Tuesday • May 24 • 2022
Vol.XIV • No.XXI
Manchester, N.H.
Jp Cortez: Alabama Passes Sound Money Law, Expands Sales Tax Exemption Involving Gold and Silver
(Montgomery, Alabama - April 14, 2022) – With Governor Kay Ivey’s signature on sound money legislation today, Alabama has become the second state this year to expand its sales tax exemption involving gold and silver.
Alabama Senate Bill 13, championed by Sen. Tim Melson and Rep. Jamie Kiel, passed with unanimous support out of the Alabama Senate and then passed unanimously through the Alabama House before making it to the Governor’s desk.
In 2019, Alabama originally removed sales taxes from most gold, silver, platinum, and palladium coins and bars. This year, SB 13 clarified that the exemption covers all common forms of bullion, removed burdensome reporting requirements, and extended the sales tax exemption until 2028.
Backed by the Sound Money Defense League, Money Metals Exchange, and in-state supporters, SB 13 now fully ensures that Yellowhammer State citizens cannot be penalized with taxation when acquiring the monetary metals for investment, to protect their savings from the ravages of inflation, or any other reason.
Stefan Gleason, President of Money Metals Exchange, explained the importance of extending the existing sales tax exemption on precious metals: “Many states surrounding Alabama (Georgia and Florida) have cultivated pro-sound money environments, eliminating sales taxes on gold and silver. Alabama savers and investors are thankful that the legislature expanded and extended the state’s exemption.”Alabama follows Virginia which had only days earlier expanded and extended its own sales tax exemption involving the monetary metals earlier this month.
Including Alabama, 41 U.S. states now fully or partially exempt gold and silver from the sales taxes. That leaves 9 states and the District of Columbia as the primary jurisdictions that still harshly penalize citizens seeking to protect their savings against the serial devaluation of the Federal Reserve Note.
Jp Cortez, policy director for the Sound Money Defense League, noted that SB 13 is part of a growing nation trend. “Tennessee and Mississippi, both states that border Alabama, have been considering the elimination of sales taxes on gold and silver. So are Alaska, Hawaii, and New Jersey.”
States are removing sales taxes from monetary metals for the following reasons:
- Taxing precious metals is unfair to certain savers and investors. Gold and silver are held as forms of savings and investment. States do not tax the purchase of stocks, bonds, ETFs, currencies, and other financial instruments, so it makes no sense to tax monetary metals.
- Levying sales taxes on precious metals is illogical because gold and silver are inherently held for resale. Sales taxes are typically levied on final consumer goods. But precious metals are inherently held for resale, not “consumption.”
- Taxing gold and silver harms in-state businesses. It’s a competitive marketplace, so buyers in states with precious-metals sales taxes often take their business to neighboring states that have eliminated or reduced sales tax on precious metals. Coin conventions also tend to avoid the sales tax states.
- Taxing precious metals is harmful to citizens attempting to protect their assets. Purchasers of precious metals aren’t fat-cat investors. Most who buy precious metals do so in small increments as a way of saving money. Precious metals investors are purchasing precious metals as a way to preserve their wealth against the damages of inflation. Inflation harms the poorest among us – including pensioners, those on fixed incomes, wage-earners, savers, and more.
The Sound Money Defense League, a non-partisan, national public policy group working to restore sound money at the state and federal level and publisher of the Sound Money Index.
The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released March’s inflation numbers on Tuesday, officially quantifying the inflation over the past twelve months. At 8.5%, the politicians claim that it’s the highest inflation rate since 1981.
The post Dollar Inflation Hits All-Time Record High appeared first on The Liberty Block.
The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released March’s inflation numbers on Tuesday, officially quantifying the inflation over the past twelve months. At 8.5%, the politicians claim that it’s the highest inflation rate since 1981.
The post Dollar Inflation Hits All-Time Record High appeared first on The Liberty Block.
"DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg has announced that the search engine will begin purging all independent media outlets from the platform and will replace them with “trusted” mainstream media outlets instead."
— Seattle Indy NEW ACCOUNT! FOLLOW ME! (@SeattleIndepen1) April 15, 2022
Well, it was good while it lasted. Time to find a new search engine.
DuckDuckGo CEO Announces Censorship Scheme of Content Labeled “Russian Disinformation”
Margot Cleveland: Judge Denies Clinton Lawyer Micheal Sussmann’s Motion To Dismiss Charges For Alleged Lies To The FBI
The federal judge presiding over the criminal case against Michael Sussmann denied the former Clinton Campaign attorney’s Motion to Dismiss the Section 1001 false statement charge brought against him by the Special Counsel on Wednesday.
Declaring “the battle lines” drawn, in a short six-page opinion, the court rejected Sussmann’s attempt to have the criminal case against him tossed, saying it was too early to determine if Sussmann’s alleged lie to the former FBI General Counsel was “material.”
[...]
According to the Special Counsel’s briefing, it will also present testimony from “multiple government witnesses” confirming “that understanding the origins of data and information is relevant to the FBI in multiple ways, including to assess the reliability and motivations of the sources.” Those same witnesses will likely also testify that had they known Sussmann was presenting evidence compiled on behalf of the Clinton Campaign and Joffe, they would have more fully investigated the genesis of the white papers and how the data was compiled.
Of course, knowing that Sussmann was acting on behalf of the Clinton Campaign and Joffe is unlikely to have changed how members of the Crossfire Hurricane team approached the Alfa Bank material; after all, knowing the Clinton Campaign funded Christophe Steele’s dossier, made no difference to the Crossfire Hurricane agents.
Significantly, though, the law does not care how any one specific agent would have reacted but for a lie. Rather, on the issue of “materiality,” the question is whether the lie “is capable of influencing a decision,” and the test is an objective one.
Read the rest here.
Fox News: Whitey Bulger's nephew played key role in Hunter Biden's Chinese business ventures
James "Whitey" Bulger's nephew, Jim Bulger, was a business associate of Hunter Biden, and according to emails obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital, appears to have played a key role in a number of his Chinese business ventures.
Whitey Bulger was a notorious Boston crime boss, who became one of the nation's most-wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in late 1994. He was captured in 2011. Bulger was serving a life sentence for 11 murders and other crimes when he died in prison in October 2018.
In addition to being Whitey's nephew, Jim Bulger is the son of William "Billy" Bulger, who served as president of the Massachusetts State Senate for eight years. Billy Bulger was an ally of John Kerry when he served in the Senate. Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, co-founded Rosemont Seneca with Hunter Biden and Devon Archer.
Jim Bulger served as the chairman of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC— a firm that joined forces with Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca to launch its joint-venture with Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital to create BHR Partners. BHR Partners is controlled by Bank of China Limited.
Read the rest here.
Sophie Mann, Just the News: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has offered to buy all of Twitter at a price that values the social media platform at more than $43 billion. Musk called the offer his "best and final," and said if it was not accepted he would have to "reconsider my position as a shareholder."
He made the filing in a regulatory filing Thursday.
"I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy," wrote the Tesla CEO in a letter to the company's board chair.
"However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company," said Musk.
Read the rest here.
Sophie Mann, Just the News: Court filing states 20 federal 'assets' embedded at the Capitol on January 6
The 41-page motion was filed Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C., according to a report in the Epoch Times.
"At least 20 FBI and ATF assets were embedded around the Capitol on J6," a footnote in the motion reads. The motion also states that attorneys "combed through a mountain of discovery" including summaries of interviews conducted by FBI agents and that members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group, were "being monitored and recorded prior to J6."
Fischer writes that despite carefully inspecting a significant amount of evidence during discovery, he has not found "one iota of proof" that the defendants pre-planned or had any "intention, design, or scheme to specifically enter the Capitol Building on J6."
Read the rest here.
Jp Cortez, Sound Money Defense League: Virginia Ends All Taxes on Purchases of Gold and Silver
(Richmond, Virginia - April 12, 2022) - By signing sound money legislation last night, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has ended Virginia’s discriminatory practice of assessing sales taxes on smaller purchases of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion and coins.
Virginia’s House Bill 936, originally introduced by Del. Amanda Batten, was considered by multiple House and Senate committees before passing overwhelmingly out of both chambers and reaching the governor’s desk.
Virginia had been one of only seven states in the United States maintaining merely a partial sales tax exemption on purchases of precious metals. Virginia’s regressive practice of taxing only purchases under $1,000 singled out small-time savers for a tax penalty that larger gold and silver purchases do not face.
By enacting HB 936, Virginia has set an example for legislators in California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York, where smaller-sized purchases (under $500, $1,000, or $1,500) of precious metals are still hit with sales taxes.
The full Virginia sales tax exemption on the monetary metals will take effect on July 1 and remain in effect until at least June 30th, 2025.
Meanwhile, full exemption bills are pending in Alabama, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Tennessee, as the national backlash against taxing constitutional money accelerates in today’s environment of rising inflation and geopolitical conflict.
Including Virginia, 41 U.S. states now fully or partially exempt gold and silver from the sales taxes. That leaves 9 states and the District of Columbia as the primary jurisdictions that still harshly penalize citizens seeking to protect their savings against the serial devaluation of the Federal Reserve Note.
Jp Cortez, policy director for the Sound Money Defense League, explained that “by eliminating sales taxes on purchases of precious metals under $1,000, a huge impediment has been removed to storing one’s wealth in gold and silver.”
In her testimony in support of the bill, Del. Batten explained that it doesn’t make sense for someone to make large purchases of gold and silver tax free, but someone who wants to invest a smaller amount is punished with a tax… a tax which targets those who can afford it the least.
“Inflation has become an undeniable problem due to financial mismanagement by the Federal Reserve and by the politicians in Washington DC. Thankfully, both large and small investors in the Old Dominion can now protect the purchasing power of their wealth with sound money without being taxed,” said Money Metals Exchange president Stefan Gleason, whose company has helped lead sound money policy efforts.
States have been removing sales taxes from monetary metals for the following reasons:
- Taxing precious metals is unfair to certain savers and investors. Gold and silver are held as forms of savings and investment. States do not tax the purchase of stocks, bonds, ETFs, currencies, and other financial instruments, so it makes no sense to tax monetary metals.
- Levying sales taxes on precious metals is illogical because gold and silver are inherently held for resale. Sales taxes are typically levied on final consumer goods. But precious metals are inherently held for resale, not “consumption.”
- Taxing gold and silver harms in-state businesses. It’s a competitive marketplace, so buyers in states with precious-metals sales taxes often take their business to neighboring states that have eliminated or reduced sales tax on precious metals. Coin conventions also tend to avoid the sales tax states.
- Taxing precious metals is harmful to citizens attempting to protect their assets. Purchasers of precious metals aren’t fat-cat investors. Most who buy precious metals do so in small increments as a way of saving money. Precious metals investors are purchasing precious metals as a way to preserve their wealth against the damages of inflation. Inflation harms the poorest among us-including pensioners, Virginians on fixed incomes, wage-earners, savers, and more.
The Sound Money Defense League, a non-partisan, national public policy group working to restore sound money at the state and federal level and publisher of the Sound Money Index. Money Metals Exchange is a national precious metals investment company and news service with more than 500,000 readers and 350,000 customers. It also operates Money Metals Depository for vaulting of gold and silver and Money Metals Capital Group, a collateral lending institution.
Free speech or profits? Musk move to forgo Twitter board seat fuels speculation about objectives | Just The News https://t.co/0T2diEPJGT
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) April 12, 2022
Techno Fog, The Reactionary: Special Counsel John Durham continues his focus on the Hillary Clinton Campaign
Special Counsel John Durham has asked high ranking officials from the Clinton Campaign and Hillary for America, including the Clinton Campaign’s Chair (who we believe to be John Podesta1), about their awareness of the activities conducted by Fusion GPS on Hillary’s behalf.
This confirms an important avenue of Durham’s investigation: whether the Hillary Campaign or Hillary for America were part of a conspiracy to traffic false information to the FBI and other governmental entities.
While we reported on this development back in December, Durham’s latest filing (available here) provides context to his statement that Hillary for America, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and former employees of that campaign were involved “in matters before the Special Counsel.”
Read the rest here.