Latest news with #eliteuniversities
Japan Times
04-07-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Who won and lost in Trump's tax bill
Business investors and wealthy Americans are among the biggest winners in U.S. President Donald Trump's tax bill. Those hit the hardest by the sweeping package include elite universities, who face new levies, and immigrants. The House passed the bill in a 218-214 vote just a day ahead of Trump's self-imposed July 4 deadline. Here's who won and who lost in the legislative centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda: Winners Multimillionaires The rich gain the ability to pass more wealth on to their heirs and dodge a tax increase. The bill includes $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts, according to a Saturday estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation. The estate tax exemption rises to $15 million for individuals — totaling $30 million for married couples — and then adjusts with inflation. The 2017 Trump income tax rate cuts also become permanent, with benefits skewing toward the wealthy. Residents of high-tax states The limit on the state and local tax deduction rises to $40,000 annually for a five-year period. The write-off phases out for taxpayers who make more than $500,000 per year. After the five-year period, the limit snaps back to the current $10,000 limit imposed in the 2017 tax law. Small business owners The 2017 law that allowed pass-through business to deduct up to 20% of their qualified business income from their taxable income is permanently extended beginning in the tax year 2026. The deduction is available to owners of sole proprietorships, LLCs and partnerships. Private equity The carried interest tax break benefiting private equity, venture capital and real estate partnerships is maintained, despite the president's push to eliminate it. Private equity also won an expanded interest expensing tax break. Domestic car dealers Up to $10,000 a year in loan interest for U.S.-made cars becomes tax deductible through 2028, a boon to auto dealers looking to close sales. But the break phases out slowly for individuals with more than $100,000 in income and couples with more than $200,000. Manufacturers The bill revives several favorable tax rules for businesses, including bonus depreciation for the cost of production upgrades and a research and development tax break, winning the endorsement of the National Association of Manufacturers. The final legislation makes permanent those breaks, which were temporary in an earlier version of the bill that passed the House in May. Fossil fuel producers Industries like coal, oil and natural gas win tax breaks and new requirements to open up more federal land for drilling, while breaks for competing clean energy technologies are phased out. Elderly and tipped workers In a nod to some of Trump's populist campaign promises, taxpayers 65 and older get a larger standard deduction, while tips and overtime pay are exempted from income taxes. The provisions include limits to shrink their cost and expire after 2028. Parents The maximum child tax credit increases by an additional $200 from $2,000 starting in tax year 2025 and is permanently indexed to inflation. Parents could open up new "Trump accounts' for their babies seeded with $1,000 from the government for children born from 2025 through 2028. Telecommunications The bill auctions off a massive amount of radio spectrum for use in wireless broadband, a potential boon for services like SpaceX's Starlink and 5G and future 6G mobile networks. Corporations Other tax increases that had been considered that would have hit big business, such as an increase in the stock buyback tax or a limit on the state and local deduction for corporations, were mostly rejected. Defense contractors The package boosts defense spending by $150 billion, with much of the funding going to new weapons systems made by major contractors. Space The bill provides nearly $10 billion to fund projects including efforts to reach the Moon and Mars and eventually decommission the international space station. Losers Low-income Americans Some of the costs for the tax bill are defrayed through cuts to Medicaid health coverage and food stamps, both of which benefit low-income Americans. On average, the legislation will cost the bottom 20% of taxpayers $560 a year, according to a Yale Budget Lab analysis. Senior citizens receive a hot meal at a community center in Charleston, West Virginia, in March. | REUTERS The measure creates new work requirements for Medicaid recipients, unless they are elderly, disabled or have children under 14 years old. Medicaid beneficiaries who gained eligibility through the Affordable Care Act will have to pay a share of costs through charges like co-pays. Food assistance for low-income Americans is cut by expanding existing work requirements for federal food stamps to cover beneficiaries up to 65 years old. Beginning in 2028, states also are required to pay a portion of food benefit costs, which are now fully paid by the federal government. Renewable energy Clean energy industries are hit by the Republican plan, which rolls back many provisions of former President Joe Biden's landmark climate law. A tax credit for solar panels and wind systems is quickly phased out, though the legislation takes more time to eliminate other clean electricity production and investment credits. Tax credits for energy efficiency home improvements and residential installation of solar or other clean energy upgrades are eliminated at the end of the year. Technology companies The Senate squelched a controversial effort in the bill to prevent U.S. states from regulating artificial intelligence, delivering a win for tech industry critics and a blow to the likes of Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc., as well as venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz. Trump administration officials and GOP allies in Silicon Valley had pushed the measure saying it would prevent a patchwork of cumbersome state-by-state regulations. Electric vehicle makers Tesla, General Motors and other electric vehicle makers are hit by elimination of a consumer tax credit of up to $7,500 for the purchase of electric vehicles. Elite universities Add tax bills to the escalating battle the Trump administration is waging against elite universities such as Harvard and Columbia. The current 1.4% tax on net investment income of private college and university endowments ratchets up for better-funded institutions. The new tiered tax rate structure climbs as high as 8% for colleges with the most endowment income per student. Immigrants Several provisions raise taxes on immigrants. That includes a new 1% tax on transfers of money to foreign countries, known as remittances. Many immigrants in the U.S. send money to relatives in their countries of origin. The proposal also restricts some immigrants' access to tax credits for health coverage premiums. The change prevents many immigrants granted asylum or temporary protected status from accessing those credits. Gamblers Gamblers would only be able to deduct 90% of their losses against their winnings, leading to a situation where they could still owe income tax if they break even over a year or lose money overall.
Bloomberg
03-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Who Won and Lost in Trump's Tax Bill
Business investors and wealthy Americans are among the biggest winners in President Donald Trump's tax bill. Those hit the hardest by the sweeping package include elite universities, who face new levies, and immigrants. The House is on track to pass the bill Thursday with Republican votes just a day ahead of Trump's self-imposed July 4 deadline.
Wall Street Journal
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Inside Education Secretary McMahon's Fight Against Harvard
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is leading the administration's fight against elite universities. She sat down with WSJ to discuss her thinking and if there is room for compromise. Photo: Greg Kahn for WSJ
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Harvard University expands lawsuit on Trump's foreign student ban
Harvard University on Thursday expanded a lawsuit against the US government's decision to block international students from attending the elite institution. On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation suspending international visas for students due to national security concerns and their failure to comply with federal agencies. Harvard expanded a lawsuit it filed last month, challenging the ban. In the lawsuit, it accused the Trump administration of attempting to pressure the institution with an unlawful retaliatory measure. "With the stroke of a pen, the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi Noem] and the President have sought to erase a quarter of Harvard's student body — international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission and the country," the lawsuit says. "Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard." Late last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked the US government's plan to exclude foreign students. The judge's decision is likely to be just the first step in a long legal battle. It is not a final ruling. Trump has accused Harvard and other elite US universities of allowing anti-Semitism on campus. In April, his administration sent a list of demands to Harvard, which the institution has refused to adopt.
Fox News
31-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
DAVID MARCUS: Why do elite universities take in students tied to foreign foes? Money, of course
For centuries, the traditional role of elite universities like Harvard has been to train the next generation of leaders in every field of endeavor, to hold before them an open door to power and influence. So why on Earth are we holding that door open to communist Chinese nationals? I had a good friend in high school, sharp as a tack, double legacy at Yale, graduated Harvard Law and by 30 she was at the State Department. The joke was, "Don't piss off Becca, she can pick up the phone and have you killed." The point here is that, for better or worse, and it's often the latter, graduates of top schools are meant to create a class of people who lead the country, who lead its industries and sciences, who stay at the Princeton Club in midtown, and wear their college ties. A top American degree opens up a world of the powerful that most Americans don't even know exists, much less ever interact with. Yet thousands and thousands of communist Chinese nationals are invited to this table every year. Why? There may have been a time when this influx of foreign students could be seen as exerting informational power around the globe, the idea being these students will go home and spread the gospel of democracy, free markets, and blue jeans. But let's not kid ourselves, these scions of Chinese Communist Party members who pay their way at Harvard aren't going home and creating movements for democracy in Beijing, not if they want to make it to grad school alive and well. In fact, we are the decided losers in this informational power exchange, as not just the Chinese, but Qataris, and 10,000 Iranian students for good measure, bring ideas and attitudes that undermine American foreign policy to the doorstep of the very people who will implement it. This brings us back to the question: Why are we doing this? Why are we training our foes and giving them access to the inner corridors of American power, and I'm sure nobody will be shocked that the answer is money. Foreign interests lavish our top universities with gifts like a rich guy who got caught cheating on his wife. In just the last five years, the Harvard Crimson reports $151 million from foreign governments and over a billion from foreign donors flowed to Cambridge. For hundreds of years, Harvard had educated the nation's great industrialists, financiers, and business magnates who kept the coffers of its endowment, still at a robust $52 billion, overflowing. But the blue-blood spigot is running dry. No, the non-binary womyns studies majors at the Harvard Divinity School are not going to be donating a new football stadium anytime soon. For that, these institutions have learned to rely on foreign money, and we all know that money ain't free. The money buys influence, it buys some say in how our nation conducts itself. During COVID, with a few notable exceptions, our country's entire healthcare apparatus just nodded along slavishly to every lie China and its mouthpiece the World Health Organization uttered. Why do you think that happened? It happened because China pays for research. It happened because China infiltrates the highest levels of our society, and sadly, they have become quite expert at it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is obviously right to insist that we vigorously investigate any student from any nation that is a political or ideological foe of the United States, and frankly, any association with the Chinese Communist Party should be a dealbreaker. The first Harvard graduate to become the president of the United States was John Adams, who once famously wrote of his revolutionary adventures, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." But today, it is our sons and daughters losing opportunities to study mathematics and philosophy to people from countries that hate America, and it is also those countries which stand the most to gain in terms of politics and war. American universities need to be American universities, not cosmopolitan, non-affiliated islands of corrupt foreign influence, and if the Harvards of the world can't be that, then places like conservative Hillsdale College or the University of Austin may well need to replace them. If Harvard and other storied elite universities want to return to serving the mission of helping America to be great, it would be welcome. But in the meantime, we don't have to give them taxpayer money, and we don't have to let them invite our enemies into the inner circle of American power.
