Here are five reasons why everyone should be concerned about genetically engineered foods

You’ve heard the controversy about genetically engineered foods (GMOs) and whether they’re safe to eat (and the question of safety is nowhere near settled, despite what the companies that create GMOs would like you to think). But the rest of the story about GMOs is far more complex: for biotech companies, the real purpose of GMOs is power and control over the food supply, and ultimately it’s about profits. The undeniable fact is that GMOs are bad for our environment, our food system, and the people in it.

 Here are five reasons why everyone should be concerned about genetically engineered foods:

1. GMOs increase the corporate control of our food 

Increasingly, the food industry is dominated by a handful of powerful corporations that control nearly every aspect of how our food is produced. Monsanto, for example, now owns a staggering number of seed companies that were once its competitors. For people who buy groceries, it’s distressing to realize that the dozens of brands in the grocery store are mostly owned by a few parent companies. When a company has a virtual monopoly on a whole aisle of the grocery store or a set of agricultural products, they make decisions based on what’s best for their profits, not what’s best for their customers or the planet.

This consolidation of control is easy to see in the corporations that create GMOs. Biotech companies like Monsanto, Dow, Dupont and Syngenta create not only GMO seeds, but an entire system of food production. If there’s profit to be made in selling one product farmers need to buy, there’s far more profit to be made from creating a system of products designed to work together; for example, linking seeds with specific chemicals that these companies also sell, like Monsanto soybeans that are engineered to withstand Roundup, the weed killer produced by Monsanto. If a farmer plants those soybeans, they’re going to buy Roundup as well.

Nor is it easy for farmers to avoid planting GMOs. In our increasingly consolidated food industry, farmers have fewer and fewer options, and the advice they hear at every turn is “go GMO.” This happens not just in the United States, but increasingly around the world as well.

2. GMOs don’t live up to the hype

GMOs often don’t even do what they’re supposed to do. You’ve probably heard that “we need GMOs in order to feed the world,” on the presumption that only GMO crops have a high enough yield to keep up with a growing population. The trouble is, that simply isn’t true. Studies on certain GMO crops have found little to no yield improvements, and long-term studies of organic farming show that organic can match conventional agriculture’s yields.

In other cases, biotech companies claim that their GMOs have nutritional benefits, or will solve some other pending crises. Take “golden rice,” which is supposed to cure vitamin A deficiency in the developing world. Unfortunately, it doesn’t: the beta-carotene in golden rice can’t be absorbed by the body unless combined with certain fats and oils, which is not helpful for people living in poverty with a limited diet. Plenty of non-GMO foods, like carrots and sweet potatoes, are rich in vitamin A and don’t require millions of dollars to produce and grow. Golden rice makes for good PR, but it won’t solve the world’s nutritional problems.

Other times, GMO crops serve no practical purpose at all – at least for the people who eat them. Do we really need science to stop apples from turning brown when we cut them? Non-browning GMO apples are purely a marketing scheme, a way to make produce look fresher than it actually is and to make life easier for processors who want to sell cut-up apples to fast food chains.

3. More GMOs means more chemical use

Many GMO crops are specifically engineered to resist certain weed killers, such as the potentially carcinogenic Roundup, so planting GMOs means that farmers end up using the associated chemicals, and using them in more ways, when they use GMO crops. Those chemicals end up in the environment and threaten the health of farmers and farmworkers, as well as the communities they live in. The system for making sure these chemicals don’t end up in our food is extremely weak.

What’s even worse is that, because of increased chemical use, the pests are catching up. Over time, weeds and insects evolve a resistance to the chemicals we use against them. The more we use, the faster they adapt. Many common herbicides are no longer effective on our farms, which leaves biotech companies to encourage the use of harsher chemicals, which the pests will eventually adapt to… leading to an arms race of dangerous chemicals where people and the environment will inevitably be the losers.

4. GMOs and organics can’t coexist

Trying to keep a farm GMO-free is harder than you might think. Some GMOs don’t stay put where they’re planted. It’s quite common for them to contaminate neighboring farms, or even farms many miles away when pollen from GMO crops drifts on the wind. Seed supplies can be contaminated with GMOs, too. In 2013, an Oregon farmer found GMO wheat in his field – an unapproved crop that hasn’t been field tested since 2005. This is a serious problem for organic farmers, who are not allowed to use GMOs.

5. The research is biased

There is a great deal of research out there about the safety and effects of GMOs – but far too much of it is conducted, funded or otherwise influenced by the biotech industry. Disturbingly, this includes research done at public universities. When GMO advocates claim that there’s a “scientific consensus” about GMOs, or that leading scientific organizations are on their side, they’re often cherry-picking points from reports that cast the debate in a more nuanced light. We need more truly independent long-term safety research into the effects of GMOs on our health and the environment.

There are plenty of good reasons to be concerned about GMOs. But for consumers who are concerned, it’s not always clear in the marketplace where these crops end up – and biotech and food companies are fighting tooth and nail to stop new requirements that GMO foods be labeled.

Morning Briefing: hedge fund giant eyes UK affordable sector, reports Bloomberg

An acute shortage of subsidized housing for low-income families in the U.K. is drawing some unexpected investors.

Man Group Plc, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund manager, is poised to start a fund to finance construction of affordable homes, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Man has hired former Cheyne Capital Management (U.K.) LLP partner Shamez Alibhai to run the pool, the person said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

The news wire has been told by a source “with knowledge of the matter” that the company, which manages around $114bn, was poised to start the affordable housing fund and had recruited a partner from a rival to oversee it.

Man would be the latest in a list of major private players entering the social housing market, following moves by Blackstone and L&G.

Last week Inside Housing revealed that property billionaire family, The Pears Group, had also laid out plans to enter the social housing market.

The Evening Standard runs a piece saying that four in 10 people have considered leaving London due to rising cost of housing.

The paper was following up on a report by business group London First which found that 38% of all Londoners have considered leaving London, with a quarter of those planning to move out of the capital in the next year.

Also included in the piece was an attack by housing secretary James Brokenshire on London mayor Sadiq Khan’s housing delivery record, calling on the mayor to “up his game”.

Here is Inside Housing’s piece on Mr Brokenshire’s criticism of the mayor and the Greater London Authority.

Construction Enquirer has a story on the opening of a new £12m housebuilding factory opened by large house builder Weston Homes.

The 60,000 sq ft warehouse will see homes constructed in a similar way to a car manufacturing plant, with the factory able to supply 60 homes a day.

A blueprint for the construction of 10,000 homes around the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire has edged a step closer, with the masterplan going out to public consultation.

Wales Online has details of the 15-year plan which will see affordable and private sale homes.

The Welsh-based website also follows up on an Inside Housing story on a technical glitch in the Universal Credit system which could see thousands of recipients miss out on payments.

Community Housing Cymru spoke to the website about fears that many of residents could miss out on one weeks’ rent due to the way the Universal Credit is set up on a monthly basis.

Politics Home has a comment piece today from Ellie White, senior policy and campaigns officer at Mind, calling for the development of a social housing sector with mental health at its heart.

Ms White argues that a number of social housing is not fit for purpose and this is having a negative affect on people’s mental health.

She says 43% of people with mental health problems had seen their health deteriorate as a result of living in sub-standard accommodation.

U.S., China face deep trade, IP differences in high-level talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and China launch a critical round of trade talks on Wednesday amid deep differences over Washington’s demands for structural economic reforms from Beijing that will make it difficult to reach a deal before a March 2 U.S. tariff hike.

The two sides will meet next door to the White House in the highest-level talks since U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed a 90-day truce in their trade war in December.

People familiar with the talks and trade experts watching them say that, so far, there has been little indication that Chinese officials are willing to address core U.S. demands to protect American intellectual property rights and end policies that Washington says force U.S. companies to transfer technology to Chinese firms.

The U.S. complaints, along with accusations of Chinese cyber theft of U.S. trade secrets and a systematic campaign to acquire U.S. technology firms, were used by the Trump administration to justify punitive U.S. tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports.

Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on $200 billion of goods to 25 percent from 10 percent on March 2 if an agreement cannot be reached. He has also threatened new tariffs on the remainder of Chinese goods shipped to the United States.

“Clearly on the structural concerns, on forced technology transfer, there remains a significant gap if not a wide chasm between the two sides,” a person familiar with the talks told Reuters.

Chinese officials deny that their policies coerce technology transfers.

They have emphasized steps already taken, including reduced automotive tariffs and a draft foreign investment law that improves access for foreign firms and promises to outlaw “administrative means to force the transfer of technology.”

China is fast-tracking that new law, with the country’s largely rubber-stamp parliament likely to approve it in March.

A crucial component of any progress in the talks, according to top administration officials, is agreement on a mechanism to verify and “enforce” China’s follow-through on any reform pledges that it makes. This could maintain the threat of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods long term.

TEMPERED EXPECTATIONS

Some business groups watching the talks were tempering expectations for a breakthrough this week.

With a month to go before the deadline, it was unlikely that the best offers from either side would be put on the table in the next two days, said Erin Ennis, senior vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any big outcome,” Ennis said of the talks scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. “Hopefully they make some good progress that will set them up to be able to get to completion at the end of the 90 days.”

But the Chinese side, led by Vice Premier Liu He, would likely have to bring to the table a new offer that goes significantly beyond its previous offers to significantly increase purchases of U.S. goods, including soybeans, energy and manufactured goods.

People familiar with the talks said manufactured goods, a key priority for the Trump administration, were among the largest components of Chinese purchase pledges aimed at significantly reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China. But here, too, there are “no guarantees” that Beijing would follow through on these pledges, one of the people said.

Also hanging over the talks are U.S. indictments against Chinese top telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co, accusing it of bank and wire fraud to evade Iran sanctions and conspiring to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile US Inc.

MNUCHIN UPBEAT

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of the Trump administration’s strongest advocates for a deal with China, made upbeat comments about the talks for a second day in a row on Tuesday.

Mnuchin said on Fox Business Network that he expects “significant progress” on market access and technology transfer issues. He insisted that the Huawei case and trade talks were “separate issues.”

Meanwhile, earnings warnings from U.S. companies hit by the slowdown in China’s economy - due in part to the tariffs - are piling up. 3M Co joined Caterpillar, Nvidia and Apple to blame weakening Chinese demand for revenue and profit shortfalls.

It will get worse for both U.S. and Chinese firms and financial markets if Washington and Beijing cannot show enough progress to at least delay the March 2 tariff deadline, said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow and China trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“Given the weakness in the Chinese economy and the fact that the U.S. will certainly be slowing down, that’s not a pretty picture,” Lardy said.

While furloughed federal workers return to their jobs, it will take time to get parts of the I.R.S. running smoothly again

Millions of Americans have come to count on tax refunds to fuel their spending in the waning days of winter. But as income tax filing season opens on Monday, a sweeping tax code overhaul and the lingering effects of a government shutdown could squeeze taxpayers’ refund checks and delay them, too.

The monthlong government shutdown coincided with one of the Internal Revenue Service’s busiest times, and while 46,000 employees were called back to work without pay, many did not show up. Many taxpayers calling with questions faced delays of over an hour. While furloughed federal workers will return to their jobs on Monday, it will take time to get parts of the I.R.S. running smoothly again. And the workers’ time on the job could be brief, with a temporary measure funding the government expiring in three weeks.

Even before the shutdown, big questions loomed about this year’s tax season. The $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that took effect at the beginning of 2018 lowered individual income tax rates, doubled the standard deduction and eliminated or capped many personal exemptions and tax breaks, such as the state and local tax deduction. All told, the overhaul threw a cloud of confusion over the correct amount to withhold in advance from workers’ paychecks.

The Treasury Department was given discretion to set new withholding levels, which I.R.S. officials finished early last year to help taxpayers ensure they would not have too much — or too little — held back from their paychecks.

Tax Filing Season Is Starting, but It May Not Go Smoothly

Tax preparers, bracing for a tricky filing season, are advising taxpayers to file returns as they usually do, but to be prepared for possible delays if they are due refunds.

The Internal Revenue Service is scheduled to begin processing 2018 federal tax returns on Monday, but is facing two major challenges that threaten to make this tax time chaotic. Even with the government reopening, it will take a while for the I.R.S. to return to normal. The shutdown started as I.R.S. employees were in the midst of being trained about the sweeping changes that Congress made to the tax code in 2017, the head of the union representing the agency’s workers said. So I.R.S. employees may not initially be fully up to speed and able to answer questions and tackle the inevitable snafus.

Nearly three-fourths of all returns result in refunds, and the average refund last year was nearly $3,000, the I.R.S. reports. Many families rely on their refunds to make purchases or pay bills.

“I still think it will take a bit of time to get everything rolling 100 percent at the I.R.S.,” she said, adding that “if there is another shutdown in three weeks, we’ll be back to square one.”

Much of the federal government has been shut down for more than a month as a result of the political stalemate between President Trump and Democrats in Congress over funding for a border wall.

Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said on Thursday that the I.R.S. staff and agency funding had already been diminished before the shutdown and that it would probably take time for the agency to get back up to speed when it does reopened.

While the government is reopening for at least three weeks, it’s unclear whether all I.R.S. employees will return to work immediately, Mr. Reardon said on Friday evening. “The agency is hopeful of getting normal operations going on Monday,” he said, since tax filing season is officially starting. But workers, he said, were awaiting specific instructions from their supervisors. The union is urging the government to be flexible and pay workers as quickly as possible, he said, since many are facing financial hardship from missing two paychecks during the shutdown.

As to the I.R.S. help line, taxpayers and tax preparers will probably have longer waiting times this year.

“Even in a good season, there’s a backup,” said Edward Karl, vice president for taxation with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Despite the uncertain environment, Mr. Karl said, taxpayers who typically file early should do so, as soon as they have the necessary documents, like W-2 income statements.

Meanwhile, the I.R.S. has announced a bit of relief for some taxpayers: If you underpaid your taxes in 2018, you’re less likely to pay a penalty this year. The agency said this month that because of tax changes passed by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it would waive the penalty for many filers who underpaid.

The change — just for the 2018 tax year — is aimed at helping taxpayers who were “unable to properly adjust” their withholding and estimated tax payments because of the “array of changes” under the tax law, and may have inadvertently underpaid, the I.R.S. said.

The federal tax system is “pay as you go,” so taxes must be paid periodically, rather than all at once. Typically, taxpayers pay a penalty if their payments, from paycheck withholding or extra estimated tax payments, total less than 90 percent of the amount owed. (Other criteria also apply. For instance, if you underpaid but owe less than $1,000, you’re not subject to any penalty.) For 2018 returns, the I.R.S. said, the threshold will be lowered to 85 percent.

Meanwhile, the I.R.S. has announced a bit of relief for some taxpayers: If you underpaid your taxes in 2018, you’re less likely to pay a penalty this year. The agency said this month that because of tax changes passed by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it would waive the penalty for many filers who underpaid.

The change — just for the 2018 tax year — is aimed at helping taxpayers who were “unable to properly adjust” their withholding and estimated tax payments because of the “array of changes” under the tax law, and may have inadvertently underpaid, the I.R.S. said.

The federal tax system is “pay as you go,” so taxes must be paid periodically, rather than all at once. Typically, taxpayers pay a penalty if their payments, from paycheck withholding or extra estimated tax payments, total less than 90 percent of the amount owed. (Other criteria also apply. For instance, if you underpaid but owe less than $1,000, you’re not subject to any penalty.) For 2018 returns, the I.R.S. said, the threshold will be lowered to 85 percent.

Hedge Fund Fraudster jailed for copying code

A hedge fund analyst sent to jail for stealing confidential trading strategies from a London firm was “relieved” to be deported back to China after spending four-and-a-half years behind bars, his lawyer said.

Ke Xu, a Chinese national, had been accused of accessing code that he was restricted from viewing, deleting files and copying others when he worked for Trenchant Ltd, which operates the quantitative hedge fund G-Research. Xu, who worked for Goldman Sachs for six years before joining Trenchant in 2012, was arrested in Hong Kong in August last year, just over a week after he resigned from the fund.

Mr Xu clearly abused his position of trust, acting against the company with a view to gain for himself,” prosecutor Michael Andrew Hick told the court on Friday.

Xu became unhappy at Trenchant in early 2014, after receiving a bonus of £400,000, when he felt he deserved £1.1m, Mr Hick said. He began interviewing for jobs at other funds, including Jump Trading and Millennium, but neither offered him a job. Around July, he accepted a job at Cubist Systematic in Hong Kong and began making plans to leave London.

In August, he resigned from Trenchant, leaving a note on his manager’s keyboard explaining that he wanted to join his new wife, who worked in Hong Kong, and be closer to his ill father. He did not mention the new job. Before he left, he deleted about 150,000 documents, and he was seen on the company’s CCTV removing a suitcase from the building.

His abrupt departure alarmed the company and its general counsel was not able to reach Xu the following day. Trenchant began seeking court orders to stop him using the data he had accessed, Mr Hick said. He was confronted at the airport in Hong Kong upon arrival to be served with legal papers but initially denied that he was Ke Xu. Richard Wormald, a barrister for Xu, said he was initially accessing code that he was barred from viewing for a legitimate purpose: to help him do his job better.

His former boss at Goldman submitted a witness statement to the court that said that Trenchant took an “isolationist approach” to coding, in contrast to Goldman’s “collegiate approach,” and that it was “entirely understandable” that Xu would have wanted to see what his colleagues were creating in order to do his work better.

Xu was “something of a prodigy” who has thrown away a “fabulous career”, Mr Wormald said. “It’s quite a vertiginous fall from getting a first at Cambridge to sitting in the dock,” he told Judge Tomlinson.

But, in sentencing Xu, the judge said: “Most of the people who appear in front of me could only dream of the sort of bonuses from which you would have continued to benefit for many years to come, but which from some of the evidence that I have seen, you felt were inadequate.

“Though your offending may fall short of what is known as ‘copying and carrying away,’ it is plain that in Trenchant’s mind you took something of very high value and it must be the case that that was your intention because you would not have acted as you did unless you believed that you could at least try to deploy the strategies elsewhere.”

He added that Xu must serve at least half the sentence.

Depreciation-related breaks on business real estate: What you need to know when you file your 2018 return

Commercial buildings and improvements generally are depreciated over 39 years, which essentially means you can deduct a portion of the cost every year over the depreciation period. (Land isn’t depreciable.) But special tax breaks that allow deductions to be taken more quickly are available for certain real estate investments.

Some of these were enhanced by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and may provide a bigger benefit when you file your 2018 tax return. But there’s one break you might not be able to enjoy due to a drafting error in the TCJA.

Section 179 expensing

This allows you to deduct (rather than depreciate over a number of years) qualified improvement property — a definition expanded by the TCJA from qualified leasehold-improvement, restaurant and retail-improvement property. The TCJA also allows Sec. 179 expensing for certain depreciable tangible personal property used predominantly to furnish lodging and for the following improvements to nonresidential real property: roofs, HVAC equipment, fire protection and alarm systems, and security systems.

Under the TCJA, for qualifying property placed in service in tax years starting in 2018, the expensing limit increases to $1 million (from $510,000 for 2017), subject to a phaseout if your qualified asset purchases for the year exceed $2.5 million (compared to $2.03 million for 2017). These amounts will be adjusted annually for inflation, and for 2019 they’re $1.02 million and $2.55 million, respectively.

Accelerated depreciation

This break allows a shortened recovery period of 15 years for qualified improvement property. Before the TCJA, the break was available only for qualified leasehold-improvement, restaurant and retail-improvement property.

Bonus depreciation

This additional first-year depreciation allowance is available for qualified assets, which before the TCJA included qualified improvement property. But due to a drafting error in the new law, qualified improvement property will be eligible for bonus depreciation only if a technical correction is issued.

When available, bonus depreciation is increased to 100% (up from 50%) for qualified property placed in service after Sept. 27, 2017, but before Jan. 1, 2023. For 2023 through 2026, bonus depreciation is scheduled to be gradually reduced. Warning: Under the TCJA, real estate businesses that elect to deduct 100% of their business interest will be ineligible for bonus depreciation starting in 2018.

Can you benefit?

Although the enhanced depreciation-related breaks may offer substantial savings on your 2018 tax bill, it’s possible they won’t prove beneficial over the long term. Taking these deductions now means forgoing deductions that could otherwise be taken later, over a period of years under normal depreciation schedules. In some situations — such as if in the future your business could be in a higher tax bracket or tax rates go up — the normal depreciation deductions could be more valuable long-term.

For more information on these breaks or advice on whether you should take advantage of them, please contact us.

© 2019

Tax season opens with shutdown over

The Internal Revenue Service began accepting tax returns Monday, with employees returning to work after a 35-day partial government shutdown.

The IRS will be dealing with a backlog of millions of unanswered tax inquiries that arrived during the shutdown and could not be responded to, and the National Taxpayer Advocate reportedly estimated it will take at least a year for the IRS to return to normal operations, according to the Washington Post.

In addition, most IRS employees will have to wait until later this week to collect their paychecks as the federal government’s payroll system slowly resumes operation. Even though the IRS recalled over half of its workforce, approximately 46,000 out of 70,000 furloughed employees, during the shutdown to deal with tax season and implementation of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, thousands of employees reportedly took hardship exemptions because they could not afford to go to work. At least 14,000 of the recalled employees didn’t come to work last week, according to Politico and the Washington Post.

The TCJA will mean major changes for both taxpayers and tax preparers this year, with many traditional deductions either eliminated or scaled back, like the $10,000 limit on the state and local tax deduction. The 2017 tax overhaul got rid of personal and dependency exemptions, but doubled the size of the standard deduction and the Child Tax Credit.

The changes in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and confusion over the withholding tables, is expected to result in millions of taxpayers who will end up owing taxes this year if they did not change their withholding allowances to account for the elimination of personal exemptions. That means that while take-home pay on paychecks may have increased last year because of the tax overhaul, many taxpayers who are used to receiving tax refunds during tax season will instead find out they owe taxes once their tax returns are prepared. Another uncertainty is the threat of another government shutdown if President Trump and lawmakers in Congress can't reach an agreement on border security.

“IRS employees have been hard at work over the past year to implement the biggest tax law changes the nation has seen in more than 30 years,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig earlier this month when he confirmed that tax season would start on Jan. 28 despite the shutdown (see Tax season to start Jan. 28, IRS confirms).

Tax prep software companies and the IRS will be accepting tax return filings now that tax season is open. The IRS is strongly encouraging taxpayers and preparers to file tax returns electronically to minimize errors and speed up refunds.

The filing deadline to submit 2018 tax returns is Monday, April 15, 2019, for most taxpayers, but because of the Patriots’ Day holiday on April 15 in Maine and Massachusetts and the Emancipation Day holiday on April 16 in the District of Columbia, taxpayers who live in those jurisdictions will be able to wait until April 17 to file their returns. Taxpayers can also file for a six-month extension to file their taxes, but they still will need to pay any taxes owed.

The National Association for the Self-Employed, an advocacy group for entrepreneurs and sole proprietors, is urging taxpayers to file their taxes early in case of another government shutdown in three weeks. “With today’s official opening of IRS income tax filing season and the looming threat of a possible second government shutdown, we are encouraging small business owners to start preparing their income taxes today,” said NASE president and CEO Keith Hall in a statement. “With the nation’s sweeping tax reform law in full effect for this first time this year, many small-business owners understandably have questions about how changes to the Tax Code will impact their returns. Long wait times for answers to critical questions small-business owners have about filing for the first time under the new law are already being reported and should be expected for the remainder of the season. The government is officially back open today, the first day of income tax filing season, but small-business owners should brace themselves for a tax season filled with frustrations and delays.”

China's economic growth slowest since 1990 amid trade war with US

China’s economy grew 6.6% in 2018, its slowest pace in almost 30 years, confirming a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy that could threaten global growth.

After years of breakneck expansion, official data on Monday confirmed that China’s growth in 2018 was the country’s slowest reported rate since 1990 and down from 6.8% in 2017.

The 6.4% growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2018 was last seen in early 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis.

“We see that there are changes in stability, concern about these changes. The external environment is complicated and severe. The economy is facing downward pressure,” said Ning Jizhe, director of China’s National Statistic Bureau, adding that China’s economy remained “steady overall”.

Monday’s data, while in line with expectations, puts pressure on Beijing to reach a deal with Washington to end the bruising trade war. “China-US conflict is indeed affecting China’s economy, that is true, but the impact is manageable,” Ning said.

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.4% while Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.5%. China’s CSI300 index rose 0.97%.

The latest economic figures suggest China may no longer be able to help shore up weakening global growth.

A government campaign to rein in risky debt has been compounded by a trade war with the US, hitting consumer and business confidence. Over the past few months consumer spending, manufacturing output, and investment have reached record lows.

So far China has held back from deploying the stimulus measures used in 2009 that resulted in a binge of infrastructure projects and bad debt taken on by companies and local governments. Analysts say stimulus measures would not only undo government efforts to lower risk in the financial system, but are no longer effective in spurring growth.

“The data confirms a challenging period for China’s economy, with weakness discernible across different sectors,” said Tom Rafferty, principal economist for China at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Rafferty said stimulus measures would likely be mild and investor confidence would remain fragile as trade frictions continue. The group predicts even slower growth of 6.3% in 2019 and a further weakening in 2020.

“The first half of 2019 is likely to be equally difficult, with headline growth likely to recede further. China’s economy is unlikely to experience a rebound similar to past business cycle expansions,” he said.

Most economists doubt China’s official GDP figures, with some estimating that the real figure could be less than half the rate reported by the government. China’s latest data comes at a time when international attention is focused on the Chinese economy.

“China’s official GDP number is always a fiction, but fourth quarter data was a particularly aggressive fiction,” said Leland Miller, chief executive officer of China Beige Book.

The Chinese vice premier, Liu He, will visit the United States on 30 and 31 January for the next round of trade talks with Washington. The vice president, Wang Qishan, is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos later this month.

“A decision was clearly made to avoid any possible suggestion that China’s slowdown isn’t firmly under Beijing’s control,” Miller said.

Monday’s economic data included some indications the downturn may not be as severe as initially thought. The country’s industrial output rose 5.7%, while retail sales increased 8.2% in December, compared to a year earlier.

The country’s traditional economic drivers, infrastructure, real estate and exports, grew marginally last year, yet other areas such as advanced technology and services expanded.

“China’s economy still expanded a lot in absolute terms, and the economy is now almost 3.5 times the size it was a decade ago,” said Scott Kennedy, a trade expert focused on China at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The US president, Donald Trump, said on Saturday there had been progress toward a trade deal with China, but denied reports that he was considering lifting tariffs.

“Things are going very well with China and with trade,” he told reporters at the White House.

Many tax-related limits affecting businesses increase for 2019

A variety of tax-related limits affecting businesses are annually indexed for inflation, and many have gone up for 2019. Here’s a look at some that may affect you and your business.

Deductions

• Section 179 expensing:
• Limit: $1.02 million (up from $1 million)
• Phaseout: $2.55 million (up from $2.5 million)
• Income-based phase-ins for certain limits on the Sec. 199A qualified business income deduction:
• Married filing jointly: $321,400-$421,400 (up from $315,000-$415,000)
• Married filing separately: $160,725-$210,725 (up from $157,500-$207,500)
• Other filers: $160,700-$210,700 (up from $157,500-$207,500)

Retirement plans

• Employee contributions to 401(k) plans: $19,000 (up from $18,500)
• Catch-up contributions to 401(k) plans: $6,000 (no change)
• Employee contributions to SIMPLEs: $13,000 (up from $12,500)
• Catch-up contributions to SIMPLEs: $3,000 (no change)
• Combined employer/employee contributions to defined contribution plans (not including catch-ups): $56,000 (up from $55,000)
• Maximum compensation used to determine contributions: $280,000 (up from $275,000)
• Annual benefit for defined benefit plans: $225,000 (up from $220,000)
• Compensation defining “highly compensated employee”: $125,000 (up from $120,000)
• Compensation defining “key employee”: $180,000 (up from $175,000)

Other employee benefits

• Qualified transportation fringe-benefits employee income exclusion: $265 per month (up from $260)
• Health Savings Account contributions:
• Individual coverage: $3,500 (up from $3,450)
• Family coverage: $7,000 (up from $6,900)
• Catch-up contribution: $1,000 (no change)
• Flexible Spending Account contributions:
• Health care: $2,700 (up from $2,650)
• Dependent care: $5,000 (no change)

Additional rules apply to these limits, and they are only some of the limits that may affect your business. Please contact us for more information.

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