don't forget, we're gonna push this audio out to our podcast which is also called Title Now and keep an eye out for future podcasts that we are putting together because we're trying to sort of reinvigorate these things and offer them a bit more regularly. And as always, thank you for your support of The Fund. Thank you

Have you come across more donations or donors who want to remain anonymous? In today's episode, we will discuss one of the more overlooked forms your organization needs to fill out: 990 Schedule B and the beginning piece of what's included in terms of their name, address, and value.    Information about the 990 Schedule B covered in this episode:   The purpose of the Schedule B (1:14) Disclosing anonymous gifts (1:54) Assessing the value of things (2:42) Redacting information from your 990 (4:28) Benchmark for Schedule B (5:55)   I hope that was helpful in helping you complete and present this information to the public and make sure you send the appropriate information to the IRS. Grab the Preparing for Your 990 preparation list! If you want to dig deeper into or get to know more about form 990! If you still have questions or concerns, please reach out to me in my DMs!   If you want to continue the conversation, find me on Instagram and send me a DM! I would love to hear more about you and your nonprofit!    Are you enjoying the show? Be sure to head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave a rate and review of the show! I'd love to hear from you.

Partners from Riker Danzig's Real Estate Practice join Title Nerds hosts Mike O'Donnell and Bethany Abele for the fourth episode, along with fellow Riker Danzig attorney Kevin Hakansson.  In the first segment, Mike and Bethany have a conversation with Real Estate partners Josh Greenfield and Jim Maggio about working with title insurance underwriters on big commercial closings.  Along with discussing Schedule B exceptions, recommended ALTA endorsements and leasehold policies, Josh and Jim share some thorny title issues they've resolved with good title underwriters.  They stress how critical the service component is for title companies as a differentiating quality, given that fees are regulated in New Jersey.  Next, Kevin Hakansson, a Riker Danzig associate who recently joined the Firm, discusses the case Amran Property Investments, LLC, et al. v Fidelity National Title Group, Inc. in federal court (2021 WL 3883087) in which the plaintiffs, foreign real estate investors who had acquired housing properties in Chicago to lease to tenants, alleged claims of fraud and negligent misrepresentation by Fidelity, seeking to recover their entire property investment amount.  Following closing, plaintiffs were notified that the properties were uninhabitable and would require $1 million+ in repairs to be made rentable.  The Court granted Fidelity's Motion to Dismiss and found that the plaintiffs failed to show that Fidelity aided and abetted the buyers' fraudulent investment scheme, and had no duty to ensure the funds were not misused, as well as failing to state plausible tort claims. 

Americans for Prosperity Foundation v Bonta was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the disclosure of donors to non-profit organizations. The case challenges California's requirement that requires non-profit organizations to disclose the identity of their donors in the state tax returns. The case was consolidated with Thomas More Law Center v Bonta. In July 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6 thru 3 decision that California's requirement burdened the donors' First Amendment rights and was not narrowly tailored, and thus invalid. Background. Under federal law, non-profit organizations are required to provide the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with a list of its major donors (those that donate more than $5,000 or 2% of the total donations to the non-profit in a year) with their annual tax forms, Form 990. This information, held on Schedule B "Schedule of Contributors" of Form 990, is treated as sensitive within the IRS and not shared with states unless there is a pressing need. While non-profits subsequently are required to publicly report most of their tax return, they are not required to include the Schedule B donor information in this. This was established by Congress to allow anonymous donations to non-profits. Within California, non-profits must also renew their registration with the state annually via the state's attorney general's office. Though no state law required them to do so, in 2010 the state began requiring non-profits to include the Form 990 Schedule B with their registration or they would fail to be recertified in the state. While many non-profits complied, several argued that this was unconstitutional. While the state assured that these forms would be held in confidence, during litigation, several instances were found where over 1,800 forms were posted online for public access while others were included in material that was taken during a computer hack. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/law-school/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/law-school/support

On July 1, 2021, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, Attorney General of California. California state law required charitable organizations soliciting donors in the state to register with the California Attorney General. To file, charities had to submit their IRS Form 990 along with all Schedules including Schedule B which discloses donor names and information.Two conservative organizations refused to submit Schedule B and ultimately sued arguing that the compelled disclosure of their donor lists violated their First Amendment right to freedom of association. Disclosure would make their donors less likely to donate or associate with the charities of their choice.The case went through multiple appeals to the Ninth Circuit finally arriving in the Supreme Court, which cited NAACP v. Alabama, clarified the applicable exacting scrutiny standard, and held California's Schedule B disclosure requirement facially unconstitutional. Joining us to discuss is Mr. Erik Jaffe, a Partner at Schaerr Jaffe LLP and the author of an amicus brief in support of the petitioners.Featuring:-- Erik Jaffe, Partner, Schaerr Jaffe LLP

https://vimeo.com/559741875 https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/podcasts/2021/6/6/2021-06-07-perhaps-tax-instructions-arent-just-for-attorneys   This week we look at: Senate Parliamentarian's second opinion on reconciliation limits practical use of revision of reconciliation instructions Long-time tax CPA who admits not reading Schedule B instructions hit with willful failure to file FBAR penalties MoneyGram is not a bank, meaning losses from 2008 financial crisis secured debts were capital losses

This week we look at: Senate Parliamentarian's second opinion on reconciliation limits practical use of revision of reconciliation instructions Long-time tax CPA who admits not reading Schedule B instructions hit with willful failure to file FBAR penalties MoneyGram is not a bank, meaning losses from 2008 financial crisis secured debts were capital losses Copyright 2021, Kaplan, Inc.

What are the major issues that can arise on a title commitment? We talk with Mindi McLain, attorney and co-owner of Wright Law. You can read this entire interview here: https://bit.ly/3rPVNjT Tell us some of the biggest issues that you have found in a title report before. I have had some big messes, I don't even know how to describe how messed up a property can be. Deals that are too good to be true are typically not true. I've had a few deals where, especially if you're buying something from a family that has been in a family for a long time, and then somebody down the road decides they want to sell it, most of the problems that you see are with people that have died in the chain of title ad nothing's been done. There hasn't been a probate of their state, there hasn't been an affidavit of heirship. You're trying to build a family tree, and it has 80 branches, and they had 12 kids. I've had a lot of them, especially small deals, but we had to just go and find all these heirs that were lost. I look for the lost heirs and say, Hey, did you know that you have a 1/64th interest in this property? And would you mind signing this deed? So those can be wrecks, but it can usually be worked out. Another issue is a family, and several people have died. And we find that one of the heirs is a minor, meaning they're under the age of 18. But they've come into title on a property. In Texas, you can get around that, but you have to get a court order allowing a parent to sell that property on behalf of the minor. And then the proceeds from the sale have to go into the court registry, and then it sits there until they turn 18. And then they can go and cash out their inheritance. That happens if someone dies and their heir just happens to be seven or eight years old, or 14 years old. They still are an owner of that property, but legally, they don't have capacity to own property or to sell property. And so you have to involve a parent or a guardian. Some of the worst things I’ve seen are people buying property and not fully reviewing everything that’s in Schedule B and then finding out that there’s a restriction on their property that they didn’t know about. The title company is not going to necessarily tell you hey, you can’t use this property that looks like a retail store, you can’t use it for retail. They’re just going to note in their commitment that there’s no restriction, or a deed, or subject to whatever it was in this document. If you go back and read it, and you bought a property and you wanted to use it for a funeral home, and then you later found out that there’s actually a restriction on that property that says it can’t be a funeral home, or whatever you wanted it to be, then you have a problem because the purpose that you wanted that property for you cannot do it legally because there’s a restriction. And that wouldn’t be a covered claim, if that restriction was an exception to your policy. Also leases, some people will see that there’s a memorandum of a lease recorded, and they won’t really dig into what the lease actually says and ask the seller, Can I see that lease ahead of time? And maybe the tenant either had an option to purchase a property or a right of first refusal or something like that. And they come back later and say, actually, you didn’t have a right to buy this, I had a right to buy it. So they try to undo the sale. People are getting savvy to all the ways that you can generate income from rural properties. And so that includes not just oil and gas leases, and mineral production, but also solar farms, wind farms, all types of alternative energies. Mindi McLain www.wrightlawtx.com mindi@wrightlawtx.com Subscribe to our newsletter here: www.montecarlorei.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

What is a title commitment? What is a survey? What should you watch out for in a title commitment? We talk with Mindi McLain You can read this entire interview here: https://bit.ly/3jdLsLz What is a title report? What is a survey? And what does it do for you when you're purchasing a property? Title work means you're looking back in the records, so that when you buy a piece of property, you know that you have good title to, that you'll become the owner and you know exactly what is going to affect that property. There are lots of different things you can order from a title insurance company. Some people will call it a title report, some people will call it a title run. Most often what you want from them is what's called a title commitment. A title report is usually just a short one or two page document, it says title invested in this person or entity. Here's the legal description and there might be a lien against it. A title commitment is the most comprehensive title instrument that you might want if you're going to look at buying a property and most contracts are going to reference a title commitment. The title insurance company that you choose will take your contract, open title on it, and they'll look at who the owner is, what sort of easements, encumbrances, liens, problems are out there, and what needs to be done or fixed before closing, so that if you're the buyer, when you close, you have good title to the property. And when that commitment then closes, it becomes what's known as title insurance. Surveys go hand in hand with the title commitment, but that's actually sending a licensed surveyor out to their property to look at what's on the ground. The title commitment doesn't do that, the title examiner does not visit your property and actually take a look at it. They're just looking at records, whatever is publicly available, but the surveyor is actually going to go out and visit your property, he's going to measure whatever you ask him to, the boundaries, or the improvements that are there. What are some of the things that people should really watch out for in the title report and the survey? I spend most of my time reviewing Schedule B, those are the exceptions to the policy, followed by Schedule C, the requirements. The first mistake that people make is getting the commitment, and not even really reviewing it or never getting past Schedule A. The second thing that they do is they review Schedule B, but they don't really dig into what it says. So it's going to say, these are things that are excluded from your policy, it's not going to give you the whole summary and analysis of what those things are. If you don't ask, what is that document recorded you'll never know what that document said. There could be an easement recorded, a lease recorded, or a deed recorded. But you'll want to ask the title company for copies of those documents. This is where the survey can come in handy. If you get a title commitment, and it has 18 easements listed, or it has a right of way deed or something like that, your surveyor can take that Schedule B and those documents and he can locate those easements or those roadways on the ground, and then show you where they are on your survey. The same with the survey, if you get it back and you have questions, you want to make sure your title commitment and your survey go hand in hand and that your surveyor has actually reviewed your title commitment and that he or she has included those documents that need to be included on the survey. That way you know where it's at, and your survey can actually be part of your title insurance. Mindi McLain www.wrightlawtx.com mindi@wrightlawtx.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

In NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, the Supreme Court recognized a First Amendment right to privacy of association and belief. Almost 60 years later, while California's Attorney General began requiring charities to provide their office with a federal form listing major donors. That document -- Schedule B to IRS Form 990 -- is provided directly to the IRS, and its privacy is guaranteed by federal law. The California Attorney General asserted that her office would also protect donors' privacy, and that the information was necessary to pursue law enforcement duties. The American for Prosperity Foundation and others assert the evidence at trial indicated that donor information was publicly available, and that California authorities seldom used it for the reasons stated. The Supreme Court has been asked to review the Attorney General's policy, and has called for the views of the Solicitor General in what could prove a seminal case concerning associational privacy. Featuring:-- Mr. Robert Alt, President & CEO, The Buckeye Institute-- Mr. Allen Dickerson, Legal Director, Institute for Free Speech-- Mr. Paul S. Ryan, Vice President, Policy & Litigation, Common Cause-- Mr. Derek Shaffer, Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

In NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, the Supreme Court recognized a First Amendment right to privacy of association and belief. Almost 60 years later, while California's Attorney General began requiring charities to provide their office with a federal form listing major donors. That document -- Schedule B to IRS Form 990 -- is provided directly to the IRS, and its privacy is guaranteed by federal law. The California Attorney General asserted that her office would also protect donors' privacy, and that the information was necessary to pursue law enforcement duties. The American for Prosperity Foundation and others assert the evidence at trial indicated that donor information was publicly available, and that California authorities seldom used it for the reasons stated. The Supreme Court has been asked to review the Attorney General's policy, and has called for the views of the Solicitor General in what could prove a seminal case concerning associational privacy. Featuring:-- Mr. Robert Alt, President & CEO, The Buckeye Institute-- Mr. Allen Dickerson, Legal Director, Institute for Free Speech-- Mr. Paul S. Ryan, Vice President, Policy & Litigation, Common Cause-- Mr. Derek Shaffer, Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

Learn more about the U.S. Customs entry process, HTS Classification and the things to consider when importing. Topics include: Things to consider when importing The Customs entry process General rules of interpretation HTS structure & how to read the HTSUS How to classify products HTS vs. Schedule B numbers And more! This podcast is derived from a question & answer forum recorded in front of a live audience of international shipping, supply chain management, and U.S. Customs compliance professionals.  Our audience submits the questions and we provide the answers. Mention this podcast for a 30-minute free consultation for U.S. Customs Compliance or Supply Chain Optimization and pricing.  Email consulting@scarbrough-intl.com. Visit the U.S Customs Brokerage & Classification page to download the associated presentation, gain access to other material and information.  Feel free to share this training with your team! For more On Demand Training resources and other topics, https://www.scarbrough-intl.com/ondemandtraining. Episode Webpage:  >> https://www.scarbrough-intl.com/training/customs/

Things often don’t go according to plan. In this episode, featuring a feverish and frustrated Jen Briney, learn about the shamefully rushed process employed by the Democrats to pass their top priority bill, H.R. 1, through the House of Representatives. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD129: The Impeachment of John Koskinen Bill Outline: HR 1 For The People Act of 2019 Govtrack - Full Text Official title: “To expand American’s access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and for other purposes.” Short Title: For the People Act of 2019 Sponsor: Rep. John Sarbanes (MD-3) First co-sponsor: Nancy Pelosi Referred to 10 committees: House Administration House Intelligence (Permanent Select) House Judiciary House Oversight and Government Reform House Science, Space, and Technology House Education and the Workforce House Ways and Means House Financial Services House Ethics House Homeland Security Division A: Voting TITLE I: ELECTION ACCESS Subtitle A: Voter Registration Modernization “Voter Registration Modernization Act of 2019" Part 1: Promoting Internet Registration Sec. 1001: Every State Has to Allow Us To Register to Vote Online Requires every State to allow residents to register to vote online and be given an online receipt of their completed voter registration application Signatures can be electronic as long as the individual has a signature on file with a State agency, including the DMV. People who don’t have signatures on file can submit handwritten signatures through digital means or sign in person on Election Day. Signatures will be required on Election Day for people who registered to vote online and have not previously voted in a Federal election in that state. Sec. 1002: Every State Has To Allow Us To Update Our Registration Online States must allow registered voters to update their registrations online too Sec. 1003: Voter Information Online Instead Of Regular Mail Tells states to include a space for voters to submit an email address and get voting information via email instead of using regular mail (we may need that to be “in addition to”) Prohibits our emails from being given to anyone who is outside the government. The State will have to provide people who opted for emails, at least 7 days before the election, online information including the name and address of the voter’s polling place, that polling place’s hours, and which IDs the voter may need to vote at that polling place. Sec. 1004: 'Valid Voter Registration' Form Definition Defines what is a “valid voter registration form”: The form is accurate and the online applicant provided a signature. Sec. 1005: Effective Date: January 1, 2020. Part 2: Automatic Voter Registration “Automatic Voter Registration Act of 2019" Sec. 1012: Automatic Registration of Eligible Voters Every State will have to create and operate a system for automatically registering everyone eligible to vote “for Federal office in the State”. The States will have 15 days to register a person to vote after getting updated voter information from another agency. Sec. 1015: "Voter Protection and Security in Automatic Registration" Declining automatic registration can’t be used as evidence “In any State or Federal law enforcement proceeding" States will have to keep records of all changes to voter records, including removals and updates, for 2 years and make those available for public inspection. Gives the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology the power to write the rules for how States can use voter information to deem a person ineligible and to write privacy and security standards for voter registration information Voter registration information “shall not be used for commercial purposes.” Sec. 1016: Corrections to Voter Information Can Be Done on Election Day Voters in all States would be able to update their address, name, or political party affiliation in person on Election Day, and they could vote using the corrected information using a regular ballot, not a provisional ballot. Sec. 1017: The Federal Government Will Pay to Make The Changes Authorizes $500 million for 2019, available until it’s gone. Sec. 1021: Effective Date - January 1, 2021 Part 3: Same Day Voter Registration Sec. 1031: Voters Can Register At the Polling Place On Election Day System would have to be in place by November 2020 Part 4: Conditions on Removal on Basis of Interstate Cross-Checks Sec. 1041: Requirements To Use Cross Check To Remove Voters Prohibits States from using interstate crosscheck systems to remove people from voter rules until the State receives the voter’s full name, including their middle name, date of birth, and last 4 digits of their social security numbers and if the State has documentation verifying the voter is no longer a resident of the State. Interstate cross checks can not be used to remove voters from rolls within six months of an election Effective date: Six months after enactment Part 7: Prohibiting Interference with Voter Registration Sec. 1071: Fines and Prison For Interference in Voter Registration People who prevent another person from registering to vote, or attempt to prevent another person from registering, “shall be fined” or imprisoned for up to five years, or both. Effective date: Elections on or after enactment Subtitle B: Access to Voting for Individuals With Disabilities  Subtitle C: Prohibiting Voter Caging  Sec. 1201: Prohibits Removal of Names Based Solely on Caging Lists State/local election officials will not be allowed to deny a voter registration if the decision is based on a voter caging document, an unverified match list, or an error on a registration that is not material to the citizen’s eligibility to vote. Challenges to voter registration by non-election officials will only be allowed if the person has personal knowledge documented in writing and subject to an attestation under penalty of perjury. Penalties for knowingly challenging the eligibility of someone else’s voter registration with the intent to disqualify that person is punishable by a fine and/or one year in prison for each violation. Subtitle D : Prohibiting Deceptive Practices and Preventing Voter Intimidation - “Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2019" Sec. 1302: Prohibits Lying To Prevent People From Voting Makes it illegal to communicate by any means false information regarding the time and place of an election, the voter’s registration status or eligibility, or criminal penalties for voting within 60 days of an election if the communication has the intent of preventing another person from voting. Makes it illegal, within 60 days of an election, to communicate by any means false information regarding an endorsement by a person or political party that didn’t actually happen. Penalties: A fine of up to $100,000, five years in prison, or both. The penalties are the same for attempts to lie to people to prevent them from voting. Subtitle E: Democracy Restoration - “Democracy Restoration Act of 2019" Sec. 1402: Voting Rights Extend to Ex-Cons “The right of an individual who is a citizen of the United States to vote in any election for Federal office shall not be denied or abridged because that individual has been convicted of a criminal offense unless such individual is serving a felony sentence in a correctional institution or facility at the time of the election." Sec. 1408: Effective for any election held after enactment Subtitle F: Promoting Accuracy, Integrity, and Security Through Verified Permanent Paper Ballot - “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2019” Sec. 1502: Requires Paper Ballots for All Federal Elections Requires all voting systems to use individual paper ballots that are verified by the voter before their vote is cast which “shall be counted by hand or read by an optical character recognition device or other counting device” The paper ballots must be preserved as the official ballots and will be counted by hand for recounts and audits If there is a difference between the electronic vote count and the hand count of paper ballots, the hand count of paper ballots will be the final count. Subtitle H: Early Voting Sec. 1611: Every State Must Allow Early Voting for 15 Days Every State will be required to allow citizens to vote in Federal elections during the 15 days preceding the election, with polls open for at least 4 hours per day except on Sundays. Effective Date: Elections after January 1, 2020 Subtitle I: Voting by Mail Sec. 1621: Vote By Mail National Standards States can’t count absentee ballots until they match the signature on the ballot to the signature on the State’s official list of registered voters States must provide ballots and voting materials at least 2 weeks before the election Effective date: Elections held on or after January 1, 2020 Subtitle J: Absent Uniformed Services Voters and Overseas Voters Subtitle K: Poll Worker Recruitment and Training Sec. 1801: Federal Employees As Poll Workers Employees of Federal agencies will be allowed to be excused from work for up to 6 days in order to work in polling places on Election Day and for training. Subtitle L: Enhancement of Enforcement Subtitle M: Federal Election Integrity Sec. 1821: Head of Elections Can’t Campaign for Elections They Oversee It will be illegal for a chief State election administration official to take part in a political campaign “with respect to any election for Federal office over which such official has supervisory authority” Subtitle N: Promoting Voter Access Through Election Administration Improvements  Sec. 1902: Notification for Polling Place Changes States must notify voters at least seven days in advance if the State has changed their polling place to somewhere other than where they last voted Effective January 1, 2020 Sec. 1903: Election Day Holiday The Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2020 and each even-numbered year after that will be treated as a legal public holiday Encourages, but does not require, the private sector to give their workers the day off for elections Sec. 1904: Sworn Written Statements to Meet ID Requirements If a State requires an ID to vote, a person may vote if they provide, in person, a sworn written statement signed under penalty of perjury attesting to their identity and that they are eligible to vote, unless they are first time voters in the State. Effective for elections occurring on or after enactment Sec. 1905: Postage Free Ballots Absentee ballots will not require postage The Post Office will be reimbursed by States for the lost revenue TITLE II: ELECTION INTEGRITY Subtitle E: Redistricting Reform - “Redistricting Reform Act of 2019” Sec. 2402: Independent Commissions for Redistricting Congressional redistricting must be done by an independent redistricting commission established in the State or by a plan development and enacted into law by a 3 judge court of the US District Court for the District of Columbia Sec. 2411: Creating the Independent Redistricting Commissions The Commissions will be made up of 15 members from the “selection pool” (see Sec. 2412) 5 members will be selected randomly from the 12 belonging to the political party with the most registered voters in the State 5 members will be selected randomly from the 12 belonging to the political party with the second most registered voters in the State 5 members will be selected randomly from the 12 who are not affiliated with the two largest political parties The Chair must be a member of the group that is not affiliated with the largest two parties in the State and will be selected via a majority vote of the commission The State can not finalize a redistricting plan unless the plan gets a vote from someone in each of the three membership categories and it passes with a majority of the commission voting yes. Contractors for the commission can be required to provide their political contribution history Sec. 2412: Eligibility for the Independent Commission “Selection Pool” To qualify, the individual must... Be registered to vote Either be with the same political party or with no political party for the previous 3 years Submits an application including a declaration of their political party, if they belong to one, and a commitment to impartiality. An individual is disqualified if the individual or an immediate family member within the 5 years preceding their appointment... Holds public office or is a candidate for public office Serves as an officer of a political party or as a political party consultant Is a registered lobbyist Is an employee of an elected public official, a contractor with the legislature of a State, or a donor who gives more than $20,000 to candidates for public offices. The selection pool will have 36 individuals made up of... 12 individuals affiliated with the political party with the largest percentage of registered voters in the State 12 individuals affiliated with the political party with the second largest percentage of registered voters in the State 12 individuals who are not affiliated with either of the two largest political parties The selection pool must be approved by the State’s Select Committee on Redistricting Inaction is a rejection of the selection pool Sec. 2413: Criteria for New Districts Districts must be created using this criteria in this order: Districts must comply with the Constitution, including the requirement that the equalize total population Districts must comply with the Voting Rights Act and all Federal laws Districts can’t be drawn in a way that dilutes the ability for minority communities to elect candidates Districts must minimize the division of neighborhoods, counties, municipalities, and school districts “to the extent practicable” Districts may not be drawn to favor or disfavor any political party The commission may not consider the political party affiliation or voting history of the district’s population or the resident of any member of the House of Representatives when drawing the district maps All meetings must be held in public, must take comments into consideration and they must publish information, including video archives, about their meetings on a public website Sec. 2431: Authorizes payments to States of $150,000 per district to help pay for the redistricting process Subtitle F: Saving Voters from Voter Purging -“Stop Automatically Voiding Eligible Voters Off Their Enlisted Rolls in States Act” - “Save Voters Act”  Sec. 2502: Restricting Voter Roll Purges States can’t use the failure of a voter to vote or the voter’s failure to respond to a notice as the basis for removing their name from the voter rolls TITLE III: ELECTION SECURITY Subtitle A: Financial Support for Election Infrastructure Part 1: Voting System Security Improvement Gains Part 2: Grants for Risk-Limiting Audits of Results of Elections Part 3: Election Infrastructure Innovation Grant Program Subtitle B: Security Measures Subtitle C: Enhancing Protections for United Stated Democratic Institutions Subtitle D : Promoting Cybersecurity Through Improvements in Election Administration Subtitle E: Preventing Election Hacking Division B: Campaign Finance TITLE IV: CAMPAIGN FINANCE TRANSPARENCY Subtitle B: DISCLOSE Act - “Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act”  Part 1: Regulation of Certain Political Spending Sec. 4101: Foreign Owned Corporations Count as “Foreign Nationals” Makes it illegal for a corporation, LLC, or partnership which is more than 5% owned by a foreign government or 20% owned by foreign individual to directly or indirectly make a contribution in connection with a Federal, State, or local election or a contribution to a political party. It’s also illegal for Americans to accept or solicit a contribution from “foreign nationals” (amends 52 U.S.C 30121(b)) Effective 180 days after enactment, regardless of if regulations are done Part 2: Reporting of Campaign-Related Disbursements Sec. 4111: Corporations Must Report Donations Any corporation, LLC, or tax exempt organization (other than 501(c)3 “charities”) that make campaign contributions totaling more than $10,000 in the 2 year election cycle must file a statement containing the name of the donating organization, the business address, a list of that business or corporations’ controlling owners, and the name/address of the person who received each donation of more than $1,000. If the corporation, LLC, or tax exempt organization pays for a public communication, they must report the name of any candidate identified and whether the communication was in support or opposition to that candidate. Subtitle C: Honest Ads - “Honest Ads Act” Sec. 4205: Disclosure of Sources of Online Political Ads Extends political ad disclosure laws to internet and other digital communication Sec. 4207: Disclosures Must Be Clear Ads must include a statement telling us the name of the person who paid for the communication in a way that is not difficult to read or hear Sec. 4208: Public Record of Online Political Ads * Requires online platforms to create and make available online for public inspection a complete record of requests to purchase political advertisements if they purchase more than $500 worth in one calendar year Subtitle D : Stand by Every Ad - “Stand By Every Ad Act" Subtitle E: Secret Money Transparency Sec. 4401: IRS Can Investigate Dark Money Groups Again Repeals the restriction enacted by the 115th Congress on the IRS that prevented them from making sure tax exempt organizations aren’t using their funds for political expenditures Subtitle F: Shareholder Right-to-Know Sec. 4501: SEC Can Enforce Shareholder Disclosure Laws Repeals the restriction enacted by the 115th Congress on the Securities and Exchange Commission that prevented them from enforcing laws related to corporations informing shareholders about the corporations political activity. Subtitle G: Disclosure of Political Spending by Government Contractors Sec. 4601: Contractors Can Be Forced to Disclose Donations Repeals the restriction enacted by the 115th Congress that prevented requiring government contractors to report their political spending Subtitle H: Limitation and Disclosure Requirements for Presidential Inaugural Committees - “Presidential Inaugural Committee Oversight Act" TITLE V: CAMPAIGN FINANCE EMPOWERMENT Subtitle B: Congressional Elections - “Government By the People Act of 2019” Part 1: My Voice Voucher Pilot Program Sec. 5101: Voucher Pilot Program The Federal Election Commission will create an pilot program and select 3 states to operate it Sec. 5102: Pilot Program Details State’s will provided individuals who request one a “My Voice Voucher" worth $25 Individuals can give their voucher dollars, in $5 increments, to qualified candidates for Congress. Part 2: Small Dollar Financing of Congressional Election Campaigns Sec. 5111: 6x Matching of Small Dollar Donations Payments will be 600% of the amount of small dollar contributions received by the candidate during the Small Dollar Democracy qualifying period Small dollar contribution is between $1 and $200 Limit: The total amount of payments made to a candidate may not be more than 50% of the average of the “20 greatest amounts of disbursements made by the authorized committees of any winning candidate for the office of Representatives in, or Delegate or Resident Commissioner to, the Congress during the most recent election cycle, rounded to the nearest $100,000.” Candidates can get an additional payment of up to $500,000 during the period between 60 days and 14 days before the election, which doesn’t count towards the total limit. Candidates are eligible if they can get 1,000 people to make a small dollar contribution and if the candidate can raise at least $50,000. Eligible candidates can’t take more than $1,000 total from any individual. Eligible candidates can’t use more than $50,000 in personal funds. Will be funded by a “Freedom of Influence Fund" Sec. 5112: Coordination with Parties Sec. 5114: Effective starting in 2024 elections Subtitle C: Presidential Elections - “Empower Act of 2019" Part 1: Primary Elections Part 2: General Elections Part 3: Effective Date Subtitle D : Personal Use Services as Authorized Campaign Expenditures - “Help America Run Act” TITLE VI: CAMPAIGN FINANCE OVERSIGHT Subtitle A: Restoring Integrity to America’s Elections Sec. 6002: Changes to FEC make up Subtitle B: Stopping Super PAC-Candidate Coordination Division C: Ethics TITLE VII: ETHICAL STANDARDS Subtitle B: Foreign Agents Registration Sec. 7101: New Department of Justice Investigation Unit Will be dedicated to enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act Subtitle C: Lobbying Disclosure Reform Sec. 7201: Expands Definition of “Lobbyist” To include people who provide “legislative, political, and strategic counseling services, research, and other background work” as lobbyists in terms of disclosure requirements Effective upon enactment Subtitle D : Recusal of Presidential Appointees Sec. 7301: Recusal of Appointees Any officer or employee appointed by the President must recuse themselves from any matter involving the President who appointed the officer or employee or that President’s spouse. TITLE VIII: ETHICS REFORMS FOR THE PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT, AND FEDERAL OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES Subtitle A: Executive Branch Conflict of Interest Sec. 8002: Prohibits Private Sector Payments for Entering Government Private companies can’t provide bonus payments, pensions, retirement, group life/health/accident insurance, profit-sharing, stock bonus, or other payments contingent on accepting a position in the U.S. Government. Sec. 8003: Slowing the Revolving Door Executive Branch employees can’t use their government position to “participate in a particular matter” if they know a company they worked for in the last two years has a financial interest. Penalty: Fine and/or 1 year in prison. Penalty for willful violation: Fine and/or up to 5 years in prison Civil penalties: The greater of $100,000 per violation or the amount the person received or was offered for conducting the violation Sec. 8004: Waiting Period For Procurement Officers To Work for Contractors A former official responsible for a government contract can not accept payments from any division, affiliate, or subcontractor of the chosen contractor for 2 years after awarding the contract. A government employee can not award a contract to his or her former employer for 2 years after they leave the company. Sec. 8005: Lobbying Job Waiting Period Senior level Executive Branch employees have to wait 2 years before they can be paid to influence their former colleagues Subtitle B: Presidential Conflicts of Interest Subtitle C: White House Ethics Transparency Subtitle D : Executive Branch Ethics Enforcement Subtitle E: Conflicts for Political Fundraising Sec. 8042: Disclosure of Certain Types of Contributions People who are nominated to high level Executive Branch offices will have to disclose their contributions to political organizations, 501(c)4’s, and 501(c)6’s. Subtitle F: Transition Team Ethics Subtitle G: Ethics Pledge for Senior Executive Branch Employees TITLE IX: CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS REFORM Subtitle A: Requiring members of Congress to Reimburse Treasury for Amounts Paid as Settlements and Awards Under Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Subtitle B: Conflicts of Interest Sec. 9101: Members Can’t Be on For-Profit Boards of Directors Changes the House Rules so that members of the House of Representatives will not be allowed to serve on the board of "any for-profit entity" while serving in the House of Representatives. Sec. 9103: Prohibition Above Can Be Changed via House Rules Subtitle C: Campaign Finance and Lobbying Disclosure - “Connecting Lobbying and Electeds for Accountability and Reform Act” “CLEAR Act" Sec. 9202: Separate Reports for Lobbyist Donations Report submitted by political campaigns will have to report which donations are made by registered lobbyists in a separate statement (amends 52 U.S.C. 30104(b)) Sec. 9203: Effective 90 Days After Enactment Subtitle D : Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Sec. 9303: Online Portal for Congressionally Mandated Reports Portal will create, within one year of enactment, an online portal providing free public digital access to all congressionally mandated reports Reports will be available within 30 days of their submission to Congress TITLE X: PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE PRESIDENTIAL TAX TRANSPARENCY Sec. 10001: Presidential and Vice Presidential Tax Return Disclosure Requires candidates for President and Vice President to submit their tax returns for the last 10 taxable years to the Federal Election Commission within 15 days of declaring their candidacy The chairman of the Federal Election Commission must make the candidates’ tax returns, with personal information redacted, publicly available Effective upon enactment    Additional Reading Article: 10 things you might not know about HR 1 by Lindsey McPherson and Kate Ackley, Roll Call, March 6, 2019. Article: Conservative expert privately warned GOP donors that a voting rights bill would help Democrats by Lee Fang and Nick Surgey, The Intercept, February 27, 2019. Article: House Democrats forge ahead on electoral reform bill by Zach Montellaro, Politico, February 26, 2019. Markup: H.R. 1, For the People Act of 2019, February 26 ,2019. Article: House Democrats officially unveil their first bill in the majority: a sweeping anti-corruption proposal by Ella Nilson, Vox, January 4, 2019. Article: One state fixed its gerrymandered districts, the other didnt. Here's how the election played out in both by Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, November 9, 2018. Article: 6 takeaways from Georgia's 'Use It Or Lose It' voter purge investigation by Johnny Kauffman, NPR, October 22, 2018. Article: Registration is a voter-suppression tool. Let's finally end it by Ellen Kurz, The Washington Post, October 11, 2018. Report: Purges: A growing threat to the right to vote by Jonathan Brater, Kevin Morris, Myrna Pérez, and Christopher Deluzio, Brennan Center for Justice, July 20, 2018. Article: How Maryland Democrats pulled off their aggressive gerrymander by Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, March 28, 2018. Article: Pennsylvania Supreme Court draws 'much more competitive' district map to overturn Republican gerrymander by Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, February 20, 2018. Article: Pennsylvania redistricting decision gives Democrats a boost by Bill Barrow and Mark Scolforo, AP News, February 6, 2018. Article: How redistricting became a technological arms race by Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, October 28, 2017. Article: Government by Goldman by Gary Rivlin and Michael Hudson, The Intercept, September 17, 2017. Article: The most gerrymandered states ranked by efficiency gap and seat advantage by Daniel McGlone and Esther Needham, Azavea, July 19, 2017. Article: Here are the first 10 members of Trump's voting commission by Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, July 6, 2017. Article: 3 Trump Cabinet officials will still be receiving millions from corporate America by Jeff Stein, Vox, February 3, 2017. Article: Trump adviser Gary Cohn's $285 million Goldman Sachs exit raises eyebrows by Matt Egan, CNN Business, January 27, 2017. Article: The IRS gives up on fighting 'dark money' by Editorial Board, The Washington Post, February 19, 2016. Article: How Crossroads GPS beat the IRS and became a social welfare group by Robert Maguire, OpenSecrets.org, Febraury 12, 2016. Blog: Congress uses PATH to cut IRS off from Section 501(c)(4) social welfare regulations, Wagenmaker & Oberly, December 30, 2015. Article: This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see by Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, March 1, 2015. Article: Five 501(c)(3) groups that might have broken the law by Lee Fang, The Nation, May 21, 2013. Article: The voter-fraud myth by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, October 29, 2012. Article: Justice Dept. accused of partisan voter-roll purge by Pam Fessler, NPR, October 11, 2007. Resources Congressional Budget Office: H.R. 1, Estimated Effects on Direct Spending and Revenues Federal Election Commission: Using Campaign Funds for Personal Use How Stuff Works: PACs vs. Super PACs Research: All About Redistricting - Who draws the lines? Website: The Redistricting Majority Project Website: RepresentUs Sound Clip Sources Short Film: Unbreaking America: A NEW Short Film about Solving the Corruption Crisis, RepresentUs, YouTube, February 27, 2019. Full Committee Markup: H.R. 1, The For the People Act of 2019, Committee on House Administration, February 26, 2019. Youtube Video Hearing: For the People: Our American Democracy, Committee on House Administration, February 14, 2019. Youtube Video Witnesses: Chiraag Bains - Director of Legal Strategies at Demos Wendy Weiser - Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennen Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law Fred Wertheimer -President of Democracy 21 Kym Wyman - Secretary of State of Washington Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, Senior at Dodge City High School in Kansas and plaintiff in LULAC & Rangel-Lopez v. Cox Peter Earle - Wisconsin Civil Rights Trial Lawyer Brandon Jessup - Data Science and Information Systems Professional and Executive Director at Michigan Forward David Keating - President at the Institute for Free Speech Hearing: Full Committee Hearing on the "Strengthening Ethics Rules for the Executive Branch", Committee on Oversight and Reform, February 6, 2019. YouTube Video Witnesses: Scott Amey - General Counsel, Project on Government Oversight Karen Hobert Flynn - President of Common Cause Rudy Mehrbani - Spitzer Fellow and Senior Counsel, Brennen Center for Justice Walter Schaub Jr - Senior Advisor, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Bradley Smith - Chairman at the Institute for Free Speech Sound Clips: 17:30 Rep. Elijah Cummings (D - MD) Title eight includes a bill that I introduced called the executive branch ethics reform act. It would, it would ban senior officials from accepting "golden parachute" payments from private sector employers in exchange for their government service. This would have prevented Gary Cohn from receiving more than $100 million in accelerated payments from Goldman Sachs while leading the Trump administration's efforts to slash corporate taxes. 19:00 Cummings Title eight also would make clear that Congress expects the president to divest his business holdings just as every single president since Jimmy Carter has done and place them in an independent and truly blind trust. 28:00 Rep. Jim Jordan (R - OH) In 2013 we learned that the IRS targeted conservative for their political beliefs during the 2012 election cycle systematically for a sustained period of time. They went after people for their conservative beliefs, plan in place, targeted people. They did it. The gross abuse of power would have continued, if not for the efforts of this committee. 2014 the Obama Administration doubled down and attempted to use the IRS rule making process to gut the ability of social welfare organizations to participate in public debate. Congress has so far prevented this regulation from going into effect, but HR 1 would change that. 28:30 Jordan Furthermore, this bill would roll back another critical victory for privacy and free speech secured just last summer following efforts by this committee and others, the IRS changed its policy as it relates to schedule B information. Schedule B contains personal information like names, addresses, and the amounts donated to nonprofit entities. Even though this information is supposed to remain private under current law, states and federal government have leaked these personal details in the past. In changing its policies, the IRS noted that there had been at least 14 breaches resulting in the unauthorized disclosure of schedule B information just since 2010. The result was everyday Americans receiving death threats and mail containing white powder. All because someone disagreed with what they believe and who they gave their hard earned money to. 59:00 Walter Schaub HR 1 addresses big payouts to incoming officials. These golden parachutes raise concerns about an employee appointees loyalty to a former employer. When former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew left Wall Street to join the State Department, he received a large bonus in his employment agreement. Let him keep that bonus specifically because he landed at a high level government job. 1:04:00 Bradley Smith Subtitle B of title six is called Stopping Super PAC and candidate coordination. The sponsors and drafters are either being intentionally disingenuous here or are they simply do not understand what has been put into their own legislation. Nothing in subtitle B, nothing limits. It's reached a super PACs. It applies to every union trade association, advocacy group and unincorporated association in the country. It applies to planned parenthood and right to life, to the NAACP and the ACLU to the national federation of Independent Business and to the Brady Campaign for gun safety. It even applies to individual citizens who seek to participate in public discussion. Nothing. This cannot be said often enough limits it to super PACs through the interplay of its definitions of coordination and coordinated spenders. The laws treatment, uh, traditional treatment of coordinated spending as a contribution to a candidate and current contribution limits in the law. Subtitle be, will actually have the effect of banning, not limiting, but actually banning a great deal of speech that was legal even before the Supreme Court's decision in citizens United versus FEC and Buckley v Vallejo. 1:39:00 Smith I would only add that I think that the disclosure provisions are often worse than people think because they're defining as political activity things that have never been defined as political before. And you run the risk of a regulation swallowing up the entire, uh, discourse in which public, uh, engages. So I would only say that I think the provisions are worse than people think and that they're often hidden through the complex interrelationship of different positions. Well, one, one example would be if an organization, uh, for example, were to hire somebody who had previously been an intern, a paid intern for a member of Congress, that organization would then be prohibited from making any communications that were deemed to promote a tax support or oppose a that candidate. And that vague term could apply to almost anything praising the candidate for introducing a bill, uh, criticizing the congressman for opposing a bill, whatever it might be. Jordan Wow. That put the whole consultant business in this town out of business, it seems to me. Smith It's not just the consulting business. Oh, of course. It puts out of business all of the interest groups and all of the civic groups that people belong to. 1:43:00 Cummings One year ago today when my mother's dying bed at 92 years old, former sharecropper, her last words were, do not let them take our votes away from us. They had fought, she had fought and seen people harmed and beaten, trying to vote. Talk about inalienable rights. Voting is crucial, and I don't give a damn how you look at it. There are efforts to stop people from voting. That's not right. This is not Russia. This is the United States of America, and I will fight until the death to make sure every citizen, whether they're Green party, whether they're Freedom Party, whether they're Democrat, whether you're Republican, whoever has that right to vote. 1:46:00 Karen Hobert Flynn Election day registration is a perfect antidote to a purge so that you can show up on election day. If you see that there's a problem, then you can register to vote and vote on that day. 2:19:00 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R - ND) North Dakota is the only state in the country without voter registration. We have voting. We have counties that vote exclusively by mail, and we currently have no excuse, absentee ballot, absentee voting. We have, we allow felons to vote immediately upon release from prison. Um, our poll workers are almost exclusively volunteers across the entire state. So in short, we have the, the best and easiest vote voting, voting booth access in the entire country, and we are incredibly proud of that. 2:23:00 Armstrong North, we, and this might be a little change, but it's really important to the voters in North Dakota. So we, uh, we start our absentee or early voting process, I think for military deployed overseas, it says early as August. And we have, as I said, no excuse absentee ballots. But what we require is that our ballots are postmarked the day before the election. And in North Dakota, we really, really try to make sure the election is over on election day. Um, north Dakotans don't understand how an election can change by 12, 13, 14,000 votes in the two to three weeks after an election day. Now I'm not in the business and telling people in California or somewhere else how to do their voting laws, but that just is something that is not appropriate here. And this would require ballots to be postmarked up until election day, correct? That's correct. 2:24:00 Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) I wish Mr. Meadows were still here because I'm delighted that he's thinking of stepping into the small donor matching system that has proposed an HR 1. Because when you step into that system, you step into a system that is owned by the people. This is why it's in the bill because the public is tired of feeling like their elections, their system, their government, their democracy is owned by special interests, big corporations, Wall Street, oil and gas industry, super PACs, lobbyists, everybody. But then this is the power move. They want to own their democracy again. 2:27:00 Sarbanes Somebody said, why are we hooking all these things together? Voting ethics, campaign finance, because the people have told us, if you just do one and you don't do the others were still frozen out. The system is still rigged. You fix the voting stuff, but if you go to Washington and nobody's behaving themselves, that doesn't solve the problem or you fix the ethics part, but we're still, the system is still owned by the big money in the special interests because they're the ones that are underwriting the campaigns. Then we're still left out. The system is still rigged. You got to do all of these things together to reset the democracy in a place where it respects the average citizen out there. Who right now is sitting in their kitchen, they're looking at the TV screen there. They're hearing about billionaires and super PACs who are making decisions inside conference rooms somewhere on K Street that affect their lives and all they're saying is we want back in. We're tired of sitting out here with our nose is pressed against the window looking in on the democracy that we have no impact on. That's why we're linking all of these things together to reset the table. So the special interests aren't the ones that are calling the shots. 2:29:00 Sarbanes The provisions of transparency in this bill are targeted to mega donors who give more than $10,000 who right now are hidden behind this Russian doll kind of structure where you can't see who it is, who's behind the curtain, who's putting all this money into campaigns. The public wants to know that that's reasonable. 2:38:00 Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) And I'm deeply troubled at what appears to be a Russian engagement through 501(c)(4)s in this country, whether it's the NRA or, um, other, uh, nonprofits that are created for the express purpose here in the United States to lobby on behalf of Russia as it related to the Magnitsky Act. Um, so right now there is no limitation on how much money can be contributed by a foreign government entity to a 501(c)(4). Is that correct? Hobert Flynn I believe that is, yes. Speier And there is no disclosure required as well. Is that correct? Hobert Flynn I believe that's right. Speier So in your estimation, would it be prudent for us to one, limit the amount of contributions that a foreign individual can make to a 501(c)(4), and two, that all of that be subject to disclosure? Hobert Flynn Yeah, I think, I think it would be very important. Um, you know, there are limits. There are bans on foreign nationals giving money in campaign contributions, and I think we should be looking at those kinds of limits for, um, and it's certainly disclosure for, um, contributions to 501(c)(4)s. 2:56:00 Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH) You hear so much attack on political action committees, PACs, Mr. Smith, or maybe you'd be best one to answer this. I don't know, maybe I don't want us to answer it. Where do political action committees get their money? Smith Political action committees get their money from individuals. Traditional PACs do. Now Super PACS as they're called, can take money from corporations and unions, but they are not able to contribute directly to candidates. Sort of coordinate anything with candidates. Gibbs I appreciate that. Uh, make the point. Um, because I, I got attacked because I take political action money, but it comes from businesses in my district. A lot of it, it comes from associations. You know, everybody has somebody lobbying for them in DC. I mean, if you're, if you're a member, of a retirement association, any organization, you've got a lobbyist here. 2:57:00 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Let's play a game, let's play a lightening round game. I'm going to be the bad guy, which I'm sure half the room would agree with anyway. And um, and I want to get away with as much bad things as possible, ideally to enrich myself and advance my interest even if that means putting, uh, putting my interests ahead of the American people. So, um, Mrs Holbert Flynn. Oh, and by the way, I have listed all of you as my co conspirators, so you're going to help me legally get away with all of this. So Mrs Herbert Flynn, I want to run, if I want to run a campaign that is entirely funded by corporate political action committees, is that, is there anything that legally prevents me from doing that? Hobert Flynn No. Ocasio-Cortez Okay. So there's nothing stopping me from being entirely funded by corporate PACs, say from the fossil fuel industry, the healthcare industry, big Pharma. I'm entirely 100% lobbyists PAC funded. Okay. So let's see. I'm a really, really bad guy and let's see, I've have some skeletons in my closet that I need to cover it up so that I can get elected. Um, Mr. Smith, is it true that you wrote this article, this opinion piece for the Washington Post entitled These Payments to Women Were Unseemly? That doesn't mean they were illegal. Smith Well, I can't see the piece but I wrote a piece or that headline in the post's so I assume that's right. Ocasio-Cortez Okay, great. So green-light for hush money, I can do all sorts of terrible things. It's totally legal right now for me to pay people off and that is considered speech. That money is considered speech. So I use my special interest, dark money funded campaign to pay off folks that I need to pay off and get elected. So now I'm elected, now I'm in, I've got the power to draft, lobby and shape the laws that govern the United States of America. Fabulous. Now is there any hard limit that I have, perhaps Mrs Herbert Flynn? Is there any hard limit that I have in terms of what legislation I'm allowed to touch? Are there any limits on the laws that I can write or influence? Especially if I'm a based on the special interest funds that I accepted to finance my campaign and get me elected in the first place. Herbert Flynn There's no limit. Ocasio-Cortez So there's none. So I can be totally funded by oil and gas that can be totally funded by big Pharma come in. Right. Big Pharma laws and there's no limits to that whatsoever. Herbert Flynn That's right. Ocasio-Cortez Okay, so awesome. Now, uh, now Mr Mehrabani, the last thing I want to do is get rich with as little work possible. That's really what I'm trying to do as the bad guy. Right? So is there anything preventing me from holding stocks say in an oil or gas company and then writing laws to deregulate that that industry and cause you know, that could potentially cause the stock value to soar and accrue a lot of money in that time, Rudy Mehrbani You could do that. Ocasio-Cortez So I could do that. I could do that. Now with the way our current laws are set up. Yes? Mehrbani Yes. Ocasio-Cortez Okay, great. Okay. So my last question is, or one of my last questions, I guess I'd say is, is it possible that any elements of this story apply to our current government in our current public servants right now? Mehrbani Yes. Ocasio-Cortez So we have a system that is fundamentally broken. We have these influences existing in this body, which means that these influences are here in this committee shaping the questions that are being asked of you all right now. Would you say that that's correct, Mr Mehrbani or Mr Shaub? Mehrbani Yes. Ocasio-Cortez Alright. So one last thing, Mr Shaub, in relation to congressional oversight that we have, the limits that are placed on me as a congress woman compared to the executive branch and compared to say, the president of the United States, would you say that Congress has the same sort of standard of accountability? Are there, is there more teeth in that regulation in Congress on the president? Or would you say it's about even or more so on the federal? Schaub Um, in terms of laws that apply to the president, there's just almost no laws at all that applied to the president. Ocasio-Cortez So I'm being held and every person in this body is being held to a higher ethical standard than the president of the United States. Schaub That's right. Cause or some committee ethics committee rules that apply to you. Ocasio-Cortez And it's already super legal as we've seen for me to be a pretty bad guy. So it's even easier for the president of the United States to be one, I would assume. Schaub That's right. Ocasio-Cortez Thank you very much. 3:04:00 Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) Uh, and when we think about what we're dealing with, with respect to a campaign finance, uh, are you familiar with doxing? Smith In the sense of outing people online that you're referring to? Yes, generally. Roy So for example, are you familiar with a Twitter account called every Trump donor, which tweeted out one by one, the names, hometowns, occupations, employers, the people who contribute as little as $200 to the president's campaign, each tweet, following a particular formula. My point being in the question for you is, when we talk about campaign disclosures, are we aware of the negative impacts that you have on forcing American citizens and exercising their free speech to have that information be disclosed? Whether that's good policy or not might be debatable, but is there, are there negative consequences to that with respect to free speech given you're an expert on free speech? Smith There are, and there are definitely studies that have shown that disclosure does tend to decrease participation. Now, that doesn't mean as you point out that it's not worth it, but it certainly has costs. And so we have to be careful on how broad we would let that disclosure become. 3:11:00 Scott Amey The law is created that has cooling off periods. And so there's no cooling off period of one year or two year or a permanent bans. HR 1 would move a lot of those to two years I think, which would be beneficial. And there's even disagreement in our community whether one year or two, you know, what is the appropriate time to kind of cool off so that your contacts aren't there. But this is also something that President Trump brought up when he was a candidate. He talked about, uh, I think it was Boeing at the time, but he went on record saying that people who give contracts should never be able to work for that defense contractor. This isn't a bipartisan, this is a bipartisan issue. This is something we can resolve. The laws are already on the books. We just need some extensions in some tweaking of those to improve them and allow people to cool off and not be able to provide a competitive advantage to their new employer or favor them as they're in office and they're walking out the door. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) And so you do believe that extending this cooling off period and strengthening these prohibitions would protect the integrity of the process and helped to reign in these flagrant abuses. Amey 100% in one of the nice things with HR 1 is there is an extension of a cooling off period for people coming into government service. Currently it exists and it's uh, it's one year. This will move it to two and I think that's a probably better place to be in. You shouldn't be handling issues that involve your former employer or clients. Pressley One final question. How might these cozy relationships between government officials and corporate leaders or private contractors help to boost profits for these prison and detention centers? Amey Well, certainly they go with a lot of information, uh, when, when they go over to the private sector. But it also allows them to get back into their former office and within their former agency and call on them. Access as, as you were just pointing out, access is everything in this town. And so if you can get your phone calls answered, if you can get emails read, if you get meetings at that point, that can, not only with members of Congress, but with agency heads that can determine who gets contracts. I mean, it does trickle down from the top and we need to make sure that we prevent as many like actual and also appearances of conflicts of interest as we can. 3:17:00 Rep. Carol D. Miller (R-WV) What impact would the passage of this legislation have on those groups that are not political but may put out policy oriented communications? Smith It would be very curious and I've given a number of examples in the written testimony. I just say that I should add to this of course that the bill includes personal liability for officers and directors of some of these organizations. So you need to almost have to be crazy to let your organization get anywhere close to this promote support attack opposed standard. And again, what does that mean as I suggested? Well, you know, again, uh, government union might take out an ad maybe in a month, right? Or three weeks from now saying don't let president Trump, we shouldn't have to pay because he wants his wall in Mexico, you know, so, so tell them to reopen the government. Is that an attack on president Trump? I think that's the kind of thing that, that folks would not know and would make people very hesitant to run that kind of ad. Miller So it is a personal risk as well. Smith Yes. Yes. Not only risk. Plus it would be a risk, by the way, as well, to the tax status of some of the organizations involved in many of these organizations might have some type of tax status. 501(c)(3) organizations would have to be very careful because if they engage in speech that is now defined as political speech, 501(c)(3) organizations can't engage in political speech. They would jeopardize their tax exempt status. So that's another reason that these organizations would stay far clear of commenting on any kind of public issue. Video: H.R. 1: A Democrat Political Power Grab, Senator Mitch McConnell, YouTube, January 30, 2019. Video: Video Tweeted by Senator Mitch McConnell, January 29, 2019. Hearing: Full Committee Hearing on the "For the People Act of 2019", House Committee on the Judiciary, January 29, 2019. YouTube Video Witnesses: Christian Adams- President and General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation Vanita Gupta - President and Chief Executive Officer, Leadership Conference one Civil and Human Rights Sherrilyn Ifill - President and Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Adav Noti - Chief of Staff, Campaign Legal Center Sarah Tubervillie - Director of the Constitution Project, Project on Government Oversight Hans von Spakovsky - Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation Sound Clips: 10:45 Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) The official title of this bill is The For The People Act. This bill though is not for the people. It's not for everyday citizens. This bill siphons power from state legislatures, local elected officials and voters, and seeds, power to Washington lawmakers, unelected federal judges and lawyers. This bill is in particular for the unelected elites. It's for the people who don't answer directly to the voters. Contrary to it's name, this bill takes power away from the people and it does this by violating the constitution, by trampling over both the spirit and the letter of our most fundamental laws. 32:00 Sherrilyn Ifill Well before the midterm election, in fact, Georgia officials began placing additional burdens on voters, particularly black and Latino voters, by closing precincts and purging. Over half a million people from the voter rolls the voter purge, which removed 107,000 people, simply because they did not vote in previous elections and respond to a mailing was overseen by the Republican candidate for governor Brian Kemp, who was also the secretary of state. LDF and a chorus of others called on him to recuse himself from participating in the election. But he refused. 1:08:00 Ifill I think, I think the problem we have is that you know, when we begin talking about the powers between the federal and the state government as it relates to elections, it is of course critical that we look to the constitution and that we look to the articles of the constitution that govern elections. But what we have left out of the conversation at least to this moment is the reordering of the relationship between the federal and state government that came with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and the 14th and 15th amendments in particular. The 14th amendment guaranteeing equal protection of laws under, the 15th Amendment prohibiting the denial of the right to vote based on race. National origin includes enforcement clauses that gives this body, the United States Congress, the power to enforce the rights that are articulated in those amendments to the constitution. And it is those amendments to the constitution that provided this body the right, for example, to pass laws like the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for which all the same arguments that are being made today about the power of the states, about interference, about what the federal government is allowed to do and not allowed to do were raised and overcome. So the federal government actually does have the power when there is evidence and when they are enforcing the rights under the 14th and 15th, amendments to actually, your word would be interfere, but to engage robustly, in the protection of the voting rights of racial minorities. 1:15:00 Vanita Gupta There are over 13,000 election jurisdictions in our country, and elections can be run in a multitude of ways, but it is clear that Congress has the authority to make sure that civil rights are not violated in the course of running these elections. And that there are, there are equitable national standards to guide how this has done. And that is exactly what HR 1 does. 1:26:00 Ifill Let me use as an example. Texas has voter I.D. law from your own state the voter I.D. law that Texas imposed after the Shelby decision as a voter I.D. law that they had attempted to get pre-clearance prior to the Shelby decision and pre-clearance was denied, in other words they were not allowed to make that law, become real because of the pre-clearance requirement. After Shelby, the Attorney General, decided that they were going to move forward with that law. It was imposed. We sued. We challenged that law and we won. But in the three years that it took us to litigate that case during that time Texas elected a United States senator in 2014. All 36 members of the Texas delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives, the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the comptroller, various statewide commissioners, four justices of the Texas Supreme Court. Candidates for special election in the state Senate State Boards of Education 16 state senators all 150 members of the statehouse over 175 state court trial judges and over 75 district attorneys. We proved at trial that more than half a million eligible voters were disenfranchised by the I.D. law. We were ultimately successful in challenging but it was too late for those elections and this was a scheme that had been denied pre-clearance. This is the kind of thing that undermines confidence in our electoral system and that threatens our democracy. What excuse can we have as a nation for disenfranchising over half a million voters from all of the elections I just described. 1:35:00 Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) Where are the states, Ms. Ifill, that have most of the states that have prohibitions on people having the APP for you to vote if they've committed a felony? Ifill Well, they have been all over the country, but certainly there was a concentration in the south. As you may know, some of the history of these laws emanated, at the turn of the 19th century, I guess the turn of the 20th century, after southern states received back their power, they pass new constitutions. This is after the civil war and after reconstruction around 1900 and we saw the expansion of ex felon voting restrictions in state constitutions during that period, when there was a very robust effort to try and disenfranchise, at that point, newly freed slaves who had been free for several decades. 2:05:00 Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) It contains a provision where federal tax dollars from hardworking middle class families and single mothers would be lining the pockets of politicians to pay for nasty TV ads and robo calls and paying for politicians, personal childcare and healthcare. Under this bill, it's estimated that at least $3.9 billion of taxpayer dollars would line the pockets of house congressional candidates based on estimates from Bloomberg and an estimated $6.25 billion with line the pockets of presidential candidates based on the formula in this bill and the 2016 election, for a total of $10.1 billion of taxpayer dollars. To me, this is an outrageous, outrageous use of taxpayer dollars. 2:23:00 Hans Von Spakovsky This provision of HR 1 says that if a commission is not established, or if it doesn't adopt a plan, then, the redistricting lines for Congress will be drawn up by a three judge federal court. Now, yeah, the courts get involved, federal courts get involved and redistricting, but they only get involved when there has been a violation of the voting rights act because there's been discrimination in drawing the lines or because the equal protection doctrine of the 14th amendment, one person, one vote, has been violated because the districts aren't equal enough and that's appropriate. And courts do that. But this bill would give the judicial branch the ability to draw up lines when there's, there's been no such violation. And so they're, in essence, you're taking a power of the constitution gives to the legislative branch and you're giving it to the judicial branch. 2:52:00 Gupta Well, our recourse used to be that changes in local voting patterns would be reported to the Justice Department and there would be recourse for the Justice Department to ensure that racial discrimination was not animating these changes and preventing people from exercising their franchise. As we said, in 2013, the United States supreme court gutted that key tool of the voting rights act. And it is why HR 1 is such an important, uh, act in order to restore the voting rights act and to restore the ability of the Justice Department and federal courts to actually prevent these kinds of nefarious actions from taking place before elections. Uh, litigation is crucial and groups that have risen to the challenge to, to file section two cases, but they are time intensive and they occur after elections after people have already been disenfranchised and can take years to come to adjudication during which elections are taking place. And so that is why, uh, it is incumbent and unnecessary for Congress to restore the provisions of the voting rights act. Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) So HR 1 will help protect the rights of my American citizens to vote before the election. Gupta HR 1, yes, expresses a commitment to restoring the voting rights act, and, uh, and that is what we hope to achieve in this congress. It is HR 1 also contains a slew of protections that have become proxies for racial discrimination around list maintenance and unwarranted voter purging. Hr 1 seeks to remedy those so that, uh, so that people can have their rights guaranteed before elections take place. 3:25:00 Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) And I have to tell you after that, being in Congress for six years, uh, I have come to find that there are so many issues that uh, my republican colleagues and I agree on and that the American people agree that we've reached consensus on it and that ranges from reducing gun violence to addressing climate change, to finding healthcare solutions. But my constituents ask and people I encounter across the country always ask, if we've reached consensus where 90% of Americans think we should have background checks. Majority of Americans believe that climate change is happening. 90% of Americans think we should have the Dream Act. Why can't you guys even vote on these issues? And I've concluded that it's the dirty maps and the dirty money. It is rigged gerrymandered maps where politicians from both parties protect their friends and the status quo and it's the outside unlimited nontransparent money, where Republican colleagues have told me, I am with you on this issue -and I've had someone say this to me - I am afraid about how I'm going to be scored, meaning that these outside groups, we'll give scores based on how you vote and if you're not with them, they'll primary you with more money in an unlimited way. And then that's poisoning our politics and preventing us from reaching consensus. 3:27:00 Swalwell I want to start with Miss Ifill, and if it's OK I want to call you Professor Ifill because I don't know if you remember you were my civil procedure professor at the University of Maryland. You wouldn't remember me I remember you. I was not a standout student at all but Miss Ifill according to your testimony Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act would have prevented some of the voter suppression schemes that we have encountered over the past five years. And I was hoping you could articulate some of those schemes today. Ifill Yeah just a few of them. Earlier I spoke about Texas's voter I.D. law, an I.D. law that had been denied pre-clearance prior to the Shelby decision. Two hours after the Shelby decision the attorney general of Texas tweeted out his intention to resuscitate that law which he did. And we spent three years litigating it. We ultimately prevailed, but in the ensuing three years there were elections for all kinds of offices a law that clearly could not have survived pre-clearance. Just in 2018 we were on the ground in Georgia on election day doing election protection work in Grady County, the polling place had been changed two weeks prior to the election. A notice had been placed in a very small community newspaper but otherwise there was not real notice provided to the community and so people arrived at the old polling place and community residents had to spend the day standing outside the old polling place directing people to the place of the new polling place that had not been properly identified Under Section 5, the moving of a polling place is the kind of thing that you had to submit to pre-clearance and have it approved by the Justice Department before it could be implemented. Now there are a number of people that day who could drive to the new polling place but there were a number of people who had just taken off work and had a limited amount of time to vote and could not dri

This summer, there have been two big changes for 501(c)4 organizations, one from the IRS and one from the US Courts. First, the IRS announced they would no longer collect the Schedule B portion of 990 forms for 501(c)4 organizations. This eliminates the requirement to submit the names and addresses of major donors. Secondly, a DC Circuit Court judge ruled that 501(c)4 organizations must disclose the names of donors who contribute more than $200 towards an independent expenditure. The hosts of Advisory Opinions discuss what these two changes mean for 501(c)4 organizations.  

Before I begin, I want to invite you to my case study where I discuss my first no money down deal.  That video case study can be found http://CashFlowGuys.com/MyFirstDeal Nobody ever talks about title or deeds, people just assume that things magically happen in some dark room somewhere.  Well, I beg to differ. The most common way investors lose money is due to issues with title discrepancies that are often ignored or overlooked.  Many investors feel they are “too cool for school” and that things will just fall into place, worse, they actually believe these issues don’t apply to them. Always READ and Understand the contract for sale and purchase fully.  Everything that “could happen” should be addressed in there, otherwise it leaves you wide open for a dispute that could cost you money. Contracts cover who pays for what, searches, exams, what happens when issues with title arise, etc.  I feel the easiest and safest contract to use in most instances is your local state BAR / Realtor contract.  This version is usually the one most understood my attorneys and Realtors, thus not fear as compared to custom contracts that can often be found confusing.  When people are confused, they are scared, and when scared, often irrational. Foreclosures:  The often have mistakes in legal process and procedure (not crossing t’s and dotting i’s is only part of it).  Failure to properly serve or notify involved parties is common, almost rampant in foreclosure proceedings.  If you are buying a property that has ever been foreclosed upon, you MUST be sure your title company is thurough in the search process. Exceptions to title insurance policies, look at Schedule A, verify info there is correct about the property, match it to the survey… Schedule B, the issues are usually outlined in bold font...must be cleared prior to closing Schedule B Section 2 lists the “exceptions” to coverage, items not corrected, insist on marked up title commitment. Boundary Disputes: ALWAYS get a survey so you know exactly what you are buying (unless a condo since no dirt involved)  Solve boundary disputes before you close...not after.  Fences can steal property! Control Closing as the buyer which means controlling the costs associated with closing, don’t be a sucker or you will get gouged.  You also control the quality of the search and insurance on title.  

Many of today’s accountants are not familiar with the tax rules and regulations of owning foreign assets, foreign corporations or foreign bank accounts. Through the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), companies and individuals are required to voluntarily disclose any foreign assets. In addition, if a foreign held account contains more than $10,000, a Schedule B must be prepared at tax time to alert the IRS of its existence. Some people may believe moving money or other assets, like gold and silver, offshore without paying a withholding tax is legal, but it’s not.   Key Takeaways: [1:11] What exactly is FACTA and how does it affect foreign banks? [4:20] US citizens should make their future financial plans while still in the US, before moving to a foreign country. [5:55] Even Swiss banks had to turn over the names of account holders before voluntary disclosure measures were put in place. [7:40] Many accountants don’t know foreign account holders must file a Schedule B, if there is more than $10,000 in an account. [10:08] Morey believes new taxes will be imposed on corporations who move workers offshore. [11:38] Moving gold and silver offshore without paying the 30% withholding tax is called money laundering and it’s illegal. [13:50] Protecting your assets should be your primary financial goal. [16:23] Why it is important to talk to an expert to get the correct information for your personal tax strategy.   Mentioned in This Episode: Glazer Financial Network macarenarose@gmail.com Tuesdays with Morey on Facebook Expat Tax Expert mglazer@glazerfinancial.com