Legislation Filed To Prevent Fox News From Using Defamation Payout As A Tax Write Off - Ring of Fire

[TexasTowelie]

New legislation has been proposed in the Senate by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that would prohibit Fox News from writing off any portion of the $787 million defamation settlement that the company recently agreed to. Writing off the cost of litigation - including settlements and judgements - has long been a practice of the biggest corporations in America, and this legislation is only addressing a tiny portion of the problem. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains why the legislation doesn't go far enough, even if it is a good start.

====================

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Shortly after Fox News was hit with the $787 million settlement in the defamation lawsuit filed against them from Dominion Voting Systems, it was reported that thanks to loopholes and corporate and tax law, they would be able to ride off a good portion, hundreds of millions of dollars of that settlement. They'd be able to write it off on their taxes, which essentially puts the burden of playing, uh, paying their defamation settlement on the rest of us who actually pay our taxes. Well, democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, like most Americans, was off by this, rightfully so. So Sheldon Whitehouse this past Wednesday put forth legislation titled The Denying Expenditures for False Accusations with Malicious Effect, the Defame Act, if you will. And it says that if you get hit with a defamation lawsuit or settlement of more than $500 million and you're a company that has made over $10 billion in revenue and they proved actual malice, then you don't get to write any of that off on your taxes.

And thanks to a companion bill in the House of Representatives sponsored by Democratic representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, it would apply to the year 2023, meaning Fox News could not write off any of their massive settlement. Here's why this legislation makes me very angry, because the gosh darn Democrats did what they always do. They put forth a piece of legislation that's decent, decent, not good, not great. It doesn't address 98% of the problem, but it addresses enough of the problem to be considered decent, which is what Democrats do, right? Like the infrastructure bill, massive biggest infrastructure bill we had in the country, but still less than a third of what experts said was actually needed. So it was decent, wasn't great, but it was decent student loan debt forgiveness. 2% of people get their student loans forgiven. That's good. Not great 'cause y'all are only addressing a tiny sliver of the problem, which is what this legislation does. Lemme tell you something here. Most major corporations, it doesn't matter if you're an oil company, a pharmaceutical company, a chemical company, whatever they are, they take and they have algorithms and equations for this, by the way, I have seen them in their own documents.

They calculate these settlements and lawsuits and judgements against them as part of the cost of doing business. Even when they get massive judgements against them from the Department of Justice, they typically

Only end up paying about 20% of it. And these are numbers by the way, that over the years, pap and I have talked about at Ring of Fire, we've kind of laid out what happens. Um, so let me kind of give you a crash course on that. When the Department of Justice comes out and says, Hey, we got a company over here, a, a major bank. Uh, they were laundering money for terrorism, so we hit 'em with a $2 billion fine. Well, right off the top, they don't ever end up having to pay the full 2 billion.

[thatdemguy]

1. wont do any good

Cant change laws and have them retro active. If they paid it out before the change, they can write it off.

[TexasTowelie]

3. It won't have any effect regarding the settlement with Dominion.

However, if the legislation is enacted and signed prior to any settlement with Smartmatic it is a worthwhile pursuit.

[SouthernDem4ever]

2. Disgusting.

I don't like paying for their bullshit.