News of the Day

A U.S. appeals court on Friday reinstated a nationwide vaccine-or-testing COVID-19 mandate for large businesses, which covers 80 million American workers, prompting opponents to rush to the Supreme Court to ask it to intervene.

The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati lifted a November injunction that had blocked the rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which applies to businesses with at least 100 workers.

Within hours of the ruling, at least three petitions were filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to immediately block the mandate.

A group of business groups representing retail, wholesale, warehousing, transportation, travel and logistics filed one of the first petitions with the high court, raising among other issues the potential for workers to quit rather than take the shot.

“The resulting labor upheaval will devastate already fragile supply chains and labor markets at the peak holiday season,” said the petition.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is seeking public review and comment on a draft environmental impact statement for a proposed pipeline relocation project in Ashland, Bayfield and Iron counties.

Enbridge has applied for waterway and wetland crossing permits and a construction site erosion control permit from the DNR to relocate its Line 5 pipeline. The purpose of the environmental impact statement is to inform decision makers and the public about the proposed project, alternatives and the associated environmental and socio-economic impacts.

Members of the public also have the opportunity to submit written comments on the draft environmental impact statement through March 4, 2022.

Enbridge proposes constructing approximately 41 miles of a new 30-inch-diameter crude oil pipeline to relocate its existing Line 5 pipeline outside of tribal lands of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The company would also abandon approximately 20 miles of the existing 30-inch-diameter Line 5 Pipeline, including the section that currently crosses the Bad River Reservation.

The public is encouraged to submit comments regarding the draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Enbridge pipeline relocation project. All electronic and hardcopy comments must be submitted or postmarked no later than Friday, March 4, 2022. Please submit comments to:

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Line 5 EIS Comments (EA/7)
101 South Webster St.
Madison, WI 53707
Email: DNROEEACOMMENTS@WI.GOV 

The DNR will consider all public comments received and will prepare a final environmental impact statement prior to making any permit decisions.

A new report from Forward Analytics shows that the state of Wisconsin will face challenges in the coming years due to stagnating population growth during the last decade. According to the report, “Slowing Down: Wisconsin’s Waning Population Growth,” the state’s population increased 3.6%, the slowest 10-year growth rate on record. This trend is being driven by a declining youth population. Over the decade, Wisconsin’s under-18 population fell 4.3%, more than double the 2.1% decline during 2000-2010.

The decline in the youth population was largely driven by falling birth rates. During 2010-2020, the number of births dropped in every year but one, resulting in about 44,000 fewer babies born than during 2000-2010. With deaths rising due to aging baby boomers, the state’s natural population growth (births minus deaths) was 153,000 compared to 243,000 during 2000-2010.

According to Forward Analytics Director Dale Knapp, “Fewer young people in the state affects Wisconsin’s future labor force. With this recent decline, the state may not have enough young people to replace retiring baby boomers and GenXers over the next two decades.”

With the exception of Milwaukee County, urban counties continued to grow. However, many rural counties saw populations fall due largely to the lack of growth in the youth population. From 2000-2010, 18 rural counties had more deaths than births, a phenomenon that was rare in previous
decades. In each of those rural counties, natural population loss continued during 2010-2020 with 11 additional counties joining them, bringing the total to 29 rural counties with natural population loss.

Without natural growth, the only way to increase or even maintain the state’s population and workforce is through migration. Unfortunately, that is trending in an unfavorable direction as well. With the state’s population growth at an all-time low, the state will need to attract significantly more
people over the next 10 years or risk a critically shrinking workforce and declining tax base.

Retail sales rose slower than economists had expected in November following three straight months of sharp increases, according to data released Wednesday by the Census Bureau.

U.S. retailers and restaurants made $639.8 billion in sales last month, up just 0.3 percent from October and well below the 0.8 percent increase projected by analysts. October’s retail sales gain was revised up to 1.8 percent, a 0.1 percentage point increase from the initially reported figure.

Sales at department stores sank 5.4 percent last month and purchases at electronics stores fell by 4.6 percent, the Census Bureau reported. Sales by online retailers were flat, though sporting goods, hobby, music and book stores saw sales rise by 1.3 percent.

While a retail sales slowdown during the holiday shopping season would typically be cause for alarm, November’s tepid growth followed three straight months of expectations-beating increases.

Retailers and supply chain experts urged consumers to buy their holiday gifts early to ensure they could check off their lists before Christmas. Those warnings may have pulled sales that would have occurred in November  forward into October or September.

In the coming week, the Federal Reserve could decide to speed up the end of its bond-buying program and signal that it expects to start hiking interest rates in 2022.

In testimony before a Senate panel on Nov. 30, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell tipped the warning that the central bank would discuss speeding the taper of its $120 billion monthly bond purchases at the December meetings. His comments followed a parade of Fed speakers, who all suggested the central bank could end the program sooner than the current timeline of June 2022.

In November, the Fed announced it would wind down its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases at a pace of $15 billion a month.  The bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing, was put in place in early 2020 to help the economy and financial markets combat the impact of the pandemic. The Fed also had quickly slashed its fed funds target rate to zero.

In its last forecast, the Fed’s so-called dot-plot chart of inflation forecasts shows that half the Fed officials expected one or two rate hikes next year, but there was no consensus for a hike. The first hikes were in 2023. That is likely to change in the updated forecast, with possibly two hikes penciled in for next year.

Powell also acknowledged during his recent testimony that inflation could be more of a problem than the central bank thought, and that it was time to retire the description of inflation as “transitory,” or temporary. Indeed, the consumer price index for November surged to its fastest rate in nearly 40 years.

President Biden is signing an executive order on Monday intended to cut back on the bureaucracy around government services for the public such as renewing their passports, applying for loans or changing their name.

The order, which Biden will sign on Monday afternoon, affects 36 “customer experience improvement commitments” across 17 federal agencies. The order targets various government services dealing with travel, retirement, business, health and updating personal information, according to a White House fact sheet.

For example, the order will call for a streamlined enrollment experience for retirees looking to enroll in Social Security, and it will allow retirees to more easily claim benefits online.

Taxpayers will be given new online tools to make filing more easy, and filers will have the option to schedule customer service call-backs instead of waiting on hold.

The order will call for Americans to be able to renew their passports online rather than dealing with print forms, and it will aim to streamline the process for travelers with urgent questions for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The order will also aim to ease the bureaucracy around both student loans and business loans.

The order will create a single portal for the millions of individuals with student loan debt, and small business owners will have a more streamlined process for working with the Small Business Administration on loans, grants and certifications.

A draft plan that will influence the future of transportation in the state is available for review and comment, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation announced today.

Connect 2050, Wisconsin’s statewide multimodal transportation plan required by federal law, will help guide infrastructure investments through 2050. The draft version of the plan is available at connect2050.wisconsindot.gov. Comments on the plan can be submitted through January 24, 2022.

“Everyone relies on transportation infrastructure, and this is a great opportunity to shape its future in Wisconsin,” WisDOT Secretary Craig Thompson said. “Thank you to all those who support our efforts to plan improvements. The draft Connect 2050 plan relied on more than 2,200 survey responses, 2,400 written comments and participation from every county in Wisconsin. Please continue to make your voice heard.”

Connect 2050 establishes goals and objectives that will guide and support development of an integrated, efficient, and safe multimodal transportation system.

Comments on the plan can be submitted online. A mail-in form can be requested by calling (608) 266-3581 or emailing opa.exec@dot.wi.gov​.

Tens of millions of Americans could see their bank account information swept up and reported to the Internal Revenue Service under a deeply controversial proposal from Congressional Democrats, according to a new analysis.

The plan requires banks and other financial institutions to disclose accounts with $10,000 of annual deposits or outflows to the IRS, a move intended to help the agency crack down on wealthy tax cheats. Recipients of federal benefits like unemployment and Social Security would be exempt from the policy under the latest iteration of the proposal, which would also exclude any income received through a paycheck in which federal taxes are automatically deducted.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that some 87 million Americans who earn less than $400,000 in adjusted gross income would see their account information reported to the IRS. That represents a little more than half — about 59% — of the 148 million taxpayers in the U.S. earning less than $400,000.

The White House has repeatedly defended the plan in the face of bank criticism, writing in a memo to congressional Democrats that requiring banks and financial institutions to provide a “little bit of high-level information” to the IRS on account flows gives the agency more information about wealthy Americans’ earnings from investments and business activity.

Each December, the Wisconsin Policy Forum examines preliminary state data on property tax levies from school districts, counties, technical colleges, and special districts. (Figures for municipalities are not available until early next year.) The data give a crucial early look at collections from Wisconsin’s largest single tax, which serves as a key source of funding for local services such as education, public safety, and local roads.

Property tax bills being mailed out this month for 2022 show an increase in gross property taxes for Wisconsin’s K-12 school districts of just 0.3%, from $5.38 to $5.40 billion. This is the smallest percentage increase in school district levies since a 0.1% increase in 2016.

Property tax levies for counties will rise by 2.3% statewide, similar to the increase from last year. Levies for Wisconsin’s 16 technical colleges will fall by 3.4% – just their second decline of the 21^st century – due to additional state aid dollars.

Notably, this analysis looks at gross property tax levies before state credits are used to lower the net bills for property taxpayers. While two of the state credits essentially will stay the same, the state lottery credit is budgeted to rise by $85 million this year, which should help to hold overall property taxes for home and business owners to one of the smallest increases in recent years.

The Internal Revenue Service today issued guidance for employers regarding the retroactive termination of the Employee Retention Credit. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was enacted on November 15, 2021, amended the law so that the Employee Retention Credit applies only to wages paid before October 1, 2021, unless the employer is a recovery startup business.

Notice 2021-65 applies to employers that paid wages after September 30, 2021 and received an advance payment of the Employee Retention Credit for those wages or reduced employment tax deposits in anticipation of the credit for the fourth quarter of 2021 but are now ineligible for the credit due to the change in the law. The notice also provides guidance regarding how the rules apply to recovery startup businesses during the fourth quarter of 2021.

Employers who Received Advance Payments

Generally, employers that are not recovery startup businesses and received advance payments for fourth quarter wages of 2021 will avoid failure to pay penalties if they repay those amounts by the due date of their applicable employment tax returns.

Employers who Reduced Employment Tax Deposits

Employers that reduced deposits on or before December 20, 2021, for wages paid during the fourth calendar quarter of 2021 in anticipation of the Employee Retention Credit and that are not recovery startup businesses will not be subject to a failure to deposit penalty with respect to the retained deposits if—

1. The employer reduced deposits in anticipation of the Employee Retention Credit, consistent with the rules in Notice 2021-24 ,
2. The employer deposits the amounts initially retained in anticipation of the Employee Retention Credit on or before the relevant due date for wages paid on December 31, 2021 (regardless of whether the employer actually pays wages on that date). Deposit due dates will vary based on the deposit schedule of the employer, and
3. The employer reports the tax liability resulting from the termination of the employer’s Employee Retention Credit on the applicable employment tax return or schedule that includes the period from October 1, 2021, through December 31, 2021. Employers should refer to the instructions to the applicable employment tax return or schedule for additional information on how to report the tax liability.

Due to the termination of the Employee Retention Credit for wages paid in the fourth quarter of 2021 for employers that are not recovery startup businesses, failure to deposit penalties are not waived for these employers if they reduce deposits after December 20, 2021.

If an employer does not qualify for relief under this Notice, it may reply to a notice about a penalty with an explanation and the IRS will consider reasonable cause relief.