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US President Donald Trump and Stephen Hahn, Director of the Food and Drug Administration, attend the daily meeting of the coronavirus task force at the White House in Washington, DC on April 24, 2020.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images

White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has urged the head of the Food and Drug Administration to resign if the agency does not clear Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use by the end of the day, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

The warning prompted FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and the agency to accelerate their schedule for the release of America’s first Covid-19 vaccine from Saturday morning to late Friday, according to the Post, citing anonymous sources.

The New York Times, Axios, and Reuters also reported that Meadows urged Hahn to resign if he wasn’t quick enough to remove the vaccine.

In a statement, Hahn called the Post’s report “an untrue account”.

“This is an untrue representation of the telephone conversation with the chief of staff,” Hahn told CNBC on Friday afternoon. “The FDA has been encouraged to continue working swiftly on Pfizer-BioNTech’s EEA request. The FDA is committed to swiftly granting this approval, as we noted in our statement this morning.”

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The reports come a day after a key FDA advisory body voted 17-4, with one abstention, to recommend the vaccine, which Pfizer partnered with BioNTech, for emergency approval. The FDA typically follows the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products. After the overwhelming vote, the FDA should release the vaccine on Friday.

Hahn said earlier that day the agency was “working fast” to clear Pfizer’s emergency vaccine. “The agency has also notified the US Centers for Disease Control, Prevention and Operation Warp Speed ​​so they can implement their plans for timely vaccine distribution,” Hahn said in a joint statement with Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Shortly after Hahn ’s remarks, President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly urged the FDA to speed up the vaccine development process, tweeted the agency,” Get the dam vaccines out NOW. “

“Stop playing and save lives !!!”

FDA approval would mark a record-breaking timeframe for a process that typically takes about a decade. The fastest vaccine development to date against mumps took more than four years and was licensed in 1967. Pfizer and BioNTech announced plans to develop a coronavirus vaccine in March and filed an emergency clearance application with the FDA in November.

An emergency permit, or EEA, is not the same as a full permit, which can typically take months. Pfizer has only submitted safety data for two months, but it typically takes the agency six months for full approval.

– CNBC’s Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

The offices of the Internal Revenue Services in Washington, DC

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

The IRS has signaled that it will bless a workaround that will allow small business owners to bypass the $ 10,000 limit on state and local income tax deductions.

Since the Tax Cut and Employment Act went into effect in 2018, high-tax countries have been looking for ways to help individual taxpayers listed on their tax returns cope with the $ 10,000 limit.

Last year, the IRS and Treasury blocked one of those strategies, laws in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut that would have allowed municipalities to create charitable funds to pay for local services and offer property tax credits to incentivize homeowners.

States have also devised another workaround, this time using pass-through companies that include suburban companies, some limited companies, and partnerships.

The IRS has just given the green light to this move, according to a notice from the agency released last week.

This workaround took effect in seven states under the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, according to the American Institute of CPAs: Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

Four other states have proposed laws but failed to enact a rule: Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, and Minnesota, according to the AICPA.

However, the workaround does not apply to sole proprietorships and sole proprietorships.

“This was an area of ​​concern in the taxpayer community as to whether the IRS would allow these SALT workarounds,” said Harold Hecht, CPA, chief executive officer, state and local tax services at Mazars USA.

“It is really good news that the IRS is issuing these guidelines that accept pass-through corporate taxes as a valid workaround,” he said.

Entity versus individual

Pass-through businesses are known as such because the business “passes” income on to its owners.

These owners report their share of business income when filing their individual income tax returns. There they are subject to the US $ 10,000 limit for state and local income taxes.

Here’s how the pass-through workaround works, according to AICPA: The company itself – not the owner – would be responsible for state taxes on the company’s income. In the meantime, the owner can request a credit on their government tax return for the tax paid by the company on their share of income.

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The proposed rules of the IRS and Treasury Department will make it clear that state taxes paid by the company are deductible by partnerships and S-Corps when they calculate their federal income and distribute it to owners, according to Eileen Sherr, CPA and Senior Manager, AICPA Tax Political Advocacy.

Discussions with your tax advisor

Once the IRS issues its regulations, more states are likely to be evaluating similar workarounds.

“States get their tax dollars regardless, but they allow businesses to get federal benefits and the IRS is okay with that,” said Albert J. Campo, CPA and managing partner at AJC Accounting Services in Manalapan. New Jersey.

That said, it’s time for small business owners to speak to their tax professionals about whether they qualify – and, if applicable, whether it’s time to change tax returns.

For example, Connecticut was the first to introduce its workaround and rolled out in 2018. Pass-through owners may want to change their old returns, said Michael D’Addio, principal at Marcum LLP.

“If you didn’t make the deduction at the company level because you were concerned the IRS wouldn’t allow it, see if there is a refund option,” he said.

The Food and Drug Administration is “working fast” to clear Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use after a key panel overwhelmingly approved the shots on Thursday evening, Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement Friday.

“Following yesterday’s positive outcome from the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine meeting of the Advisory Committee, the US Food and Drug Administration has informed the sponsor that it will work swiftly towards completion and emergency approval “said Hahn in a joint statement with Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

“The agency has also notified the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Operation Warp Speed ​​so that they can implement their plans for a timely distribution of the vaccine,” said Hahn and Marks.

Hahn added in a tweet that the FDA is “finalizing the necessary documents to ensure that patients and providers have the information they need to make informed decisions and safely administer the vaccine.”

The FDA’s comments come after the FDA’s Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products on Thursday voted 17 to 4 with one abstention on recommending the vaccine, which the company developed with BioNTech, for emergency approval. The FDA usually follows the advice of the advisory committee, but it is uncommon for the agency commissioner to announce intention to evacuate the product prior to the announcement.

Data on the Pfizer vaccine shows it was about 95% effective against Covid-19 in study participants. The FDA is expected to approve emergency use as early as Friday.

The vaccine should be approved “in the next few days,” said Alex Azar, secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, on ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday.

“We’re not seeing 20 million Americans vaccinated for the next few weeks, up to 50 million by the end of January, and we believe we can get 100 million actual vaccinations by the end of February,” Azar said.

After the FDA released Hahn and Marks’ statement on Friday, President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly stated that he had urged the agency to speed up the approval of various treatments for Covid-19, said the FDA “is still one.” big, old firm is, slow turtle. “

“Get the dam vaccines out NOW, Dr. Hahn @SteveFDA,” he said on Twitter, tagging the FDA commissioner. “Stop playing and save lives !!!”

At the advisory board meeting on Thursday, Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development, Kathrin Jansen, argued at her company why the committee should recommend that the FDA issue an emergency approval for the vaccine. She said the vaccine was one of society’s greatest hopes of ending the pandemic that killed nearly 300,000 people in the U.S. in less than a year and returning to a sense of normalcy.

However, Thursday’s meeting was not without debate. FDA advisors interviewed Pfizer and FDA staff on a number of questions, including a lack of data on the vaccine’s safety profile in pregnant women and young children. After the vote, some committee members who voted against the recommendation for a permit said they did so because they did not want anyone under the age of 18 to be included on the emergency permit because the data on that age group was too “thin”. The advisory board recommended its use in people aged 16 and over.

Dr. Paul Offit, who had voted in support of the emergency clearance, grilled Pfizer at the meeting over two cases of allergic reactions reported by UK health workers vaccinated against Covid-19. He urged Pfizer and FDA staff on their plans to ensure the vaccine is safe for Americans with a history of allergies.

Shoppers hold hands at Willow Grove Park Mall in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, November 14, 2020.

Mark Makela | Reuters

Almost 40% of Americans plan to spend less on gifts this holiday season than they did last year. This is the largest percentage since 2013, according to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey.

Only 11% plan to spend more as Americans continue to cope with rising Covid-19 cases and widespread unemployment. The average American plans to spend just $ 886, according to the survey, a 10% decrease from budgeted spending last year.

Of the 800 Americans surveyed, 29% said they wanted to spend less because of lost wages or income, 19% said they had the coronavirus, and 17% said they had a poor economy. The survey shows an error rate of plus or minus 3.5%.

All income groups reported spending less this year than a year ago. And when it comes to the actual dollars they want to spend, the richest Americans might hold back the most.

“It seems like Americans who make more than $ 100,000 are holding back a little more than they were in 2019,” said Jay Campbell, partner at Hart Research, which serves as a Democratic pollster.

Americans could save for a possible downturn in 2021. A third of respondents believe the economy will deteriorate over the next year, twice as much as it did in October. This despite the development and the imminent use of a Covid vaccine. However, the outlook fell on a party-political basis: Republicans turned negative with the election of Vice President Joe Biden, while Democrats turned positive.

American views of the current economic situation remain roughly the same as last quarter. 34% describe it as “good” or “excellent” compared to 62% who describe it as “fair” or “bad”.

While Americans plan to spend less overall this holiday season, they plan to spend a lot more online.

In a big leap, 55% say they’ll do most of their shopping online, compared to 43% a year ago. This is the largest gain in the survey’s 14 years and follows a three-year plateau in this metric. It is also the first time that more than half of the respondents favored online shopping. Big box stores and department stores are bearing the brunt of this shift, with both declining as top choices for shoppers.

Amazon remains by far the top destination for online shoppers with a larger market share than all of its competitors combined. However, the survey shows that in a year when online shopping is soaring, competitors are limiting Amazon’s dominance.

Amazon was rated as a top destination by 37% of online shoppers, just two points more than last year. Specialty goods sites like Etsy got 5 points, and online purchases at Walmart and Big Box Stores got 4 points each.

In a positive sign for small businesses, Americans had the least concern about actual small store visits and shopping, half of the worries reported about mall visits.