tyb
Japanese who received Biden checks should return them, says IRS
U.S. President Joe Biden's COVID relief checks sent to ineligible Japanese by mistake are causing much confusion, with banks in Japan flooded with inquiries and the Internal Revenue Service asking for the return of the payments.
As the Treasury rushed to get the checks out in the mail under Biden's coronavirus economic response, many ineligible foreigners around the world appear to have received the checks, including Japanese pensioners who lived in the U.S. before 2005. A 66-year-old man who worked in the U.S. around 1990 found the check in his mail box during the Golden Week holiday this month.
"Because there was no explanation enclosed, I wondered whether it was real," said the retiree.
He contacted his bank to see if he can cash it. "But it seems I don't qualify, so I decided not to do anything," he added. Only U.S. citizens or foreign residents living in the country this year qualify to receive the relief payments. In the case of Japanese receivers, the checks are believed to have been sent based on pension information under the Japan-U.S. social security agreement that took effect in October 2005.
As of 2019, more than 60,000 Japanese returnees were receiving pension payments from the U.S. The number is larger than those in other countries, such as around 20,000 in Germany and Britain. The U.S. IRS, which is managing the payment, is now calling for unintended receivers to write the word "void" on the back of their checks and return them to its office in Austin, Texas. The IRS mailing address is: Austin Internal Revenue Service 3651 S Interregional Hwy 35 Austin, TX 78741 USA
Checks have been sent by mistake to people in more than 100 countries, according to Enda Kelleher, vice president of U.S. tax consulting firm Sprintax & Transfermate which files tax returns for nonresidents. Japanese banks are not pleased. "Inquiries began to increase gradually some two months ago and our call center and branch operations are being disrupted," a bank official said. Japanese banks have no way of verifying whether the recipients are eligible. They are asking clients to check their status on the IRS website or through other means.
Many domestic lenders do not accept checks issued overseas to prevent money laundering. MUFG Bank stopped handling such checks in 2019. But some top banks do cash those checks on behalf of those who qualify at branches that handle overseas wire transfers. They must have accounts with those banks and must bring IDs.
The IRS has yet to comment on penalties it might impose on those who have failed to return the checks or cashed them by mistake.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japanese-who-received-Biden-checks-should-return-them-says-IRS
"Check?...wut check?"
As Bitcoin Crashes 34 Percent in a Week, U.S. Congressman Ted Budd Pushes Bank Regulator to Approve More Crypto National Bank Charters
On Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China released a statement that reiterated that cryptocurrencies can’t be used as a form of payment because they are not real currencies.
Yesterday, Bitcoin put on a display that should put to rest any lingering doubts that it is a stable currency that could be used to pay for products or services. The current month Bitcoin futures contract at the CME swung between a low of $30,250 to a high of $43,530 – a difference of $13,280 in one trading session.
One of the most iconic investors in America, Warren Buffet, stated in May 2018 that Bitcoin is “probably rat poison squared.” In January of the same year, Buffet told CNBC in an interview that “In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending.” Also in 2018, Bill Harris, the former CEO of Intuit and PayPal, wrote a detailed critique of Bitcoin for Vox, under the headline: “Bitcoin is the greatest scam in history.”
In July 2019, NYU Professor and economist Nouriel Roubini offered this analysis of Bitcoin and crypto in a Bloomberg News interview: “It is not a means of payment, nobody, not even this blockchain conference, accepts Bitcoin for paying for conference fees cause you can do only five transactions per second with Bitcoin. With the Visa system you can do 25,000 transactions per second…Crypto’s nonsense. It’s a failure. Nobody’s using it for any transactions. It’s trading one shtcoin for another shtcoin. That’s the entire trading or currency in the space where’s there’s price manipulation, spoofing, wash trading, pump and dumping, frontrunning. It’s just a big criminal scam and nothing else.” None of that sound logic seems to have found its way to the office of Congressman Ted Budd, who represents North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District.
At a House Financial Services Committee hearing yesterday, called to take testimony from and question banking regulators, Budd sounded like a lobbyist for the crypto industry. The exchange went as follows with the newly appointed acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Michael Hsu:
Budd: “Comptroller Hsu, the OCC has received a number of applications from crypto trust banks, and after conditionally approving three – I believe it’s three, you can correct me on that if it’s a different number – I think they were Anchorage, Protego, and Paxos. So what is the timetable for approving the remaining charters that are out there?”
Hsu: “I don’t know the timetable right now. It’s under review. It’s under discussion. I just got here. This is my tenth day I believe. We’ve got this in the pipeline to look at. We’re not going to drag it out. That I can tell you…”
Budd: “Love to stay in touch with you on that…”
Budd also specifically asked about Figure Technologies and its request for a bank charter. Sounding like one of Figure’s inhouse attorneys, Budd said that since Figure plans to take deposits there should be no issue with the litigation issue over non-depository bank charters. Budd asked Hsu: “Do you know if that application is on course?"
In January, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors filed a lawsuit in federal district court to block the OCC from granting a national bank charter to Figure Technologies. Budd next turned his attention to Randal Quarles, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve. Budd wanted to know if the Fed was going to deny the crypto banks that don’t take deposits access to its payment system. Budd asked what the basis for that would be. Quarles said the issue has been put out for public comment. Budd’s home district in North Carolina is located more than 500 miles from Wall Street and yet, for some reason, six of the largest Wall Street banks rank within the top 50 donors to his 2019-2020 campaign according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Those banks include: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, $16,250; UBS Americas, $15,000; Wells Fargo, $10,250; Goldman Sachs, $10,000; Morgan Stanley, $10,000; Citigroup, $9,500; and Bank of New York Mellon, $9,000. (The money does not come from the bank itself but from its employees or their family members and/or its Political Action Committee.)
On April 28, Budd announced his candidacy for the 2022 Senate election in North Carolina to replace retiring Senator Richard Burr. That campaign is going to cost big bucks and Budd apparently feels being a proponent of crypto trading and crypto banks is a good position to stake out.
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/05/as-bitcoin-crashes-34-percent-in-a-week-u-s-congressman-ted-budd-pushes-bank-regulator-to-approve-more-crypto-national-bank-charters/
evening
Japan warns Sumitomo after SDF weapon blueprints leaked to China
The Japanese government has issued warnings to Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd. and a subcontracted firm after the latter leaked blueprints for parts of a military-use prototype machine gun to a Chinese company, the company and the government spokesman said Thursday. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry issued the warnings on April 28 on the grounds that the subcontractor had violated Japan's foreign exchange and trade control law, as the weapons were to be procured for Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force if selected in a tender.
Sumitomo Heavy had bid to procure the machine guns in the tender opened by the GSDF in fiscal 2019 but withdrew its participation in March as the number of machine guns to be produced was small and the project lacked business prospects. In order to manufacture prototypes of the weapon ahead of its adoption, some component blueprints given to the subcontractor were provided to a Chinese firm without authorization. The subcontractor has told Sumitomo Heavy it was not aware the parts were for weapons.
Sumitomo Heavy pledged to enforce thorough oversight of its subcontractors moving forward. "It is regrettable that such a case has occurred, and we will endeavor to deal with it appropriately," Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, the government's top spokesman, said at a press conference on Thursday.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210521/p2g/00m/0na/014000c
Indian AF IFC2U21 IFC2T21 C-17 Globemasters heading west from Delhi-Hindon AFS (ne of Delhi) crossing the coast of Oman
These have been moving around a bit in India for the last 2 weeks or so.
Usually not much visible here but do catch PM Modi from time-to-time in the 737
werked at a company that contracted with a large district when all those 'standards' came in.
One of the features (aside from comms, calendar, homewerk etc) was the ability as a teacher to satisfy those standards with your digital lessons-was still late 90's.
Click off the box etc-way moar primitive then.
Ca had this shit even before that.
Couldn't do it mang...got muhself bounced with some pay.
contract werk