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The Senate is set to vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill, which includes significant tax provisions that have evolved since the Senate Finance Committee's initial proposal. If passed, the bill will return to the House, where its future is uncertain. Key changes, as outlined in the Journal of Accountancy, include making tax rates from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, increasing the standard deduction, and temporarily raising the SALT cap to $40,000. Major Medicaid cuts are a major part of the package, along with food assistance for low-income Americans and financial aid for college students. The bill also introduces deductions for tips and overtime pay, while eliminating many clean energy tax incentives. AICPA has expressed gratitude for the rejection of new tax increases on pass-through entities. The bill aims to address various tax priorities, impacting both individuals and businesses. To help speed the bill's passage - President Donald Trump has asked for it to on his desk by July 4th - Republicans have declared that the extensions of expiring tax cuts will have no impact on the federal budget. Rather than use standard congressional accounting, Republicans are saying that extensions of tax cuts set to lapse Dec. 31 don’t count toward budget deficits the same way that new tax cuts do, because they are just continuing current policies. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that assumption turns the Senate’s bill from a $3.3tn deficit increase that can’t pass through reconciliation into a $508bn deficit decrease that can. Republicans are expected to endorse the accounting move in a procedural vote early today. 

 

Accounting Today

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Journal of Accountancy

Wall Street Journal

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Whistleblower attorney Paul Scott emphasizes the importance of litigation funding for private whistleblowers pursuing fraud cases against government payers. A proposed 32% tax on litigation financing arrangements could hinder these efforts, potentially harming U.S. taxpayers. The False Claims Act allows private citizens to file lawsuits against fraudulent government payers, and recent trends show a significant increase in recoveries from declined qui tam cases, totaling over $2.3bn in the last four years. Mr. Scott argues that imposing a tax on whistleblower funding would contradict Congress's efforts to incentivize fraud reporting. He warns that such policies could divert capital away from whistleblower initiatives, ultimately undermining the fight against fraud that benefits the US Treasury. "There is nothing beautiful about that," Scott concludes.

 

Bloomberg Tax

As federal arts funding dwindles, Portland's arts nonprofits are facing significant financial challenges due to changes in the city's arts tax distribution. This year, larger downtown organizations received increased grants, while smaller groups saw cuts, jeopardizing vital arts education programs. Jeff Hawthorne, grants program manager with the Office of Arts and Culture, noted that “the earlier application was onerous,” leading to a new, simplified process. However, over half of the 80 organizations receiving General Operating Support reported reduced funding compared to last year. The city has allocated an additional $170,000 to some organizations, but many still face funding shortages. Chariti Montez, director of the Office of Arts and Culture, said: “The collections of the arts tax have not gone up,” indicating a bleak outlook for future funding.

 

The Oregonian

Agustín Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, has warned that the global economy is at a "pivotal moment" as it enters a "new era of heightened uncertainty and unpredictability." This, he said, is testing public trust in institutions such as central banks. Mr Carstens, the former governor of Mexico's central bank, said increasing protectionism and trade fragmentation is "particular concerning" as they were exacerbating a decline in economic and productivity growth. He also voiced concern over evidence that the world economy is becoming less resilient to shocks. Pointing to rising debt levels, Mr Carstens said: "This trend cannot continue."

 

Reuters

Google’s parent company Alphabet has hired a leader from a prominent competitor to lead the financial department of its growing cloud computing arm. Google Cloud has named Kobi Bar-Nathan, former chief financial officer of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, to lead financial strategy at Google Cloud. His appointment signals Alphabet’s intent to bolster the financial strategy of its cloud division, which is increasingly central to its AI ambitions and enterprise offerings.

 

The CFO

CFO

The biggest U.S. banks have passed the Federal Reserve’s annual tests of whether they can withstand a future economic and market crisis, with firms maintaining robust capital levels even after suffering hundreds of billions of dollars in losses. The results of the U.S. central bank's yearly "stress test" of large lenders' finances found they remain resilient in the face of a potential recession, a spike in unemployment, and market turmoil. “Large banks remain well capitalized and resilient to a range of severe outcomes,” said Michelle Bowman, the Fed’s vice-chair for supervision. "The stress tests have proven that most banks have more than twice the reserve capital required, so there is evidence that they could use this to spur loan growth," observed Brian Mulberry, portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, which holds banking stocks. "Considering that the U.S. consumer is still strong and the stress test supports their healthy positions, we could see the banks pull some of the capital back and channel it into lending."

 

Financial Times

Reuters

Federal Reserve governor Michael Barr has emphasised the importance of banks managing climate-related risks, saying: "I think climate risk is a real risk for us as a society and is likely to be a risk for the financial system unless we pay attention to it now." Mr Barr clarified that while the Fed does not create climate policy, it is crucial for supervised institutions to operate safely by addressing these risks.

 

Daily Mail

According to a report by Gartner, over 40% of agentic artificial intelligence projects are expected to be abandoned by 2027 due to rising costs and unclear business value. Anushree Verma, a senior director analyst at Gartner, noted that "most agentic AI projects right now are early stage experiments or proofs of concept that are mostly driven by hype," suggesting that many current models lack the maturity to autonomously achieve complex business goals. Despite these challenges, Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 15% of daily work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI, a significant increase from 0% in 2024.

 

Reuters

Zak Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency platform backed by President Donald Trump, has announced plans for an audit of its stablecoin and the launch of a new app aimed at making crypto more accessible to everyday investors. The firm, which has generated significant revenue through its governance token, WLFI, is also hinting that this token may soon become tradable, despite facing criticism over potential conflicts of interest related to Trump's involvement in the crypto industry.

 

Reuters

Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse has said the crypto firm is to drop its cross appeal against the Securities and Exchange Commission. The regulator had sued Ripple for allegedly violating securities laws through the sale of its XRP tokens. In 2023, a judge ruled that XRP sales on public exchanges were legal, but the $728m of sales to institutional investors broke the rules. "We're closing this chapter once and for all," Garlinghouse wrote in a post on X, adding that the SEC is also expected to drop the appeal that it had filed.

 

Reuters

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that trade discussions with the U.S. have resumed after Canada decided to rescind its digital services tax on U.S. technology firms. This decision came after President Trump suspended talks over the tax, which he deemed “a direct and blatant attack on our country.” Mr. Carney said: “Today's announcement will support a resumption of negotiations toward the July 21, 2025, timeline set out at this month's G7 Leaders' Summit in Kananaskis.” The tax, which would have imposed a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users for companies like Amazon and Google, was set to cost U.S. firms $2bn. Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne emphasized that rescinding the tax would facilitate vital progress in establishing a new economic relationship with the U.S.

 

CNN

Los Angeles Times

Politico

Reuters

Brazil's lower house of Congress has overturned President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's decree to raise the financial transactions tax (IOF) on certain credit, foreign-exchange and private pension plan operations. The tax hike, which was aimed at generating 61.5bn reais ($11.07bn) by 2026, faced immediate backlash. Lula's administration has struggled to push its economic agenda amid declining approval ratings ahead of the presidential election.

 

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