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THE EVERETT ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2020 Page 13 Mayor and Council on Aging announce Senior Pantry Shopping Days S enior shopping will take place on three Thursdays in December. The dates are December 3, 10 and 17 – by appointment only – from 9 a.m. until noon. Seniors, a limit of 10 per hour, will be escorted through the Connolly Center by a staff member, and the senior will be able to choose two bags of groceries. This program is available to Everett seniors aged 62 and over. You must enter the rear door of the building, where there is handicapped parking. You must wear a mask and remain socially distant, and temperatures will be IRS identifies $2.3B in tax fraud in FY 2020 Annual Report T he Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently released the Criminal Investigation (CI) Division’s annual report highlighting the agency’s successes and criminal enforcement actions taken in fiscal year 2020, the majority of which occurred during COVID-19. The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30. A key achievement was the identification of over $10 billion in tax fraud and other financial crimes. “The special agents and professional staff who make up Criminal Investigation continue to perform at an incredibly high-level year after year,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “Even in the face of a global pandemic, the CI workforce initiated nearly 1,600 investigations and identified $2.3 billion in tax fraud schemes. This is no small feat during a challenging year, and their work is critical to protecting taxpayers and the integrity of our tax system.” Key focuses of CI in fiscal year 2020 included COVID-19-related fraud, cybercrimes (with an emphasis on virtual and cryptocurrencies), traditional tax investigations, international tax enforcement, employment tax, refund fraud and tax-related identity theft. In response to COVID-19-related crimes, CI special agents quickly adapted their investigative techniques to initiate cases into fraudulent claims for Economic Impact Payments, Paycheck Protection Program loans, and refundable payroll tax credits from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. “This year, more than any in recent memory, demonstrated the extraordinary agility and adaptability of the CI workforce,” said CI Chief Jim Lee. “Clearly, unscrupulous individuals sought to exploit the economic safeguards put in place to buttress a nation in crisis. These individuals and groups were instead met with a cadre of special agents determined to thwart their efforts.” In fiscal year 2020, CI initiated 1,598 cases, applying 73 percent of its time to tax-related investigations. The number of CI special agents increased by one percent, following special agent hiring to offset planned retirements. CI continued increasing its usage of data analytics and strengthening its international partnerships to assist in finding the most impactful cases. One important partnership remained the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5), a transnational committee comprised of tax organizations from five countries. In FY 2020 alone, more information was shared regarding cryptocurrency, tax crimes and related enforcement, than in the previous 10 years combined. CI also saw the first guilty pleas for a case under the J5 umbrella. “The release of IRS-CI’s annual report is an exciting day where we can pause to reflect on our most recent accomplishments,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Joleen Simpson. “While I am extremely proud of the success stories highlighted in the Boston Field Office section, I want to thank and commend all of the agents, analysts, and support staff that has equally contributed to making the Boston Field Office the envy of the country.” As the only federal law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over federal tax crimes, CI has one of the highest conviction rates in federal law enforcement – at 90.4 percent. The high conviction rate reflects the thoroughness of CI investigations and the high caliber of CI agents. CI is routinely called on by prosecutors and partner agencies across the country to lead financial investigations on a wide variety of financial crimes. “While the annual report is an excellent summation of the hard work and dedication exhibited by CI, this year’s report takes on special significance,” said Lee. “This report unequivocally reflects the efforts of a workforce checked. For an appointment please call Dale or Margaret at 617-3942323. undaunted by unprecedented personal and professional challenges. I am profoundly grateful to serve with the men and women of CI.” The 2020 report is interactive, summarizes a wide variety of CI activity during the year and features examples of cases from each field office on a wide range of financial crimes. Some of the Boston Field Office’s most impactful cases in fiscal year 2020: • Twenty individuals sentenced as part of the “Varsity Blues” college admissions and testing bribery scheme • Rhode Island businesswoman sentenced in $10M Ponzi Scheme that defrauded more than 23 victims • Former assistant director of real estate for the City of Boston sentenced for accepting $50,000 in bribes • Connecticut man received nine-year prison sentence for surgical glove investment scheme • Maine tax return preparer sentenced to prison for preparing false tax returns for his clients The Suburban Rent Rebound By Rob Warnock F ollowing the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic downturn, rental markets across the country experienced an uncharacteristic decline in rent prices this summer. Nationally, rents dropped 1.3 percent from March to June, a time period when rent prices rose roughly 2 percent in each of the three previous years. Expensive coastal cities have been hit the hardest. Rental markets in San Francisco, New York, Boston and others have experienced double-digit year-over-year rent drops. But within metropolitan areas, we find that principal and suburban cities are on different trajectories. While rents have declined steadily in the larger, denser, principal cities at the core of each metropolitan region, rents in the outlying suburban areas have, on the whole, rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.* The trend can be seen clearly in the chart below, which aggregates data for principal cities and suburbs of the nation’s 30 largest metros. We observe three distinct phases: • January to March: Not yet disturbed by the ensuing pandemic, rents rise steadily and evenly across both principal cities and suburbs. • March to June: The pandemic halts many moving plans, and rents begin to fall across the country. Rents drop faster in principal cities than suburban cities, but softness in the market exists across the board. • June to September: Rents continue to drop in principal cities, but quickly rebound in the suburbs. By October, suburban rents are 0.5 percent higher than they were at the start of the year, and sit just below their pre-pandemic peak in March. Breaking down the numbers by metropolitan area shows how widespread this trend is. In 27 of 30 large metros, principal cities are experiencing faster rent drops or slower rent growth than their surrounding suburbs. And in 11, including major economic centers like Atlanta, Dallas and Philadelphia, apartments in the principal city are getting cheaper while at the same time apartments in the suburbs are getting more expensive. Use the interactive chart below to examine local trends in each market. The bold line represents each metro’s principal city, while the thinner lines represent its nearby suburbs. Hovering over each line will highlight city-specific rent data. Why is this happening? There are a number of reasons why rent trends in the principal city do not mirror those of nearby suburbs. The pandemic’s effects on everyday life have certainly been more pronounced in cities than suburbs. Shelter-in-place requirements and business restrictions have ground to a halt many of the events and amenities that attract people to cities in the first place: live entertainment, bars and restaurants, public festivals and the like. Many renters today are questioning whether it still makes sense to pay a premium for city living. As a result, migration plays a big factor in the urban and suburban rent divide. While rents cool, the for-sale housing market remains hot, and the people who leave the rental market to become homeowners are often creating vacancies in dense, renter-friendly cities. Temporary moves have also been common this summer and are mostly affecting large cities where younger, more mobile residents tend to cluster. Furthermore, whereas principal cities typically enjoy an annual influx of new residents each summer (especially college graduates and people pursuing career change), a shift towards remote work has stifled this inbound migration. There are also differences in the types of apartments available in each type of city; dense urban centers are more likely to contain newer, more expensive, more luxurious apartments that are positioned to see more vacancies and steeper rent drops during an economic recession. Meanwhile, suburbs tend to have a greater share of cheaper, lower-density homes that remain in high demand even as renters look to cut costs. In recent years, suburbs have offered cheaper housing options to those willing to sacrifice the benefits of living close to a job center. But in 2020, this affordability gap is shrinking in many metros that command the highest prices. After a decade in which proximity was at a premium, the pandemic has now sparked the flame of suburban rental demand. As a result, we should expect an uneven rental market recovery in the months to come. *Each metropolitan area contains one principal city, which is generally the largest population and job center. For our purposes, all other non-principal cities within the metropolitan boundary are considered suburban cities. For example, in San Francisco metro, San Francisco is the principal city while Oakland, Berkeley and San Mateo are all suburbs.

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