September 24, 2023

Mattress Recall

48,000 mattresses sold at Costco recalled for mold risk

Lara Bonatesta

20 hours ago

(WHTM) — The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced that 48,000 mattresses that were sold exclusively as Costco have been recalled by FXI Inc. due to the risk of mold exposure.

The recalled mattresses include Novaform ComfortGrande 14-inch and Novaform DreamAway 8-inch mattresses.

The ComfortGrande 14-inch mattress has a blue base with “Novaform” written in white letters.

The DreamAway 8-inch mattress has a gray base with “Novaform” written in white letters.

The item number can also be found on the mattress box and on the law tag attached to the mattress. Only mattresses with the following model/item numbers and manufactured at FXI’s San Bernardino, California facility between January 2, 2023, and April 28, 2023, are included in the recall: 

FXI has received 541 reports of mold on the mattresses. No injuries have been reported.

The recalled mattresses were sold at Costco in the Northwest United States and in the San Francisco Bay area and online at www.costco.com from January 2023 to June 2023 for between $150 and $750.

Consumer Contact

FXI Inc. toll-free at 888-886-2057 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, or online at https://novaformcomfort.com/pages/recall or https://novaformcomfort.com and click Product Recall on the site for more information.

https://www.abc27.com/news/consumer/recalls/48000-mattresses-sold-at-costco-recalled-for-mold-risk/amp/

September 21, 2023

Visit Everchem in Media, PA

Made it to the big board . . .

September 19, 2023

Dow Splitter Startup

Dow MDI distillation and prepolymers facility starts commercial operation in Freeport, Texas

New capacity available to support and advance downstream polyurethane growth in automotive, construction, consumer, and industrial markets

MIDLAND, Mich. – September 19, 2023 – Dow (NYSE: DOW) announced today the start-up of a new MDI distillation and prepolymers facility at its world-scale manufacturing site in Freeport, Texas. This investment optimizes Dow’s existing asset infrastructure and advances Dow’s leading positions in attractive applications in automotive, construction, consumer, and industrial markets.

The new Freeport MDI facility, which replaces Dow’s North America capacity in La Porte, Texas, will supply an additional 30% of product to Dow’s customers. In coordination with the start-up of the new MDI facility, Dow shut down its polyurethane assets at the La Porte site.

“Our customers are looking for a cost competitive and reliable supply of key upstream polyurethane raw materials to support their growth,” said Jane Palmieri, president of Dow’s Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure operating segment. “The back integration at the Freeport site enhances operational flexibility and reliability and delivers a more sustainable production process ensuring that we are best positioned to support our customer needs and downstream growth.”

The new facility in Freeport delivers a more sustainable production process by:

• Lowering Dow’s annual greenhouse gas emissions from operations – the equivalent of removing 6,000 cars off the road each year;
• Decreasing the amount of freshwater intake; and,
  
• Reducing the percentage of wastewater discharged annually.
  

Dow’s extensive Polyurethane franchise upgrades key polyurethane components and systems to produce rigid, semi-rigid and flexible foams, and coatings, adhesives, sealants, elastomers and composites. These products are used in various applications ranging from industrial and infrastructure solutions to consumer comfort solutions such as flooring, furniture, bedding and footwear, to automotive solutions for vehicle interior, and energy-efficient insulation materials.

https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/news/press-releases/dow-mdi-distillation-and-prepolymers-facility

September 17, 2023

Advertising and Direct Mail May Take A Hit

IRS Halts Pandemic-Era Small-Business Tax Break Following ‘Flood’ Of Potential Fraud Claims

by Tyler Durden

Sunday, Sep 17, 2023 – 11:40 AM

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced pausing a small-business tax credit program from the pandemic era for the remainder of the year following worries that ineligible claims are being filed.

The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) was instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage small businesses to retain their employees on payroll. It offered a refundable tax credit for businesses that paid employees while being shut down due to lockdowns and other restrictions. More than three years later, applications for ERC claims continue to pour in at the agency.

Amid “rising concerns about a flood of improper Employee Retention Credit claims,” the IRS announced an immediate moratorium on the program on Sept. 14 that is valid through “at least the end of the year.”

With the moratorium in effect, it would mean that new claims for ERC would not be processed. However, the agency would continue working on previously submitted ERC claims, it said. Processing times may be longer due to fraud concerns.

The moratorium was ordered by IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel due to worries that third parties or “promoters” were aggressively pressuring ineligible businesses to file for ERC claims. Such third parties can charge hefty fees for services, which can go up to 25 percent of the ERC refund.

Even though promoters advertise that ERC claim-submissions as “risk free,” businesses filing such claims face “significant risks” as the agency increases its audit and criminal investigation into the matter.

According to the IRS, any business that improperly files for ERC claims must pay back the received credit together with potential interest and penalties.

“A business or tax-exempt group could find itself in a much worse financial position if it has to pay back the credit than if the credit was never claimed in the first place,” the IRS stated.

The agency has received around 3.6 million ERC claims over the course of the program, which is roughly a fourth of the total number of U.S. businesses that file tax returns annually.

The IRS has already referred thousands of ERC claims for audit. Hundreds of claims have been referred to the IRS’s Criminal Investigation division which is “actively working to identify fraud and promoters of fraudulent claims for potential referral for prosecution to the Justice Department.”

As of July 31, the division has initiated 252 investigations related to potential ERC claim fraud worth over $2.8 billion.

Out of these 252 cases, 15 have resulted in federal charges. And among the federally charged cases, six have ended in convictions and four have reached the sentencing phase. The average sentencing is 21 months.

“The IRS is increasingly alarmed about honest small-business owners being scammed by unscrupulous actors, and we could no longer tolerate growing evidence of questionable claims pouring in,” Mr. Werfel said.

“The further we get from the pandemic, the further we see the good intentions of this important program abused. The continued aggressive marketing of these schemes is harming well-meaning businesses and delaying the payment of legitimate claims, which makes it harder to run the rest of the tax system. This harms all taxpayers, not just ERC applicants.”

Tax Credits and Fraud

When the program was initially introduced during the pandemic, the tax credit offered to businesses was 50 percent of a qualified employee’s wages, limited to $10,000 per year.

As such, a qualifying business could receive a credit of up to $5,000 per employee per annum. The credit was later updated to 70 percent of wages, limited to $10,000 in wages per quarter.

To qualify for ERC, a business should have shut down due to a government-imposed restriction during 2020 or during the first three quarters of 2021. Businesses that experienced a decline in gross receipts during this period may also qualify. These employers must have paid wages to their employees during the period to claim ERC.

Like the Sept. 14 warning, the IRS had issued a similar alert about ERC fraud back in March. At the time, acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell advised businesses that “if the tax professional they’re using raises questions about the accuracy of the Employee Retention Credit claim, people should listen to their advice.”

“People need to think twice before claiming this,” he said.

Despite ERC being only applicable to businesses that were shut down or saw a steep decline in revenue during the pandemic, fraudsters entice business owners by claiming that most businesses qualify for the credit.

During an interview an with The Washington Post, Laurel Blatchford, a Treasury Department official, said that the extensive ERC fraud should prompt Congress to consider new legislation to tackle the issue.

An IRS spokesperson said that the agency has paid over $230 billion in ERC claims, which far exceeds the original congressional estimate for the program.

The IRS advised businesses who have not yet filed for their ERC claim to consider reviewing the guidelines and wait to file for the credit.

“The IRS believes many of the applications currently filed are likely ineligible, and tax professionals note anecdotally that they are seeing instances where 95 percent or more of claims coming in recent months are ineligible as promoters continue to aggressively push people to apply regardless of the rules.” the agency said.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/irs-halts-pandemic-era-small-business-tax-break-following-flood-potential-fraud-claims

September 17, 2023

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Pharmacy

CVS And Cigna Charge $6,000 For $55 Generics

by Tyler Durden

Thursday, Sep 14, 2023 – 10:20 AM

By Mish Shedlock of Mishtalk

Health insurers dramatically mark up prices of generics and pharmacies are in on the scheme.

Generic Drugs Should Be Cheap But Sometimes They Aren’t

The Wall Street Journal reports Generic Drugs Should Be Cheap, but Insurers Are Charging Thousands of Dollars for Them

The cancer drug Gleevec went generic in 2016 and can be bought today for as little as $55 a month. But many patients’ insurance plans are paying more than 100 times that.

CVS Health and Cigna can charge $6,600 a month or more for Gleevec prescriptions, a Wall Street Journal analysis of pricing data found. They are able to do that because they set the prices with pharmacies, which they sometimes own.

Across a selection of these so-called specialty generic drugs, Cigna and CVS’s prices were at least 24 times higher on average than roughly what the medicines’ manufacturers charge, the Journal found.

The prices at UnitedHealth Group, which also owns a large health insurer, were 3.5 times as much, according to the analysis of data compiled by 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit drug-pricing analytics group.

Price Gap

• Cigna’s prices were 27.4 times higher than Cuban’s on average for 19 generic drugs.
• CVS’s prices were 24.2 times higher on average for 17 generic drugs.
• UnitedHealth’s prices were 3.5 times higher than Cuban’s on average for 19 generic drugs.
• Cigna can charge roughly $6,610 a month for Gleevec, the Journal’s analysis found. CVS Health can charge more than $7,000 a month. United Health can charge $218. 
• A prescription for generic Tecfidera, a multiple-sclerosis therapy, costs $54 a month through the Cuban pharmacy, compared with nearly $1,215 through UnitedHealth. (Cigna and CVS didn’t submit prices for the drug to Medicare.)
• A monthly prescription for prostate-cancer drug Zytiga costs about $118 on Cuban’s website, compared with $4,195 through Cigna, $2,056 through CVS and $205 through UnitedHealth.

Kudos to Mark Cuban for Increasing Competition

On August 22, I wrote Kudos to Mark Cuban for Lower Priced Drugs and Increasing Health Care Competition

Big Win For Consumers

Fortune called it a big win for Cuban. I suggest it’s a big win for everyone.

It also strikes at the heart of precisely what is wrong with Medicare for all and single payer setups. When government picks up the entire tab, there is no incentive for consumers to shop around for better deals.

Those without health care coverage and those on high deductible plans are the biggest winners.

Some of the savings on CostPlus are amazing.

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/cvs-and-cigna-charge-6000-55-generics