In news that will delight millions of Americans – at least those who end up owing Uncle Sam a tax bill instead of getting a refund – the US government will postpone the April 15 tax-payment deadline for tens of millions of taxpayers by 90 days, giving Americans roughly 3 months pay their 2019 income-tax bills in an unprecedented move.

The IRS, under the authority of President Trump’s national-emergency declaration, will waive interest and penalties as well, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the White House Tuesday. The delay will be available to people who owe $1 million or less and corporations that owe $10 million or less.

The extension was granted to give taxpayers a financial cushion as households and businesses cope with the sudden crash in economic activity caused by the coronavirus outbreak which has brought the US economy to a halt. The move could provide households with hundreds of billions of dollars in temporary liquidity, Mnuchin said last week in previewing the government’s actions.

“We are going to use all the tools we have,” Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday. “And what tools we don’t have, we’re going to go to Congress.”

Meanwhile, those who are owed money from Uncle Sam will get it as the IRS will continue to process tax refunds, and Mnuchin urged people who can file their tax returns to do so. Many taxpayers who expect refunds file soon after the IRS opens filing in late January. That is particularly true for low-income households that benefit from the earned-income tax credit, which gives them cash.

About three-quarters of households typically receive refunds, and the IRS will still process returns and send out cash. However, people who file closer to the deadline typically owe money and are waiting to pay. They will benefit the most from Tuesday’s announcement, as will businesses that are worried about their cash flow.

In news that will delight millions of Americans – at least those who end up owing Uncle Sam a tax bill instead of getting a refund – the US government will postpone the April 15 tax-payment deadline for tens of millions of taxpayers by 90 days, giving Americans roughly 3 months pay their 2019 income-tax bills in an unprecedented move.

The IRS, under the authority of President Trump’s national-emergency declaration, will waive interest and penalties as well, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the White House Tuesday. The delay will be available to people who owe $1 million or less and corporations that owe $10 million or less.

The extension was granted to give taxpayers a financial cushion as households and businesses cope with the sudden crash in economic activity caused by the coronavirus outbreak which has brought the US economy to a halt. The move could provide households with hundreds of billions of dollars in temporary liquidity, Mnuchin said last week in previewing the government’s actions.

“We are going to use all the tools we have,” Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday. “And what tools we don’t have, we’re going to go to Congress.”

Meanwhile, those who are owed money from Uncle Sam will get it as the IRS will continue to process tax refunds, and Mnuchin urged people who can file their tax returns to do so. Many taxpayers who expect refunds file soon after the IRS opens filing in late January. That is particularly true for low-income households that benefit from the earned-income tax credit, which gives them cash.

About three-quarters of households typically receive refunds, and the IRS will still process returns and send out cash. However, people who file closer to the deadline typically owe money and are waiting to pay. They will benefit the most from Tuesday’s announcement, as will businesses that are worried about their cash flow.

Authored by John Tierney via City-Journal.org,

The ban on single-use plastic grocery bags is unsanitary – and it comes at the worst imaginable time…

The COVID-19 outbreak is giving new meaning to those “sustainable” shopping bags that politicians and environmentalists have been so eager to impose on the public. These reusable tote bags can sustain the COVID-19 and flu viruses—and spread the viruses throughout the store.

Researchers have been warning for years about the risks of these bags spreading deadly viral and bacterial diseases, but public officials have ignored their concerns, determined to eliminate single-use bags and other plastic products despite their obvious advantages in reducing the spread of pathogens. In New York State, a new law took effect this month banning single-use plastic bags in most retail businesses, and this week Democratic state legislators advanced a bill that would force coffee shops to accept consumers’ reusable cups—a practice that Starbucks and other chains have wisely suspended to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.

John Flanagan, the Republican leader of the New York State Senate, has criticized the new legislation and called for a suspension of the law banning plastic bags. “Senate Democrats’ desperate need to be green is unclean during the coronavirus outbreak,” he said Tuesday, but so far he’s been a lonely voice among public officials.

The COVID-19 virus is just one of many pathogens that shoppers can spread unless they wash the bags regularly, which few people bother to do. Viruses and bacteria can survive in the tote bags up to nine days, according to one study of coronaviruses.

The risk of spreading viruses was clearly demonstrated in a 2018 study published in the Journal of Environmental Health. The researchers, led by Ryan Sinclair of the Loma Linda University School of Public Health, sent shoppers into three California grocery stores carrying polypropylene plastic tote bags that had been sprayed with a harmless surrogate of a virus.

After the shoppers bought groceries and checked out, the researchers found sufficiently high traces of the surrogate to risk transmission on the hands of the shoppers and checkout clerks, as well as on many surfaces touched by the shoppers, including packaged food, unpackaged produce, shopping carts, checkout counters, and the touch screens used to pay for groceries. The researchers said that the results warranted the adaptation of “in-store hand hygiene” and “surface disinfection” by merchants, and they also recommended educating shoppers to wash their bags.

An earlier study of supermarkets in Arizona and California found large numbers of bacteria in almost all the reusable bags—and no contamination in any of the new single-use plastic bags. When a bag with meat juice on the interior was stored in the trunk of a car, within two hours the number of bacteria multiplied tenfold.

The researchers also found that the vast majority of shoppers never followed the advice to wash their bags. One of the researchers, Charles Gerba of the University of Arizona, said that the findings “suggest a serious threat to public health,” particularly from fecal coliform bacteria, which was found in half the bags. These bacteria and other pathogens can be transferred from raw meat in the bag and also from other sources. An outbreak of viral gastroenteritis among a girls’ soccer team in Oregon was traced to a resuable grocery bag that had sat on the floor of a hotel bathroom.

In a 2012 study, researchers analyzed the effects of San Francisco’s ban on single-use plastic grocery bags by comparing emergency-room admissions in the city against those of nearby counties without the bag ban. The researchers, Jonathan Klick of the University of Pennsylvania and Joshua Wright of George Mason University, reported a 25 percent increase in bacteria-related illnesses and deaths in San Francisco relative to the other counties. The city’s Department of Public Health disputed the findings and methodology but acknowledged that “the idea that widespread use of reusable bags may cause gastrointenstinal infections if they are not regularly cleaned is plausible.”