Wall Street Banks Lift China Growth Outlook After Bright Quarter
Banks including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Plc upgraded their estimates for full-year gross domestic product expansion closer to 5%, while the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group now sees 5.1% growth for 2025.
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Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
New tax law increases big beyond-the-grave tax break for the wealthy
The US federal estate tax has come a long way since 2000, when the exemption level was set at $675,000. The amount has increased greatly over the past quarter century. Americans who die in 2025 may leave behind tax free to their heirs up to $13.99 million. That exemption level had been set to expire after this year and snap back to a little more than $7 million per person. But that won't happen. Instead, starting in 2026, the exemption level will increase by roughly 7.2% to $15 million and adjust for inflation every year thereafter. That's courtesy of the One Big Beautiful Act that Republicans pushed through in time for President Donald Trump to sign it into law on his self-appointed deadline of July 4. Keep in mind, while not new, the exemption level is effectively doubled for married couples. That's because any unused exemption from the first spouse who dies can be passed to the surviving spouse, and the decedent's estate can pass to the widow or widower tax free. Then, when they die, they will get up to two times the individual exemption level. So that comes to $27.98 million tax free for couples this year and $30 million next year. (It's also worth noting that the estate tax exemption level is the same as the lifetime gift tax exemption level. That means essentially how much you're allowed to exempt from estate taxes at death is reduced by how much you gave away in gifts while you were alive.) The OBBA did not change the federal tax rates imposed on the taxable portion of estates. They're set on a graduated scale, from 18% to 40% with the initial portion above the exemption level taxed at 18%, the next portion at 20% and so on up to 40%, which is well below the 55% top rate that applied in 2001. How many estates are affected? Raising the exemption level to $15 million a person is likely to further reduce the already low share of estates subject to the estate tax. In 2001, roughly 2.1% of Americans who died left behind taxable estates — and that number dropped to just 0.07% in 2019, according to the Congressional Research Service. That share was expected to rise to 0.2% in 2026, had the exemption level snapped back to roughly $7 million as was scheduled. Despite those very tiny percentages, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the OBBA change will reduce federal revenue by nearly $212 billion over the next decade relative to what the law had called for before OBBA was enacted. Don't forget about your state Even if your estate or that of a loved one falls well below the federal exemption level, the estate may still be considered taxable in the state where a decedent was living when they died. As of this year, 12 states and the District of Columbia have an estate tax, according to the Tax Foundation. The states are: Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. The exemption levels and the tax rates imposed vary from state to state. In Massachusetts, for example, the exemption level is $2 million, and depending how much more an estate is worth above that threshold, it may be subject to a tax rate between 0.8% and 16%. In Washington, up to $3 million may be exempt from the state estate tax but rates run as high as 35% on the taxable portion of an estate. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump signs GENIUS Act into law, a 'key moment' for crypto
President Trump has signed the GENIUS Act into law, marking the first major crypto legislation in the US and a 'key moment' for the $4 trillion crypto asset market. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter David Hollerith sits down with Market Domination host Josh Lipton and Prairie Operating executive vice president of market strategy and founder Lou Basenese to discuss the significance of the regulation and what's next for crypto. Check out Yahoo Finance's interview with Congressman Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) on why crypto has been a priority for Congress here. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination here. Let's start with implications for stable coins as an industry, David. How do you think about the possible adoption curve here, because some of the numbers that are thrown out, it's impressive, right? You got our own Treasury Secretary, Benson. He believes dollar linked stable coins, he says, could reach two trillion or more in market capitalization, but how do you see the adoption curve from here? Yeah, well, Josh, uh, you know, there's even a higher estimate out there by City Group that says 3.7 trillion dollars, which is interesting because the size, the actual size of the total stable coin market at this moment is about a quarter smaller than Fidelity's government money market fund. So that gives you a perspective about where we are with this, but the actual implications of what this legislation does is pretty broad, in that it basically opens season for banks, large retailers, fintech firms, anybody to basically issue stable coins and allowing that is going to be able to open up the ecosystem in a bigger way. Now, the main use case being looked at that banks are talking about is sort of cross-border payments and They they get faster, they get cheaper, right? Yeah, exactly. And that makes a lot of sense for a big bank like City Group or JP Morgan Chase. Uh, it makes a little bit less sense for smaller banks and, you know, um smaller companies, period. Um but when you begin to think about what else the Trump administration has in store and what the Congress might actually achieve, it begins to look more interesting. Like, for example, um, the SEC has been sort of gesturing towards uh considering ways to allow companies to tokenize stocks or bonds or securities. And so, if you have an ecosystem where, uh, you know, financial investors, retailers are just simply using the blockchain more often, this is how they would pay for things. So this is kind of the first step there. So it's actually pretty broad, but we honestly, admittedly, don't know what the adoption's going to be like and it's definitely not going to be linear as what we're expecting. Lou, I want to get your take. More broadly, it's a big moment for the crypto industry, right? And listen, a crypto lobby that has become much more powerful and influential, you own crypto, um, what do you own? Is it the tokens? Is it the ETF? I just own in Coinbase. I'm a reluctant adopter of crypto, which I think is what's happening here, you're seeing Why do you say that? Why do you say reluc? Because I thought it was a fascination, right? At first, I would tell you that a limited supply of nothing, it can't be worth anything, right? But now you're trying to figure out, it's being adopted. So I think this was this removed a key hurdle. And that's the decision of, is crypto a security or is it a commodity, right? The financial system was waiting for the all clear from the administration to say, hey, you can get into this and start this ecosystem and not worried about being regulated from behind. So I think this is a key moment that's going to digitize and bring the US into the modern age in terms of currency. Uh a lot easier to do it now and innovate from the front than it is to kind of go back and let someone else maybe take the lead, but I was asking, Lou, some guys recently who are in the space about the recent rally in Bitcoin, get your thoughts. I asked them what explains that and they did they mentioned crypto week, but bottom line, they said, Josh, do not overthink this. This is just strong corporate and institutional demand, limited supply, prices go up, it's that simple. It's I agree with that and I'd say the other thing is very interesting. If you price uh the the price of Bitcoin next to the cost to mine the next incremental Bitcoin, it's almost perfectly correlated. So you would expect market price to be in line with how much it costs to get the next Bitcoin out. So those two factors, institutional demand, which seems unlimited, I can say from my own conversations, uh I'm on a board of a company that's considering a crypto treasury strategy. We're seeing strong institutional demand because it's a way to get liquidity in the form of equity as opposed to having to own the actual coins themselves. Related Videos There's a little 'irrational exuberance' in markets: Strategist Coca-Cola, GM, Alphabet, Tesla: Earnings to watch this week Fed's influence on mortgage rates: What homebuyers should know Tech highs, liquidity spigots, crypto week: Market takeaways Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
China Exit Ban on Wells Fargo Executive Stokes Foreign Business Anxiety
China has sentenced a Japanese executive to more than three years in prison and blocked a U.S.-based Wells Fargo banker from returning home, the latest in a series of episodes that have made leaders of multinational corporations leery of traveling to China. Economic policy ministries in China have been trying to persuade multinationals to increase their investment in China. That is an effort that the exit ban and prison sentence are likely to make harder, especially because foreign enthusiasm was already waning. A real estate crash has depressed consumer spending; regulatory obstacles hamper sales in China by foreign companies; and many industries face severe overcapacity. China has said little about either executive. Eric Zheng, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, called for the release of more details in the Wells Fargo case in order to reassure the foreign business community. Wells Fargo has suspended travel by its executives to China. Many Japanese companies have already been limiting travel to China and have been withdrawing family members of managers stationed in China. Sean Stein, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said that if more information did not emerge soon in the Wells Fargo case, other American businesses might also discourage their executives from going to China. 'In cases like this, transparency is extremely important, or else there will be a spillover effect on other companies' travel policies,' he said in a telephone interview. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
