Money

Gavin Newsom backs ‘split roll’ initiative to raise property tax on businesses

Lenore Staats 2 months ago

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday endorsed a ballot measure to increase property taxes for large businesses, arguing it will bring needed revenue to schools and local governments.

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The so-called ‘split roll’ measure, Proposition 15, would change a 1978 law that bases California property taxes on purchase value. If voters pass the initiative in November, business owners with more than $3 million in commercial property would be taxed on current value. That would raise property taxes for many businesses.

The ballot initiative would not change property tax assessments for homeowners. It’s projected to raise billions of dollars a year

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Environmental Waste International Inc.: Tire Business, Amazing Technology (OTCMKTS:YEWTF)

Lenore Staats 2 months ago

Why am I now looking at a penny stock?

After I sold my previous company, SyncBASE/OPTRACK about five years ago, I was released from the restriction of trading shares of my public clients. Environmental Waste International Inc. (TSXV: EWS) (OTC:YEWTF) was one of those companies. The price of the stock was less than CAD 10 cents a share at that time, and I invested a good chunk of money in it.

One of the reasons for my investment was my relationship with EWI’s CEO, Bob MacBean: Bob was the first client of OPTRACK when he was CFO of another public

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Saudi Arabia tightens anti-money laundering curbs

Lenore Staats 2 months ago



a view of a city: Saudi Arabia

© Provided by Gulf News
Saudi Arabia

Cairo: Saudi authorities have approved a set of new rules for the operation of foreign exchange offices in the kingdom as part of efforts to fight money laundering and terror financing and protect customers’ rights, according to Okaz newspaper.

The rules include a ban on the forex business without a licence from the kingdom’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA). The licence is valid for five years and should be renewed six months before its expiry.

According to the new regulations that will take

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Trump’s $300 benefit not enough help for many unemployed

Lenore Staats 2 months ago

It’s now been seven weeks since the millions of workers receiving unemployment benefits in this country stopped getting an extra $600-a-week in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments, helping them to stay afloat and pay their bills. 

At the end of July, about 25 million jobless Americans suddenly lost the extra federal benefits from their weekly unemployment checks, leaving the typical recipient with $325-a-week on average across the country. 

That benefit (passed in the CARES Act) ran out after Congress and the White House failed to move a new stimulus bill forward to extend the payments. And as of this week,

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Asian American businesses affected by COVID-19

Lenore Staats 2 months ago



a person with collar shirt

© Provided by ABC News




a man standing in a room: Jefferson Li is the American Dream fulfilled. The Coast Guard reservist is the son of Chinese immigrants who worked hard for 25 years building their butcher shop in New York City’s Chinatown.

© ABC
Jefferson Li is the American Dream fulfilled. The Coast Guard reservist is the son of Chinese immigrants who worked hard for 25 years building their butcher shop in New York City’s Chinatown.

This report is part of “Turning Point,” a groundbreaking month-long series by ABC News examining the racial reckoning sweeping the United States and exploring whether it can lead to lasting reconciliation.

Jefferson Li is the American dream fulfilled. The Coast Guard reservist is the son of Chinese immigrants who worked hard for 25 years building their butcher shop in New York

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Inside LSU’s $56.4M budget shortfall: No money for pay raises, how officials will make up gap, more | Education

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

After several years of flat or increased budgets, LSU is looking at starting next year with $56.4 million less money.

The LSU Board of Supervisors without discussion approved Friday a $1.06 billion spending plan of unrestricted funds – a 5% reduction from this year’s $1.12 billion. The budget covers LSU’s colleges in Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Eunice, and Shreveport as well as the medicals schools and Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

LSU executives weren’t that concerned, noting that much of the shortfall will be made up with the use of one-time money, such as leftover salaries from unfilled positions, and increases in

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PPP loans kept many small businesses afloat this summer. Without more funds, experts say a wave of bankruptcies is coming. | Local Business

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

While the evidence is largely anecdotal at this point, the pandemic appears to have outlasted the PPP funds for a growing number of small businesses, a trend that may fuel bankruptcy filings well into next year, said James Hammond, CEO of Boston-based New Generation Research, publisher of BankruptcyData.

“There’s certainly a lot of companies that despite their PPP success at getting some funding, haven’t been able to hold it together and already have shown up in bankruptcy courts,” Hammond said.

That’s the case in federal bankruptcy court in Chicago, where a handful of Chicago-area companies filed for bankruptcy after receiving

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Cape Hopes For ‘Second Summer’ Tourism, As Businesses Continue To Face Challenges

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

Cape Cod officials hope travelers will extend their summer vacation plans and continue to visit the region this fall — and spend money there.

The Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce rolled out a marketing campaign this week dubbed “Second Summer” in an effort to spur fall tourism, especially as many businesses have taken a hit this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Officials said some businesses that typically close after Labor Day plan to remain open through October or November to capture more business. Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce CEO Wendy Northcross said visitors can still enjoy many attractions in

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Twitter’s Un-Famous Users Can Make Money From Viral Tweets

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

You don’t need to be Twitter famous to make money from viral tweets.

A growing number of Twitter users –- many of them with very few followers of their own — have glommed onto an inventive way to harness the power of tweets that go viral to make a few bucks for themselves.

These savvy users do this first by finding a tweet that’s garnering a lot of attention. They then use the reply tool to point the Twitterverse toward a brand, which, in turn, pays a small fee in exchange for the mention. None of this happens through Twitter’s

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Trump campaign paid $2.3 million to his private business

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

  • President Donald Trump’s campaign has paid $2.3 million in donor funds to his private businesses so far, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
  • Forbes, which first reported on the filings, pointed to an instance in which one of Trump’s companies received nearly $38,000 in campaign funds for rent.
  • In another, the campaign shelled out $8,000 to the Trump Corp. last month for “legal & IT consulting,” according to the filings.
  • This isn’t the first time the president’s campaign has become entangled with his personal finances.
  • In July, The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold reported that Trump’s campaign sent nearly $400,000 to
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Weekly Jobless Claims Stay High, Prompting Small Business Concerns for Commercial Landlords

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

Today’s news on the unemployment front was a mixed bag. Jobless claims totaled 881,000 last week, which is better than the 950,000 new claims analysts were predicting. And in the course of our current recession, a week where new unemployment benefit claims don’t reach the 1 million mark is always a good thing. And also, jobless claims for the week represented a decline from the previous week.

But while initial jobless claims for the prior week may have come in lower than expected, job loss is still rampant as the COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of coming to an end.

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Keanu Reeves Has a Refreshingly Honest Approach to Money

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

As they say, there’s no business like show business. And with million-dollar paychecks floating about, it’s all too easy for stars to prioritize chasing money over everything else. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for Keanu Reeves. Although the actor has headlined some enormous hits, he has a refreshingly relaxed attitude toward the financial part of his job.

Keanu Reeves and his mother, Patricia Taylor, at the 92nd Oscars
Keanu Reeves and his mother, Patricia Taylor, at the 92nd Oscars | ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Keanu Reeves landed an enormous payday for ‘The Matrix’ sequels

Reeves has been a big-screen fixture since the mid-1980s. But his first big-screen

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The Party’s Over for Money-Losing Fintechs as Funding Tap Shuts

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

(Bloomberg) — Europe’s fintech upstarts have added millions of users and billions of deposits in their venture-capital fueled boom the past few years. And now the fight to one day turn a profit is becoming a battle for survival.

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Monzo and Revolut, two of the industry’s leaders, said losses more than doubled and tripled respectively last fiscal year. Monzo said that while it had enough capital for at least the next 12 months, its ability to continue to operate as a “going concern” had been thrown into question in a more challenging fundraising environment. N26 shut its U.K.

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Three Things Small-Business Merchants Should Do Now To Prepare For The Post-Pandemic World

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

Jim Magats is the SVP of Omni Payments at PayPal. He writes on the payments industry and advice for merchants on their growth journey.

By now, we’re all aware of the shift from physical to digital commerce that’s happened as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This trend was progressing pre-Covid-19, but the pandemic put the transition to digital commerce on the fast track. A recent UBS report predicted that e-commerce will increase to 25% of U.S. retail sales, a jump from 15% in 2019. Another symptom of the pandemic? The shuttering of small businesses. A McKinsey report

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Developer money has influenced local elections for too long

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

Margaret Moore, Your Turn
Published 7:01 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2020

Margaret Moore (Photo: Your Turn)

Much ado has been made this past election cycle about the influence of big business interests in our local elections. Rightfully so: The influence of organized money in local politics has a significant impact on major decisions about the future of our community and quality of life for all of us.

Every resident of Tallahassee has a right to advocate for their interests, including business owners and major landowners. When a handful of wealthy insiders and the multiple entities they control create a political

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Maine to use $200M in stimulus money for small business grants

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine will use $200 million in federal stimulus funds to provide grants to small businesses and nonprofits affected by the coronavirus-induced recession as part of a program that fell far short of a state panel’s aid recommendation.

The program rolled out by Gov. Janet Mills on Thursday is one of the major ones funded so far with $1.25 billion that Maine received under the $2 trillion CARES Act passed by Congress in March. States and municipalities are hoping for more congressional aid, but Republicans and Democrats are deadlocked on that subject in a fraught election year.

The

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‘Energize Colorado’ Fund Will Offer Money To Struggling Businesses

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

DENVER (CBS4) – A new program starting next week will provide more than $25 million in small business loans and grants to Colorado companies. “Energize Colorado” will prioritize businesses in rural areas, as well as those that are owned by veterans, women and minorities.

CBS4’s Alan Gionet talked to business owners who have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our line is beautiful and people do very well with it,” said Patti Morgan. She was in her space inside the Denver Mart, a mall of sorts for wholesalers on the north side of Denver. It’s a sole proprietorship where

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French Business Morale Rebounds in August Despite Surging COVID-19 Cases | Investing News

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

PARIS (Reuters) – French business confidence rebounded in August to its highest since France went into a coronavirus lockdown despite a resurgence of new infections, a survey showed on Thursday.

INSEE, the official statistics agency, said its monthly business sentiment index rose to 91 from 84, reaching its highest since March, when midway through the month the government put France under one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe.

Business confidence has rebounded since the government began lifting the lockdown on May 11 as companies struggled to respond to pent-up demand from clients.

INSEE said that the survey showed business’ leaders

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Small businesses feel the attacks on the agency

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

Rhonda Abrams, Special to USA TODAY
Published 5:00 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2020 | Updated 1:03 p.m. ET Aug. 27, 2020

CLOSE

The U.S. Postal Service is facing record demand because of COVID-19 and the upcoming election. Does it have the funds to rise to the occasion?

USA TODAY

An attack on the U.S. Postal Service is an attack on America’s small businesses.

While media attention on cuts made to the agency by President Donald Trump-appointee Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has focused on potential effects on the upcoming election, it’s important to note the effect these reductions will have on

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How Small Businesses Adapt To Survive In Times Of Crisis

Lenore Staats 3 months ago

Retail sales through July season-to-date are flat to last year according to the US Census Bureau. However, the breakdown by category shows a sawtooth of performance across categories. Discount stores and warehouse clubs, grocery stores and home improvement stores have performed well amidst the COVID-19 pandemic with sales increases of 7.4%, 14.7% and 12.7% respectively. However, some segments of the retail industry have suffered greatly and many of these include categories where small businesses

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