Prisoners, dead people and children qualified for a 2009 tax break to spur car buying, according to a U.S. report on Wednesday that criticized the Internal Revenue Service for misapplying the refund in some cases.
The IRS should have done more to verify that people who claimed the qualified motor vehicle (QMV) deduction were entitled to it, said the report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, a government-run IRS watchdog.
The measure, which expired on December 31, 2009, was part of the Obama administration's economic stimulus package.
Taxpayers who claimed the deduction were not required to provide independent proof that they bought a vehicle, or if they did, how much they paid in deductible sales and excise taxes, said the inspector general.
"While no amount of fraud is acceptable, more than 4.3 million taxpayers claimed more than $7.2 billion in qualified motor vehicle deductions and only a small percentage involved questionable claims," the IRS said in a statement.
The IRS failed to identify 4,257 people who made QMV claims above a level the IRS flagged as excessive, the report said. These people claimed more than $151.1 million in QMV deductions, based on the inspector general's 2010 review of 2009 returns.
Schoolyard bullies are likely to grow up to be adults who abuse their wives and girlfriends, according to a new study.
The study, published this week in the journal Pediatrics, surveyed more than 1,400 men between that ages of 18 and 35 at an urban community center in Boston. It found that men who recalled being frequent bullies in school were four times more likely to physically abuse their partner than those who reported never bullying in school.
"Individuals who are likely to perpetrate abusive behaviors against others may do so across childhood into adulthood," concluded the report, which was led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.
In a second decision, the court ruled that plaintiffs in a securities fraud class action against Halliburton did not have to prove that false statements from the company caused them to lose money in order to band together in a class action.
In the patent case, Stanford v. Roche Molecular Systems, No. 09-1159, the court considered how a 1980 federal law, the Bayh-Dole Act, affected rights to the H.I.V. test. It was invented by Dr. Mark Holodniy, a fellow at Stanford’s department of infectious diseases who had been assigned by the university to conduct research at the Cetus Corporation, a private firm.
Dr. Holodniy had signed a contract saying that “I agree to assign” inventions arising from his employment at Stanford to the university. He later signed a contract saying that “I will assign and do hereby assign” to Cetus inventions arising from his time there.
Roche Molecular Systems bought Cetus’s rights in the H.I.V. test and created a kit that became widely used in hospitals and clinics. Stanford sued for patent infringement; Roche said it was entitled to sell the kits in light of the agreement between Dr. Holodniy and Cetus; and Stanford responded that the doctor had no rights to assign given the Bayh-Dole Act, which specifies how rights in patents are allocated when federal money is involved.
The “general rule,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority in a 7-to-2 decision, is that “rights in an invention belong to the inventor,” even if created on an employer’s watch. (Outside the patent context, Chief Justice Roberts said, the basic rule often goes the other way. “No one would claim,” he wrote, “that an autoworker who builds a car while working in a factory owns that car.”)
Lawmakers said the program was overwhelming the state budget and needed to be privatized to rein in costs and improve patient care. Critics fear the bills build on a flawed five-county experiment where patients struggled to access specialists and doctors complained the treatments they prescribed were frequently denied.
State Sen. Joe Negron, who spearheaded the overhaul, said leaders have learned from the pilot program's shortcomings and it now includes increased oversight and more stringent penalties, including fining providers up to $500,000 if they drop out. The measures also increase doctors' reimbursement rates and limits malpractice lawsuits for Medicaid patients in hopes of increasing doctor participation in the program.
The bills (HB 7107 and HB 7109) also require providers to generate a 5 percent savings the first year, which could save the state about $1 billion.
Although Medicare is a national program, it adjusts payments to health care providers to reflect regional differences in wages, rent and other costs.
But in a new report, a panel of experts from the academy’s Institute of Medicine said the payment formulas were deeply flawed.
The system of paying doctors has “fundamental conceptual problems,” and the method of paying hospitals is so unrealistic that almost 40 percent of them have been reclassified into higher-paying areas, the report said.
The report criticizes the current arrangement under which Medicare distributes tens of billions of dollars based on regional variations in wages, rents and other costs in 441 hospital labor markets and 89 payment zones for doctors. Of the physician payment zones, 34 cover entire states.
The panel said Medicare should recognize a single set of 441 payment areas for doctors and hospitals alike.
As a result of such a change, the panel said, “higher-cost areas would be separated from lower-cost areas,” and payments to doctors in metropolitan areas would generally increase, while payments to doctors in some rural areas could be expected to decrease.
In a battle pitting the First Amendment against the Second Amendment, attorneys representing pediatricians and family doctors are asking U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke to throw out the recently approved measure (HB 155) they say steps illegally between a patient and their physician by limiting the types of questions practitioners can ask.
The complaint, filed in the Southern District of Florida, contends that prohibiting what physicians and their patients can talk about is unconstitutional.
"By severely restricting such speech and the ability of physicians to practice such preventative medicine, the Florida statute could result in grievous harm to children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly," the complaint reads. "The First Amendment does not permit such a gross and content-based intrusion on speech and, accordingly, the court should declare the ’Physician Gag Law’ unconstitutional and enjoin its enforcement."
The bill easily passed both chambers along largely party line votes - 88-30 in the House and 27-10 in the Senate.
The legislation appears to have originated after an Ocala couple complained that their doctor had told them to find another physician after they refused to disclose whether they owned guns and how they were stored.
Physicians say questions about gun ownership is often part of routine screenings done in many doctor’s offices, included in a battery of questions including such safety questions as whether poisons are kept in the home or if medicines are safely stored.
"Florida will shed its title as the Oxy Express," Scott said at a bill signing ceremony in Tampa.
But when it came time for the votes to be counted, the 10% across the board cut - which would have saved around $4 billion - didn't come close to prevailing, as the House voted 312-110 against the plan.
108 Republicans voted for the cut, while 127 voted against it, again showing that lots of people like to talk about cutting the budget, but it's not easy to come up with big cuts that everyone can agree on.
Compiled by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, the report concludes that criminalization and repressive measures have failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.
The Obama administration Thursday released its highly anticipated regulation for tougher oversight of private, for-profit colleges, saying the new rules were needed to protect students who were running up big tuition bills but getting few practical job skills.
The so-called “gainful employment” test immediately came under fire from a top congressional Republican and from minority groups, but share prices for some for-profit colleges jumped as investors concluded that the final rule was not nearly as punitive as some had feared.
The rule would impose three tests on for-profit institutions, which critics say have enrolled huge numbers of students receiving federal aid without delivering real results. Repeated failures to meet the tests would mean a college could no longer accept students paying with federal money, a restriction that could force some nontraditional institutions to close their doors.
A for-profit program will be considered to lead to gainful employment if the estimated loan payment of a typical graduate does not exceed 30 percent of discretionary income; or if the estimated loan payment of an average graduate does not exceed 12 percent of total earnings.The GOP senator will co-teach four courses on Florida politics, together with two full-time FIU professors. He will draw on his tenure in the Florida House of Representatives, where he rose to Speaker of the House.
"I am always excited to see young people who are interested in politics and public service. I enjoy providing them real world insights on elections and policy making," Rubio said in an emailed statement.
Rubio, who began teaching in May for the summer trimester, will teach Monday and Friday when the Senate is not in session, spokesman Alex Burgos said.
He will earn $24,000 a year, less than the roughly $27,000 limit senators are allowed for outside work.
It goes up to $7.31 an hour, affecting about 188,000 people in Florida. Each minimum wage worker will get an extra $188 a year.
The decision increases the payroll by $28 million.
Gov. Rick Scott was disappointed in the decision, but will not appeal it, said spokesman Brian Burgess.“The goal of this is to make sure we don’t waste taxpayers’ money,” Scott said. “And hopefully more people will focus on not using illegal drugs.”
The law, which goes into effect on July 1, will mean about 4,400 drug tests per month, according to the Department of Children & Families. Taxpayers will reimburse welfare applicants for negative drug tests, which can cost between $10 and $25.
The move Tuesday comes as enrollment in the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan continues to lag far behind expectations, often because people can't afford the premiums or find it too hard to meet enrollment requirements.
The insurance program, part of President Barack Obama's signature health care law, began last summer. It offers health insurance to people with medical problems at prices the average healthy person would pay, although that's not necessarily cheap.
So far, about 18,000 people have signed up - well short of government projections that some 375,000 people would gain coverage in 2010.
Fewer than one in three Florida children enrolled in Medicaid, the government insurer for the poor, saw a dentist in 2010, according to a study by the Pew Center on the States, a public-policy institute based in Washington, D.C.
For that, Florida was awarded a flunking grade for the second year running. Hawaii and New Jersey also got F’s again. Maryland was rated the best-performing state.
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