Trump sues to block U.S. Congress subpoena for his financial records

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Monday filed suit to keep U.S. lawmakers from obtaining his financial records, the first salvo in what promises to be an escalating legal battle with Democrats in Congress.

The suit seeks to block a subpoena issued by the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee for information about Trump's personal and business finances, alleging Democrats have launched "all-out political war" on Trump with subpoenas as their "weapon of choice."

The committee's subpoena sought eight years of documents from Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump to prepare financial statements, related to its investigation of allegations Trump inflated or deflated financial statements for potentially improper purposes.

Elijah Cummings, the House Oversight Committee chairman, issued the subpoena to the president's accountant after Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress in February that Trump had misrepresented his net worth.

"Chairman Cummings' subpoena is invalid and unenforceable because it has no legitimate legislative purpose," Trump's lawyers said in a filing, arguing it exceeded constitutional limits on the power of Congress to investigate.

"Its goal is to expose Plaintiffs’ private financial information for the sake of exposure, with the hope that it will turn up something that Democrats can use as a political tool against the President now and in the 2020 election," they said.

In a statement on Monday, Cummings said there was no valid legal basis to try to block the subpoena and accused the White House of "unprecedented stonewalling" in refusing to produce a single document or witness to the committee.

"This complaint reads more like political talking points than a reasoned legal brief, and it contains a litany of inaccurate information," Cummings said.

The filing was the first effort by Trump's legal team to quash multiple investigations of Trump and his finances by Democratic-led committees in Congress. His lawyers made it clear they would resist those efforts.

"Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family," Trump's lawyers said.

"Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically," they said.

The Trump Organization, the president's privately owned real estate company, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Trump is suing in his individual capacity, and is represented by a private law firm rather than government lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Republicans on the Oversight Committee also had objected to the subpoena from Cummings, arguing it was an abuse of congressional authority to target the private financial information of Trump.

"As a firm we will respect this process and will comply with all legal obligations," Mazars said in a statement. "As with all clients, we are precluded by our professional code of conduct and corporate policy from commenting further on inquiries of this nature."

Ross Garber, a Washington lawyer who focuses on political investigations, said the lawsuit might be dismissed because of the Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which offers broad legal protection to members of Congress for actions they undertake as legislators.

But Garber also said there was some merit to Trump's argument that the subpoena was brought for the improper purpose of unearthing politically damaging information about him, rather than for a legitimate legislative purpose.

"Congressional authority is vast but it is not unlimited, and the complaint raises potentially legitimate questions,” Garber said, adding that Congress would have a stronger basis for the request if it had initiated impeachment hearings, when courts have said its investigative powers are heightened.

Garber said disputes between the White House and Congress over documents are often resolved through negotiation, rather than lawsuits, and that a compromise was still possible.

The filing said Democrats have issued more than 100 subpoenas and requests "to anyone with even the most tangential connection to the President." 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

US taxpayers get one-day reprieve after computer glitch

WASHINGTON - The US Internal Revenue Service said it would give taxpayers an additional day to file their 2017 returns after computer problems prevented some people from filing or paying their taxes ahead of Tuesday's midnight deadline.

"Taxpayers do not need to do anything to receive this extra time," the IRS said in a statement announcing the extension.

The agency said its processing systems were now back online.

Earlier, the agency said several systems were hit with the computer glitch, including one that handles some returns filed electronically and another that accepts online tax payments using a bank account.

The IRS said it believed the problem was a hardware issue and "not other factors."

It was not clear how many taxpayers might were affected, but the agency said it received 5 million tax returns on the final day of filing season last year.

"This is the busiest tax day of the year, and the IRS apologizes for the inconvenience this system issue caused for taxpayers," acting IRS Commissioner David Kautter said in a statement.

The agency said taxpayers should continue to file their taxes as normal on Tuesday evening - whether electronically or on paper.

Taxpayers could also ask for six-month extensions, as President Donald Trump did. The White House said on Tuesday that Trump, because of the complexity of his tax returns, would file his by Oct. 15.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Milwaukee Bucks fall for e-mail scam, reveal financial data

CHICAGO - A Milwaukee Bucks employee was tricked by an e-mail scam and handed over financial data of players and other employees to a hacker, the NBA club admitted Thursday.

In a statement, the Bucks revealed that they learned Monday that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax forms were provided to an unknown person who faked being team president Peter Feigin.

"On May 16, 2016, we discovered our company was the victim of an e-mail spoofing attack that occurred when a request was recently made by an unknown impersonator of our president for 2015 employee W-2s," the Bucks statement said.

"Unfortunately, that information was provided by an employee before it was determined that the request was made from a spoofed e-mail address."

Reports said the scam was successful on April 26, meaning almost three weeks lapsed before the breach of security was uncovered.

The Bucks told the IRS and FBI about the breach and vowed to work with authorities on their investigations.

But the financial details for such Bucks players as Greek forward Giannis Antetokounmpo and Venezuelan forward Greivis Vazquez as well as employees in other areas of the club were revealed, including names, addresses, US Social Security numbers, birth dates and total compensation packages.

"We take this incident, and the privacy and security of our employees, very seriously," the Bucks said. "We immediately launched an investigation, which is aggressive and ongoing.

"We quickly notified impacted individuals and are arranging for these individuals to have access to three years of credit monitoring and non-expiring identity restoration services.

"We believe this incident arose as a result of human error and are providing additional privacy training to our staff and implementing additional preventative measures."

js/rcw
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Qualifying for a Mortgage When You’re Self-Employed

When John Kennedy observed that “life is unfair,” at a press conference in 1962 he wasn’t referring to the challenges self-employed workers would face getting a mortgage fifty years later—but he would have been right.

If you are one of the 14.6 million people in the US[1] who make a living working for yourself—about 10 percent of the total workforce—you don’t fit neatly into the profile of borrowers whose income can be easily documented for a mortgage application.

Tax returns don’t tell the whole story

It’s not impossible to get a mortgage if you are your own boss, but you’ve got to jump through some extra hoops to qualify.  That’s because self-employed borrowers typically have to provide two years’ worth of tax returns, which lenders will want to obtain directly from the IRS.

Yet tax returns often don’t accurately reflect their take-home pay.  Self-employed people typically take advantage of a slew of tax deductions related to their businesses, from retirement plans to home offices.  These reduce their taxable income, but they also reduce their adjusted gross income, which is what lenders look at for proof of income.

In some cases, mortgage lenders will allow certain deductions to be added back to the income such as depletion, depreciation or a large, nonrecurring item.

Plan ahead if you can

One solution is to plan ahead and write off fewer expenses for the two years leading up to applying for a mortgage, a strategy that could either cost you significantly at tax time or require you to refile you taxes after your mortgage is approved.

Another suggestion is to separate your personal funds from your business by using a credit card devoted to your business expenses, then convince a lender that the debt isn’t against you because it belongs to the business.  Finding the right lender could still be difficult, and you could still miss some of the most popular deductions, such as home businesses and cars used for business.

Timing is also important.  Self-employed workers typically have highly volatile businesses.  By using income averaging over 24 months, borrowers can avoid declines in income from one year to the next.

Reduce debt to improve your chances

The reason lenders want to see your income is because they need it to determine whether you have enough income to make you monthly debt obligations, a calculation expressed as your debt to income ratio. The median DTI for recurring debt on closed conventional purchase loans today is about 35 percent for recurring debt payments.[2]

By reducing or eliminating your recurrent debt payments, such as your car or student loans, you can reduce your DTI ratio, which will help you qualify for a larger mortgage.

source: totalmortgage.com

Arum insists Pacquiao fulfilled duties with IRS

MANILA, Philippines – Boxing promoter Bob Arum insisted that his prized fighter Manny Pacquiao has already fulfilled his tax obligations in the United States, contrary to what has been claimed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Arum said his outfit, Top Rank Inc., has already supplied every document the BIR needed to prove that the boxer has nothing or very little to settle with the local internal revenue service.

Top Rank is in charge of processing Pacquiao’s tax obligations with the US Internal Revenue Service.

“That stuff with the Philippines taxes is ridiculous. We've supplied them with all of our records showing that we've deducted and withheld 30% of Manny's purses and remitted it to the IRS. We have receipts from the IRS, everything,” Arum said in USA Today.

“Manny owes no tax or very little tax in the Philippines because he paid the taxes on his income that doesn't come from the United States. The U.S. and Philippines have a treaty where its people can't be double-taxed,” he added.

Arum blames Pacquiao’s tax woes to local politics.

“I wanna ask the BIR ...how many times have they asked for certification from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? Probably slim and far between. So what they're doing to Manny is absolutely outrageous and it's politics at its worst,” the promoter said in a separate interview with ABS-CBN North America’s Bev Llorente.

Arum, however, could not defend Pacquiao’s spending habits. In a separate article, the promoter said the boxer is being too generous with his money.

Arum hinted that the Filipino fighter might find himself in dire straits if he doesn’t to handle his riches well.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com