Category: News and Views

Congress May Give IRS Authority To Regulate Tax Preparers | Forbes

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Last year, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen announced the Annual Filing Season Program, a voluntary and temporary program intended to fill the holes left after the IRS lost the right to regulate tax preparers following Loving v. Commissioner. At the time, Commissioner Koskinen called the program “not the ideal solution” and was hopeful that Congress would enact a proposal that would give the IRS the authority for mandatory oversight of return preparers.

He wasn’t alone. Nina E. Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate, has long been a proponent of tax preparer regulation: she has been urging Congress to move forward on such a program since 2002. Post-Loving, Olson has pushed Congress to pass legislation to authorize the IRS to reinstate the RTRP program.

Now, more than a year – and a few more lawsuits – after Loving, it appears that both Commissioner Koskinen and Taxpayer Advocate Olson may get their wishes.

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California drops plan for 50% cut in petroleum use | BBC News

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California has dropped plans to halve petroleum use in vehicles by 2030, after intense oil industry lobbying.

Governor Jerry Brown and other senior lawmakers had included the proposal in a climate change bill, but were forced to retreat amid growing opposition.

State senate leader Kevin de Leon, who supported the cut, accused oil firms of deploying “scare tactics”.

The leaders have vowed to push ahead with other reforms, including boosting renewable electricity use.

“I’d say oil has won the skirmish, but they’ve lost the bigger battle,” Mr Brown said.

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The Fed is handcuffing itself. Here’s how | Money CNN

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Wall Street is in the throes of a wild guessing game. The question on everyone’s minds: September or December?

That’s because the U.S. Federal Reserve has said that its historic rate hike will come this year. And Wall Street has pinned its hopes on exactly those two months.

Few believe it could be October. That’s not because Fed chief Janet Yellen is afraid of Halloween.

It’s entirely because unlike its September and December meetings, the Fed doesn’t hold a press conference following its October meeting. Investors know that these televised events — which occur just four times a year — are the perfect time for Yellen to carefully explain to the world the rationale behind key decisions that could

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One Size Fits Few: Artificial Hearts Leave Many Out | Live Science

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When Nemah Kahala, a wife and mother of five, arrived at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center as one of our patients in March, her condition was the definition of critical.

She suffered from inflammatory restrictive heart muscle disease, in which the heart ventricles become stiff and rigid, making it impossible for the these chambers to relax normally and fill with blood. Over time, this reduces blood flow and can lead to heart failure. Her condition was so advanced that repair surgery couldn’t help. It was clear she wouldn’t survive the wait for a heart transplant.

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Amazon Acquires Elemental Technologies For A Reported $500 Million In Cash | TechCrunch

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Amazon announced this afternoon that it’s acquiring Elemental Technologies, a backend mobile video service.

It’s paying around $500 million in cash for the company, according to a new report from The Information. (Subscription required.)

Amazon didn’t immediately return a phone call or email request for comment about that figure.

The deal was orchestrated by Amazon’s highly profitable Amazon Web Services unit, which will incorporate Elemental’s technology into its cloud infrastructure services mobile video offering, says The Information.

Elemental, which makes high-speed video encoding and transcoding software to enable multiscreen content delivery across different devices, was founded nine years ago in Portland, Ore., and counts among its many customers ABC, BBC, Comcast, Ericsson, and ESPN.

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How New Doc “Deep Web” Shines A Light On The Dark Net | Fast Company

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Earlier this year, Ross William Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his involvement with the dark net drug market Silk Road. Ulbricht was slammed with all seven of the charges brought against him, including computer hacking, drug trafficking, money laundering, and even what’s known as the “kingpin” charge, which is more commonly doled out to cartel leaders and mafia members. Serious crimes? Yes. Worth life in prison? Director Alex Winter doesn’t think so.

In his documentary Deep Web, Winter gains exclusive access to Ulbricht’s family and key operators of Silk Road for an engaging breakdown of one of the most seminal cyber cases in recent history. Winter wades into the murky allegations of Ulbricht’s murder-for-hire plots, the mystery of Silk Road ambassador(s) “Dread Pirate Roberts,” and the raging debate over online anonymity and the cryptocurrency Bitcoin to extract a narrative that breathes humanity into the nether regions of the web and challenges how the media covers and the government prosecutes cyber crimes.

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Now You Can Buy Stuff Online Without Paying Up Front | WIRED

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IN RECENT WEEKS, the online retailer Overstock.com started testing a new checkout service from a Swedish company called Klarna. Through Klarna, people can purchase stuff from Overstock simply by typing their email address, their shipping address, and maybe their phone number—no credit card required. The idea is to streamline e-commerce as much as possible, and according to Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, it works quite well. In testing Klarna’s service, Overstock saw a measurable uptick in sales on mobile devices.

“It saves you from having to key a lot of stuff into your phone,” he says. He estimates that the service will account for $100 million in sales next year for Overstock, a company that reported $1.5 billion in revenue in 2014.

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Any Amazon Prime customer can now buy Dash buttons | Mashable

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It’s been five months since Amazon announced the Dash button, a physical device slightly larger than your thumb that lets you orders more goods with a single tap. Now, the Seattle tech giant is taking the Dash button out of the invite-only stage and making it available to all Prime customers for purchase.

Prime customers can purchase Dash buttons for $5 each starting Wednesday; the company will credit you for the cost of your first button.

The company is also expanding the number of available button types -– one for each brand partner -– from 18 to 29. The additional 11 brands include Ziploc, Dixie tableware, Hefty trash bags, Finish dishwashing detergent, Depend diapers, Ice Breakers Mints, Orbit gum, Greenies dental chews, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day products, Digestive Advantage probiotic supplements, and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% whey protein.

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