How did you spend this week?
Well, as usual, I would like to introduce the news that I was personally interested in this week.
Tax Payment Status of U.S. Billionaires
According to ProPublica, a non-profit American news organization, it was found that multiple American billionaires have kept their income taxes at a small amount or zero for some years.
The research report suggests that the billionaires who kept income tax at zero included Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Both are billionaires currently competing for first and second place in the world, but I am surprised at the fact that they kept income tax to zero.
Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, as other billionaires, also had some years when they kept their income taxes to zero.
Based on December 2019 statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor, the average annual income in the U.S. was $51,960, and per the Internal Revenue Service, the average tax rate of the taxpayers was 13.3 percent in 2018. The lowest tax rate in the U.S. is currently 10%, but ProPublica reports that, based on their performances from 2014 to 2018, Elon Musk’s effective tax rate was 3.27%, Michael Bloomberg’s rate was 1.30%, Jeff Bezos’s rate was 0.98%, and Warren Buffett’s effective tax rate was surprisingly 0.10%!
Now, you must have wondered how these billionaires could save their taxes legally. These well-known billionaires seem to be building huge assets with little federal tax by configuring their income as nontaxable so that they don’t get segmented into income. In current income tax laws, individuals are not subject to tax for their unrealized gains for their investments.
While general wage earners make a living by taxable salaries as a source of income, billionaires who keep income taxes close to zero seem to be making this tax-saving life possible by legally borrowing money from banks at a relatively low rate by securing their investments.
President Joe Biden is eyeing to redress the gap between rich and poor by increasing the rate of capital gains, but this method will increase the taxes paid by some wealthy people, such as hedge fund managers, but it is likely to have little impact on the income taxes of the super-rich named above.
Bitcoin Becoming a Legal Tender
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced at a Bitcoin event in Miami that he aims to make bitcoin legal tender for El Salvador.
If Bitcoin were to become the legal currency of El Salvador, it would be the first case in the world.
In El Salvador, about 70% of the population does not have a bank account or credit card, and the economy is currently turned around with cash on hand.
In addition, more than 20% of the gross domestic product is consisted from money transferred from emigrants who have gone to work outside the country, and there is a 10% fee to accept remittances from abroad, and it may take several days to receive them.
Considering these current situations, the President is expecting that Bitcoin can take out such hassles, time and uncertainty.
On June 7, President Bukele revealed that he was considering granting permanent residency of El Salvador to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency entrepreneurs.
In addition, if it becomes legal currency, capital gains will also be no longer taxed there, which will be a generous treatment for cryptocurrency-related businesses.
With this move in El Salvador, the politicians in the Kingdom of Tonga and some Latin American countries seem to be showing a positive attitude.
Cryptocurrency market has been particularly turbulent recently, but I wonder if Bitcoin will actually work well as legal tender.
Apple Announced New Features of iOS 15
On June 7, Apple announced new features of its various products in WWDC, and the announcement about iOS 15 attracted a lot of attention.
In iOS 15, various new features have been announced, including Facetime, Messenger, etc., but the new feature that I was particularly interested in is the enhancements in Apple Wallet.
By using Apple Wallet with iOS 15, it seems that from the second half of 2021, the iPhone will replace keys and ID cards, such as driver’s license.
The ID card is only available in participating states, but it is not clear which states are included so far.
However, IBM is also working with the state of New York to expand the digital passport for the COVID-19 vaccine to develop a digital driver’s license, so it’s highly likely that New York will be included in the participating states mentioned above.
As a key, it is expected to be an alternative to hotel card keys and smart house keys.
In the near future, physical driver’s license will be abolished, and digital driver’s license will become mainstream. Identity verification will be performed with a digital driver’s license when driving a car, and it may be expected to prevent drivers from forgetting their driver’s license and with this function, it may prevent car theft!
Networks around the World Were Down All at Once
On June 8, several websites and web services which are at-first-glance unrelated went down for an hour all at once, including the British government’s website, Amazon, the BBC, Pinterest, and Reddit.
It was found that the failure of Fastly, a leading Content Delivery Network (CDN), caused multiple websites to go down.
Due to the way CDNs work, failures at CDN providers affect many websites and web services, which prevents requests for CDN-hosted content from being processed, and it seems that websites around the world have been taken offline all at once.
Fastly said the failure was not caused by a security issue or hack, but by a bug in the system, it happened when one of its customers changed his settings.
Everything depends on the Internet these days, so I hope that this will not happen on more serious and essential services or it will be immediately resolved even if it happens.
Colonial Pipeline Ransom Recovered
On June 7, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that they recovered 63.7 bitcoins (worth $2.3 million at that time) out of the total ransom 75 bitcoins (worth $4.4 million at that time) which was paid to Darkside, a hacker group. Darkside carried out a ransomware attack targeting Colonial Pipeline, the company that manages America’s largest oil pipeline, and Colonial Pipeline paid the ransom.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI obtained the password for the Bitcoin wallet that Darkside had designated as the ransom destination and foreclosed the funds.
This is good news, but it was bad news in the Bitcoin market, and the announcement resulted in a significant drop in the price of Bitcoin, which was said to have shaken the security of crypto assets.
Statue of Liberty’s Sister Will Visit New York on Independence Day
The sister of the Statue of Liberty is coming from France to New York City to coincide with Independence Day.
The exhibition will be held from July 1 to 5 and will be displayed at Ellis Island which is located close to the Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty.
The sister statue, named Little Sister, is 274cm tall and one-sixteenth the size of her older sister, the Statue of Liberty.
The Statue of Liberty in New York was gifted by France as a testament to friendship after the end of the Civil War in 1865, and the broken chains and shackle on the feet of the statue seem to sign of the abolition of slavery.
Let’s take this opportunity to see the sister statues!
Food Report: The Islands
This week, I am introducing the Caribbean restaurant, the Islands, located near Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
I ordered two items, “Jerk Chicken” and “Oxtail”.
Jerk Chicken was a seasoning with a unique spice that made it spicy and addictive.
Oxtail was also soaked in sweet and salty sauce and matched very well with side vegetables and rice.
The Islands 671 Washington Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238 Tue-Sun, 12:00 PM - 10:00 PM Monday, CLOSED
Postscript
This week was tough because the content of work was heavy and even though I got up early in the morning to see the eclipse, unfortunately the sun was covered by the cloudy sky. However, on a weekday evening, I could play tennis, and during the weekend, I could go downtown, the Harbs, a cake restaurant, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, so I was able to relieve stress well.
I hope everyone is going to have a wonderful week!
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