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    Debt Ceiling: U.S. Could Run Out of Cash by June 1, Yellen Warns

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    President Biden said he would meet with lawmakers on May 9 to discuss ways to avoid a default.WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Monday that the United States could run out of money to pay its bills by June 1 if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit, putting pressure on President Biden and lawmakers to reach a swift agreement to avoid defaulting on the nation’s debt.The more precise warning over when the United States could hit the so-called X-date dramatically reduces the projected amount of time lawmakers have to reach a deal before the government runs out of money to pay all of its bills on time.The new timeline could accelerate negotiations between the House, Senate and Mr. Biden over government spending — a high-stakes standoff between the president and the House Republicans who have refused to raise the limit without deep spending cuts attached.In response to Ms. Yellen’s new timeline, Mr. Biden on Monday called the top four leaders in Congress to ask for a meeting on May 9 to discuss fiscal issues. The president reached out to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, along with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader.Economists have warned that failure to raise the debt limit, which caps the total amount of money the United States can borrow, threatens to rock financial markets and throw the global economy into a financial crisis.Because the United States runs a budget deficit — meaning it spends more money than it takes in — it must borrow huge sums of money to pay its bills. In addition to paying Social Security benefits, along with salaries for the military and government workers, the United States is also required to make interest and other payments to the bondholders who own its debt.The Treasury Department had previously projected that it could run out of cash sometime in early June, but the new estimate raises the alarming prospect that the United States could be unable to make some payments, including to bondholders, in a matter of weeks.“Given the current projections, it is imperative that Congress act as soon as possible to increase or suspend the debt limit in a way that provides longer-term certainty that the government will continue to make its payments,” Ms. Yellen said in a letter to Congress.The Congressional Budget Office also warned on Monday that time was running out more quickly than previously thought. The nonpartisan budget office said tax receipts from income payments that were processed in April were smaller than it had anticipated and that future tax payments were unlikely to have much impact.“That, in combination with less-than-expected receipts through April, means that the Treasury’s extraordinary measures will be exhausted sooner than we previously projected,” Phillip Swagel, the C.B.O. director, wrote in an analysis posted on the agency’s website.White House officials had not expected the date of possible default to arrive so soon, and the accelerated timetable could scramble the president’s approach to the potential crisis.Mr. Biden has continued to insist he will not negotiate directly over the limit, saying Congress must raise the cap without conditions. The newly compressed calendar leaves little time for the president and congressional leaders to find agreement on raising the limit. Mr. McCarthy is traveling in the Middle East this week. Later this month, Mr. Biden is scheduled to attend the Group of 7 nations leaders’ summit in Japan, then travel on to Australia for a summit with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia.House Republicans passed legislation in April that would raise the debt limit in exchange for deep spending cuts and roll back recent climate legislation that Democrats passed along party lines. Mr. Biden has blasted that bill, saying it would hurt working families while benefiting the oil and gas industry, and he has accused Republicans of putting America’s economy on the line.On Monday, the president called on Republicans “to make sure the threat by the Speaker of the House to default on the national debt is off the table.”“For over 200 years, America has never, ever, ever failed to pay its debt. To put in the capital — in colloquial terms, America is not a deadbeat nation. We have never, ever failed to meet the debt,” Mr. Biden said.Republican Senators reacted to the news on Monday by emphasizing the onus was now on Mr. Biden to negotiate to avoid economic calamity.“It is very scary,” Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa and a member of Republican leadership said of the looming crisis. “President Biden needs to step it up and get to the table. Kevin McCarthy and the folks in the house, they did their part.”Some expressed optimism that the approaching deadline would force action.“Washington’s at its best when it has a deadline to respond to,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said.Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries urged Republicans to lift the limit immediately with no strings attached. “We do not have the luxury of waiting until June 1 to come together, pass a clean bill to avoid a default and prevent catastrophic consequences for our economy and millions of American families,” the lawmakers wrote in a joint statement on Monday. While there is bipartisan agreement that the nation needs to find a way to reduce the gap between when it spends and what it collects, even the most ardent supporters of fiscal reform say the debt limit must be raised.“We need to raise the debt limit as soon as possible, without drama and without serious risk of default,” said Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “To threaten default or drag one’s feet is the height of irresponsibility. Lawmakers need to commence serious discussions immediately.”The possibility of a default by June 1 could compel lawmakers to agree to a short-term increase or suspension of the debt limit to provide more time for negotiations. But even that temporary salve is far from assured given competing factions within the Republican Party.The United States technically hit its $31.4 trillion debt limit in January, forcing the Treasury Department to employ accounting maneuvers known as extraordinary measures to allow the government to keep paying its bills, including payments to bondholders who own government debt. Ms. Yellen said at the time that her powers to delay a default — in which the United States fails to make its payments on time — could be exhausted by early June. She cautioned, however, that the estimate came with considerable uncertainty.Tax receipts depend on a complicated array of factors such as the jobless rate, wages and whether taxpayers submit their returns on time. On Monday, the Treasury secretary underscored the challenges of predicting the default date, noting that the new estimate was based on currently available data that is inherently variable, such as tax payments from individuals.“The actual date that Treasury exhausts extraordinary measures could be a number of weeks later than these estimates,” Ms. Yellen said.A Treasury Department official said that, as of April 30, the government had a cash balance of about $300 billion. Ms. Yellen’s ability to delay a default will depend in part on how much tax revenue comes into the federal government this spring.Payments for the 2022 tax year are still arriving. Goldman Sachs economists projected last week that by the second week of June, the Treasury Department could have about $60 billion of cash remaining, which would allow the government to keep making its payments until late July.Some budget analysts have suggested that winter storms could complicate the Treasury Department’s ability to delay a default. Severe storms, flooding and mudslides in California, Alabama and Georgia this year prompted the Internal Revenue Service to push the April 18 filing deadline to October for dozens of counties.The I.R.S. also gave those affected areas more time to make contributions to retirement and health savings accounts, potentially affecting their taxable income.Ms. Yellen has already been taking steps to ensure that the federal government has sufficient cash on hand.Earlier this year, she announced that she would redeem some existing investments and suspend new investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.Ms. Yellen said on Monday that the Treasury Department was suspending the issuance of State and Local Government Series Treasury securities to help manage the risks associated with the debt limit. She lamented that the move would deprive state and local governments of an important tool to manage their finances.Brinkmanship over the debt limit has revived debates over how far the executive branch can go to avoid a default. Ms. Yellen, however, has dismissed the notion that she could prioritize certain payments or mint a platinum coin worth $1 trillion to ensure that the United States remains solvent.Although markets have broadly remained calm about the prospect of a default, there are some signs that investors are becoming nervous.They have sold government bonds that mature in three months — around the time policymakers have said the United States could run out of cash — and snapped up bonds with just one month until they are repaid.The cost of insuring existing bond holdings against the possibility that the United States will default on its debts has also risen sharply. Still, some analysts say the market reaction would need to be much more pronounced to force a fast deal.In a separate report issued by the Treasury Department on Monday about the risks facing the economy, Eric Van Nostrand, the acting assistant secretary for economic policy, laid out the dire consequences of failing to raise the debt limit.“A default by the U.S. government — including the failure to pay any of the United States’ obligations — would be an economic catastrophe, sparking a global downturn of unknown but substantial severity,” Mr. Van Nostrand said.Catie Edmondson More

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    A Timeline of How the Banking Crisis Has Unfolded

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    First Republic’s downfall was just the latest in a series of problems affecting midsize banks.First Republic Bank was seized by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase on Monday, the latest casualty of a banking crisis that has seen other troubled lenders collapse in March.Silicon Valley Bank, one of the most prominent lenders to technology start-ups and venture capital firms, was the first to implode on March 10. Regulators seized Silicon Valley Bank, and later, Signature Bank, a New York financial institution with a large real estate lending business. The panic also led to Wall Street’s biggest banks stepping in to give $30 billion to First Republic and UBS’s takeover of its rival, the Swiss bank Credit Suisse.As investors and bank customers have fretted over the stability of the financial system, federal officials have tried to ease concerns, taking steps to protect depositors and reassuring them they could access all their money.Here is a timeline of events related to the global financial turmoil.March 8In a letter to stakeholders, Silicon Valley Bank said it needed to shore up its finances, announcing a roughly $1.8 billion loss and a plan to raise $2.25 billion in capital to handle increasing withdrawal requests amid a dim economic environment for tech companies.Moody’s, a credit ratings firm, downgraded the bank’s bonds rating.Silvergate, a California-based bank that made loans to cryptocurrency companies, separately announced that it would cease operations and liquidate its assets after suffering heavy losses.March 9Gregory Becker, the chief executive of Silicon Valley Bank, urged venture capital firms to remain calm on a conference call. But panic spread on social media and some investors advised companies to move their money away from the bank.A Silicon Valley Bank executive wrote in a note to clients that it had “been a tough day” but the bank was “actually quite sound, and it’s disappointing to see so many smart investors tweet otherwise.”The bank’s stock plummeted 60 percent and clients pulled out about $40 billion of their money.March 10In the biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed after a run on deposits. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced that it would take over the 40-year-old institution.Investors began to dump stocks of the bank’s peers, including First Republic, Signature Bank and Western Alliance, which had similar investment portfolios. The nation’s largest banks were more insulated from the fallout, with shares of JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup generally flat.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen reassured investors that the banking system was resilient, expressing “full confidence in banking regulators.”Signature Bank, a 24-year-old institution that provided lending services for real estate companies and law firms, saw a torrent of deposits leaving its coffers after customers began panicking.March 12New York regulators shut down Signature Bank, just two days after Silicon Valley Bank failed, over concerns that keeping the bank open could threaten the stability of the financial system. Signature was one of the few banks that had recently opened its doors to cryptocurrency deposits.The Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and the F.D.I.C. announced that “depositors will have access to all of their money” and that no losses from either bank’s failure would be “borne by the taxpayer.”The Fed said it would set up an emergency lending program, with approval from the Treasury, to provide additional funding to eligible banks and help ensure they could “meet the needs of all their depositors.”March 13President Biden said in a speech that the U.S. banking system was safe and insisted that taxpayers would not pay for any bailouts in an attempt to ward off a crisis of confidence in the financial system.Regional bank stocks plunged after the unexpected seizure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, with shares of First Republic tumbling 60 percent.The Bank of England announced that banking giant HSBC would buy Silicon Valley Bank’s British subsidiary.March 14Bank stocks recouped some of their losses as investor fears began to ease.The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly opened investigations into Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse.March 15Credit Suisse shares tumbled after investors started to fear that the bank would run out of money. Officials at Switzerland’s central bank said it would step in and provide support to Credit Suisse if necessary.March 16Eleven of the largest U.S. banks came together to inject $30 billion into First Republic, which was teetering on the brink of collapse. The plan was hatched by Ms. Yellen and Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. The Treasury secretary believed the actions by the private sector would help underscore confidence in the stability of the banking system. Shares of the bank rallied on the announcement.Credit Suisse said it planned to borrow as much as $54 billion from the Swiss National Bank to stave off concerns about its financial health.Ms. Yellen testified before the Senate Finance Committee and sought to reassure the public that U.S. banks were “sound” and deposits were safe.March 17The shares of many banks continued to slide, wiping out the previous day’s gains as investors continued to worry about the financial turmoil.One day after the $30 billion lifeline was announced, First Republic’s stock plummeted again and it was in talks to sell a piece of itself to other banks or private equity firms.March 19UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, agreed to buy its smaller rival, Credit Suisse, for about $3.2 billion. The Swiss National Bank agreed to lend up to 100 billion Swiss francs to UBS to help close the deal. The Swiss financial regulatory agency also wiped out $17 billion worth of Credit Suisse’s bonds and eliminated the need for UBS shareholders to vote on the deal.The Fed and five other global central banks took steps to ensure that dollars would remain readily available in a move intended to ease pressure on the global financial system.The F.D.I.C. said it had entered into an agreement to sell the 40 former branches of Signature Bank to New York Community Bancorp.March 26First Citizens BancShares agreed to acquire Silicon Valley Bank in a government-backed deal that included the purchase of about $72 billion in loans at a discount of $16.5 billion. It also included the transfer of all the bank’s deposits, which were worth $56 billion. About $90 billion in the bank’s securities and other assets were not included in the sale and remained in the F.D.I.C.’s control.March 30Mr. Biden called on financial regulators to strengthen oversight of midsize banks that faced reduced scrutiny after the Trump administration weakened some regulations. The president proposed requiring banks to protect themselves against potential losses and maintain enough access to cash so they could better endure a crisis, among other things.March 28While testifying before Congress, officials at the Fed, the F.D.I.C. and the Treasury Department faced tough questions from lawmakers about the factors that led to the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.Michael S. Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, blamed bank executives and said the Fed was examining what went wrong, but provided little explanation as to why supervisors did not prevent the collapse.April 14The country’s largest banks — including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — reported robust first-quarter earnings, signaling that many customers had developed a strong preference for larger institutions they viewed as safer.April 24First Republic’s latest earnings report showed that the bank lost $102 billion in customer deposits during the first quarter — well over half the $176 billion it held at the end of last year — not including the temporary $30 billion lifeline. The bank said it would cut up to a quarter of its work force and reduce executive compensation by an unspecified amount.In a conference call with Wall Street analysts, the bank’s executives said little and declined to take questions.The bank’s stock dropped about 20 percent in extended trading after rising more than 10 percent before the report’s release.April 25First Republic’s stock closed down 50 percent after the troubling earnings report.April 26First Republic’s stock continued its tumble, dropping about 30 percent and closing the day at just $5.69, a decline from about $150 a year earlier.April 28The Fed released a report faulting itself for failing to “take forceful enough action” ahead of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. The F.D.I.C. released a separate report that criticized Signature Bank’s “poor management” and insufficient risk policing practices.May 1First Republic was taken over by the F.D.I.C. and immediately sold to JPMorgan Chase, making it the second biggest U.S. bank by assets to collapse after Washington Mutual in 2008. More

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    Trickling Tax Revenue Complicates Debt Limit Talks

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    The Treasury Department’s ability to delay a default, the so-called X-date, hinges on how fast the money is coming in.WASHINGTON — A vote by House Republicans last week to lift the nation’s debt limit in exchange for deep spending cuts was the first step in what is likely to be a protracted battle over raising or suspending the borrowing cap to avoid defaulting on United States debt.But while Republicans and President Biden and his fellow Democrats are gearing up for a fight, a key question is beginning to sow unease in Washington and on Wall Street: How much time is there to strike a deal?The United States technically hit its $31.4 trillion debt limit in January, forcing the Treasury Department to employ accounting maneuvers known as extraordinary measures to allow the government to keep paying its bills, including payments to bondholders who own government debt. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said at the time that her powers to delay a default — in which the United States fails to make its payments on time — could be exhausted by early June. She cautioned, however, that the estimate came with considerable uncertainty.With June now just a few weeks away, uncertainty around the timing of when the United States will run out of cash — what’s known as the X-date — remains, and determining the true deadline could have huge consequences for the country.Tax receipts will be key to the X-date.Determining the X-date depends on a complex set of factors, but ultimately what matters most is how much money the government spends and how much it takes in through taxes and other revenue.The Bipartisan Policy Center, which tracks federal revenues, projected in February that lawmakers would need to raise or suspend the debt limit sometime between summer and early fall to avoid a default. The specific date would largely depend on how quickly tax revenues are coming into the government’s coffers.There are signs that 2022 tax receipts are trickling in too slowly for comfort. Economists at Wells Fargo wrote in a note to clients last week that because tax collections appear to be weaker than expected, there is a chance the X-date could be as soon as early June. However, they continue to believe early August is the most likely default deadline.“A low but not insignificant probability of a U.S. default is still very concerning, and we would think the last thing Treasury officials want is an X-date that sneaks up on Congress,” they wrote.Tax day payments are still arriving. Goldman Sachs economists projected last week that by the second week of June, the Treasury Department could have around $60 billion of cash remaining, which would allow the government to keep making its payments until late July.Natural disasters could fuel a debt disaster.There is a surprising factor that could cause the X-date to arrive sooner: the weather. Severe storms, flooding and mudslides in California, Alabama and Georgia this year prompted the Internal Revenue Service to push the April 18 filing deadlines in dozens of counties to October.The I.R.S. said this year that, because of the storms, individuals and businesses in the affected areas could file their returns late. They were also given more time to make contributions to retirement and health savings accounts.Farmers, who often file their tax returns by March 1, also have received a reprieve until Oct. 16, and estimated payments that normally would have been made in January were allowed to be pushed back to that date.It is not clear how much tax revenue has been delayed by the storms, but the extensions have given the Treasury Department less wiggle room to keep paying the bills.An update could come this week.The Treasury Department is expected to send a letter to Congress in the coming days with a more precise estimate of when it could start running out of cash. It could also lay out new measures intended to stave off a default. This year, Ms. Yellen announced that she would redeem some existing investments and suspend new investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.In a speech last week, Ms. Yellen warned that a default would have real consequences for the economy.“Household payments on mortgages, auto loans and credit cards would rise,” Ms. Yellen said in remarks to the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. “And American businesses would see credit markets deteriorate.”She added, “On top of that, it is unlikely that the federal government would be able to issue payments to millions of Americans, including our military families and seniors who rely on Social Security.”Here’s what the X-date means for negotiations.As the X-date approaches, it will put more pressure on lawmakers to take action.Analysts at Beacon Policy Advisors predicted that if a default could really happen as soon as June, that would increase the likelihood that Congress will pass a short-term suspension of the debt limit through October. If the X-date is expected to hit in July, that might compel lawmakers to file legislation by early May so they have sufficient time to deal with procedural obstacles in Congress.Although markets have broadly remained calm about the prospect of a default, there are some signs that investors are becoming nervous.They have sold government bonds that mature in three months — around the time policymakers have said the United States could run out of cash — and snapped up bonds with just one month until they are repaid.The cost of insuring existing bond holdings against the possibility that the United States will default on its debts has also risen sharply. Still, analysts say the market reaction would need to be much more pronounced to force a fast deal.“This has caused some heartburn among policymakers but not enough to move the negotiating needle in a meaningful way,” the Beacon analysts wrote. “There needs to be a bigger market response and a more definitive X-date to get negotiations going in full.”That has yet to happen, however. While Mr. Biden has indicated he is open to talking with Speaker Kevin McCarthy about ways to get the nation’s fiscal situation on a better track, the two have yet to schedule a meeting after the House passage last week. More

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    Yellen to Call for ‘Constructive’ China Relationship

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    The Treasury secretary will strike a more conciliatory note in a speech Thursday, following months of escalated tensions between the world’s two largest economies.WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen on Thursday will call for a “constructive” and “healthy” economic relationship between the United States and China, one in which the two nations work together to confront challenges like climate change, according to excerpts from prepared remarks.Ms. Yellen’s comments, which she will deliver at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, will strike a notably positive tone about the U.S.-China relationship following months of heightened tensions between the two nations, which have the world’s largest economies.Ms. Yellen is expected to stress the importance of securing American national security interests, as well as of protecting human rights. She will also emphasize that targeted actions the United States has taken against China — like cutting it off from the world’s most advanced semiconductors — are aimed purely at protecting U.S. national security.China has criticized U.S. restrictions on its technological development, saying that they are unlawful and a blatant effort to try and weaken the Chinese economy. Ms. Yellen will seek to allay those concerns.The U.S. has imposed sweeping restrictions on selling semiconductors and chip-making equipment, such as that made by the Dutch company ASML, to China.Bryan Derballa for The New York Times“These national security actions are not designed for us to gain a competitive economic advantage, or stifle China’s economic and technological modernization,” Ms. Yellen is expected to say. “Even though these policies may have economic impacts, they are driven by straightforward national security considerations.”She also will emphasize the strength of the American economy, noting that the economic output of the United States remains far larger than China’s.Relations between the two nations have been tense recently, including a diplomatic blowup in February after a Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States before being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean. Republicans as well as Democrats continue to describe China as an obvious economic rival as well as a security threat.Tensions also remain high over the future of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. And many American officials have lost patience with the idea of bringing China into the rules-based international system, arguing that efforts to do so in past decades had failed to adequately improve its trade practices.But Ms. Yellen will argue that competition between the United States and China can lead to mutual improvement, within certain parameters.“Sports teams perform at a higher level when they consistently face top rivals,” her prepared remarks say. “But this type of healthy competition is only sustainable if it is fair to both sides.” China has long used government support to help its firms at the expense of foreign competitors, and its industrial policy “has become more ambitious and complex,” Ms. Yellen will say. More

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    I.R.S. Unveils $80 Billion Plan to Overhaul Tax Collection

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    The 10-year strategy document outlines a focus on improving customer service and cracking down on tax evasion by corporations and the wealthy.WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service on Thursday unveiled an $80 billion plan to transform itself into a “digital first” tax collector focused on customer service and cracking down on wealthy tax evaders. The move lays the groundwork for an ambitious 10-year overhaul of one of the most scrutinized arms of the federal government.The effort is a key part of President Biden’s economic agenda, which aims to reduce the nation’s $7 trillion of uncollected tax revenue and use the funds to combat climate change, curb prescription drug prices and pay for other initiatives prized by Democrats.The plan is also at the heart of the White House’s goal of making tax administration fairer. The report indicates that more than half the new money will be dedicated to ensuring that rich investors and large corporations cannot avoid paying the taxes that they owe.The $80 billion is the largest single infusion of funds in the agency’s history and was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping climate and energy legislation that Democrats pushed through last year.According to the Biden administration, the investment will yield hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit reduction. But efforts to bolster the I.R.S. have drawn strong opposition from Republicans, who have long accused the agency of improperly targeting them.The report released Thursday was requested by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, whose department oversees the tax agency.In a memorandum to Ms. Yellen that accompanied the report, Daniel I. Werfel, the new I.R.S. commissioner, said he would focus new enforcement resources on “hiring the accountants, attorneys and data scientists needed to pursue high-income and high-wealth individuals, complex partnerships and large corporations that are not paying the taxes they owe.”Daniel I. Werfel, the new I.R.S. commissioner, said the agency’s staff expansion would aim to improve its ability to collect unpaid taxes from the wealthy and big corporations.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesThe I.R.S. has about 80,000 full-time employees, about 20 percent fewer than it had in 2010 even though the U.S. population is now larger and the tax system more complex. The agency’s resources have also declined over the years, as Republicans have sought to cut its funding and, in some cases, called for its abolition. The financial strain has led to backlogs of tax filings, delayed refunds, long waits for taxpayers who call the agency with questions and plunging audit rates.In recent months, the I.R.S. has ramped up hiring to improve its customer service capacity and has been racing to complete the processing of old tax returns, most of which were filed on paper rather than electronically.The plan released on Thursday details how the I.R.S. intends to become a “digital first” organization that provides “world class” service to taxpayers. That includes the replacement of antiquated technology and the introduction of systems that will allow taxpayers greater access to their financial information, easier communication with the I.R.S. and new ways to correct errors as returns are being filed.The most sweeping and politically sensitive changes involve enforcement. The I.R.S. plans to introduce more data analytics and machine-learning technology to better detect cheating, and it aims to bolster its teams of revenue agents and tax attorneys so that the agency is not overwhelmed when auditing complicated business partnerships or corporations.The I.R.S. plan repeatedly emphasizes that it will honor Ms. Yellen’s directive that the new money not be aimed at increasing audit rates for taxpayers who earn less than $400,000 a year — a pledge meant to align with Mr. Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on low- and middle-income Americans. The plan echoes Ms. Yellen’s assurance that those audit rates will not rise above “historical levels,” but does not specify the levels, suggesting that audit rates could rise above their existing levels.In a briefing for reporters on Thursday, however, Mr. Werfel said that in the near term, audit rates for those making less than $400,000 would not rise.“We have years of work ahead of us, where we will be 100 percent focused on building capacity for higher-income individuals and corporations,” he said.But Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said it would be a challenge for the I.R.S. to determine whether taxpayers reporting an income under $400,000 were doing so legitimately, without being able to audit some of them initially. Ultimately, she said, the agency will need to decide on an acceptable audit rate for people under that income level.Mr. Werfel acknowledged that the I.R.S. would have to be alert in instances when taxpayers earn, for example, $5 million in a given year and $399,000 a year later.“We might take a second look at that,” he said.The plan lays out benchmarks for many of its goals, but it leaves unanswered questions.The I.R.S. is in the midst of a $15 million study to determine if it can create its own system enabling more taxpayers to file their federal returns online at no cost. This idea has met resistance from lobbying groups representing the tax preparation industry.The agency has faced criticism this year after the publication of a study that showed Black taxpayers are at least three times as likely as other taxpayers to face I.R.S. audits, even after the study accounted for the differences in the types of returns that each group is most likely to file. The plan includes using data to support “equity analyses” and says a key project will be developing procedures to evaluate the fairness of I.R.S. systems.The Treasury Department said earlier that the investment in the I.R.S. would lead to the hiring of 87,000 employees over 10 years, and has suggested that with anticipated attrition its head count could top 110,000 by the end of the decade. But the operating plan does not give an estimate for the agency’s eventual head count, and Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, said on Thursday that I.R.S. did not want to be “locked in” to long-term hiring requirements before learning how new technology would affect its staffing needs.Mr. Werfel batted down claims by Republican lawmakers that the I.R.S. would be hiring thousands of armed “agents” to scrutinize middle-class taxpayers and small businesses. He said that only 3 percent of the I.R.S. work force was in the criminal investigations division, which has access to weapons, and that there were no plans to increase that percentage. The plan projects that the I.R.S. will hire more than 7,000 new enforcement employees over the next two years.Despite efforts to focus on technology and taxpayers services, the plan is likely to stoke criticism.Erin M. Collins, the national taxpayer advocate, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the plan had the potential to transform tax administration but that the money was disproportionately invested in enforcement.“I believe Congress should reallocate I.R.S. funding to achieve a better balance with taxpayer service needs and IT modernization,” Ms. Collins, who serves as a watchdog for the I.R.S., wrote.The report notes that if the agency’s annual funding is curtailed over the coming years, some of the $80 billion might be needed to maintain its basic operations. That would force the I.R.S. to scale back its overhaul.House Republicans in January voted to pare the allocation, and Republican reaction to the report on Thursday indicated that the political fight over the I.R.S. will only intensify.“The Democrats are further weaponizing the most-feared agency in all of the federal government: the IRS,” Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania and a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said on Twitter. “Make no mistake — we are using money from hardworking American taxpayers to go after hardworking American taxpayers.”Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Twitter, “Does anyone believe the IRS won’t go after middle America?” More

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    How Far Can Regulators Go to Protect Uninsured Deposits?

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    A decision by federal regulators to ensure that depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank did not lose money regardless of how much they had in their accounts, has aroused populist anger as well as questions of what government agencies can and cannot do to protect uninsured accounts.Under current law, the government insures bank deposits only up to $250,000. Any increase in that limit would require congressional authorization. But regulators can protect deposits over that amount, like they did at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, if they determine that the banks’ failures pose a systemic risk.They can also request approval from Congress to temporarily raise the cap or eliminate it altogether, though some lawmakers have already expressed unwillingness to do so.Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, suggested last week that regulators were ready to make uninsured depositors at other banks whole if necessary and “if smaller institutions suffer deposit runs that pose the risk of contagion.”Amid widespread bank failures in the Great Depression, Congress created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1933 to insure deposits under $2,500. It has increased that limit over the years, recently lifting it to $250,000 from $100,000 for IRAs in 2006 and for checking accounts in 2008. The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 made the increase permanent.In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the F.D.I.C. evoked the systemic risk exception to create a program that guaranteed new debt issued by banks for three years and insured all deposits if they did not bear interest (typically, accounts used by businesses for payroll).The decision to grant the exception was reached “after three days of intense negotiation,” according to an account of the episode by the F.D.I.C.’s historian, and had to be approved by the Treasury secretary in consultation with the president and two-thirds of the boards of both the F.D.I.C. and the Federal Reserve.But regulators no longer have the ability to create such a program unilaterally, as the Dodd-Frank Act eliminated the F.D.I.C.’s authority to temporarily insure accounts with more assets than the statutory limit. Under that law, the agency can only do so if it is the receiver of a failed bank or if it has approval from Congress.“Congress was so concerned with moral hazard and ‘bailouts’ that it seemed to limit the receipt of F.D.I.C. assistance to the imposition of an F.D.I.C. receivership, unless Congress specifically approved a subsequent F.D.I.C. alternative,” said Jeffrey N. Gordon, a law professor at Columbia University and expert on financial regulation.During the coronavirus pandemic, Congress in 2020 temporarily lifted the deposit limit on noninterest bearing accounts. But in congressional testimony last week, Ms. Yellen said her agency was not seeking to lift the cap altogether and insure all deposits over $250,000. Rather, she said, regulators would seek the systemic risk exception for failed banks through a “case-by-case determination.”Others, though, have pushed for more sweeping coverage. Some lawmakers are considering temporarily increasing the deposit cap while others have proposed eliminating it altogether.The Dodd-Frank Act provides a fast-track process for such requests, allowing the Congress to expedite approval by adopting a joint resolution. Sheila Blair, the former president of the F.D.I.C. during the financial crisis, recently urged Congress to initiate the procedure.“We want people to make payroll. We want people to be able to pay their businesses and others to pay their bills. So I think that is one area where unlimited coverage, at least on a temporary basis, makes a lot of sense,” she said in a Washington Post event last week.News reports have also suggested that regulators are looking at other mechanisms of acting without Congress, specifically by tapping into the Exchange Stabilization Fund. The Treasury secretary has broad authority to use the emergency reserve, which was created in 1934 to stabilize the value of the dollar but has been used over the years for a host of other purposes.Mr. Gordon noted that using the exchange fund alone would not work to protect uninsured deposits, given that it is “paltry compared to the Deposit Insurance Fund and unlike the D.I.F. has no mechanism for replenishment.” But he said it would be possible to use the fund as a backstop in a program operated by the Federal Reserve that lends against bank assets.“What this means is that banks would have an easy way to raise cash to pay off all deposits,” he said. More

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    Powell and Yellen Suggest Need to Review Regulations After Bank Failures

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    Proposals for more scrutiny of the financial sector are meeting resistance from industry and Congress.WASHINGTON — Two of the nation’s top economic policymakers on Wednesday said they were focused on determining how the failure of Silicon Valley Bank had happened and suggested changes to federal regulation and oversight might be needed to prevent future runs on American banks.The discussion of stricter oversight by Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen came as lawmakers, the financial industry and investors are working to figure out why Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed and as policymakers try to ensure other firms don’t suffer the same fate.At a news conference following the Fed’s announcement that it would raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point, Mr. Powell said he was focused on the question of what had gone wrong at Silicon Valley Bank, which was overseen by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.The Fed has initiated an internal review into the supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank, with the central bank’s vice chair for supervision, Michael S. Barr, leading the probe. Asked at the news conference whether he would support an independent examination — one not conducted by the Fed — Mr. Powell said he would welcome more scrutiny.“There’s 100 percent certainty that there will be outside investigations,” he said.Mr. Powell criticized bank executives, who he said had “failed badly,” but also conceded that Fed supervisors had not been effective at preventing the bank from sliding into insolvency. He said he expected the central bank’s own report to outline concrete steps to avoid a repeat of the crisis.“Clearly we do need to strengthen supervision and regulation,” Mr. Powell said. “And I assume that there’ll be recommendations coming out of the report, and I plan on supporting them and supporting their implementation.”Ms. Yellen echoed his comments at a Senate hearing on Wednesday afternoon, saying policymakers needed to take a hard look at the troubles plaguing the banking industry, including what led to the downfalls of Silicon Valley Bank, on March 10, and Signature Bank, which was seized by regulators on March 12.“I absolutely think that it’s appropriate to conduct a very thorough review of what factors were responsible for the failure of these banks,” she said. “Certainly we should be reconsidering what we need to shore up regulation to prevent this.”Ms. Yellen said she supports legislation that would penalize executives whose actions lead to bank failures and restore rules that were rolled back during the Trump administration that gave the Financial Stability Oversight Council more power to scrutinize nonbank financial institutions.Economic policymakers are trying to figure out why Silicon Valley Bank failed and to ensure other firms don’t suffer the same fate.Ulysses Ortega for The New York TimesMs. Yellen also said that because bank runs “may more readily happen now,” it might make sense to update stress test models and bank liquidity requirements with new assumptions about how quickly deposits could flee. Mr. Powell also addressed the speed of the outflows of funds from Silicon Valley Bank, which was hastened by social media and the ease of moving money with smartphones, suggesting that new rules are needed to keep up with advances in technology.For the time being, Ms. Yellen said she was focused on using existing tools to restore confidence in the banking system.The Biden administration likely has little choice because of mounting resistance to new financial regulations within Congress and the banking industry. That opposition was clear on Wednesday as lawmakers and executives gathered at an American Bankers Association conference in Washington.Although there was widespread support for uncovering the roots of the current turmoil, influential lawmakers expressed a desire for caution in considering new curbs on the financial sector.“I think it’s too early to know whether or not new legislation will be necessary,” said Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services committee.Mr. McHenry warned that proposed increases to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation deposit insurance limit could lead to unintended consequences and “moral hazard,” and said that “firms need to be able to fail.”“If you have a hammer, the world looks like a nail,” Mr. McHenry said of the desire to impose more onerous regulations on banks.The banking industry, which has welcomed the government’s support of the sector this month, also urged lawmakers not to respond with more scrutiny.“We should not rush to make changes when we still do not fully know what happened and why,” Rob Nichols, chief executive of the American Bankers Association, said on Wednesday.But Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank this month had shaken the nation’s trust in the banking system. He vowed to hold the executives of those banks accountable and press regulators to review what went wrong.Mr. Brown also called for legislation to “strengthen guardrails” and urged the bank lobbyists not to stand in the way.Representative Patrick T. McHenry warned that proposed increases to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation $250,000 deposit insurance limit could have unintended consequences.Sarah Silbiger for The New York TimesPresident Biden has decried rollbacks in financial regulation passed by Republicans and Democrats under his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump. But he has thus far offered only a small set of concrete proposals for new legislation or executive action to stabilize the financial system in its current turmoil.Last week, Mr. Biden called for Congress to strengthen regulators’ ability to penalize executives of failed banks. His proposals would allow regulators to claw back compensation that executives of medium-sized banks received before their institutions went under, broadening a penalty that currently applies only to executives of large banks. They also would lower the legal threshold that regulators need to clear in order to ban those executives from working in other parts of the financial system.Administration officials are privately debating what else, if anything, Mr. Biden might ask Congress to do — or announce his administration will do unilaterally — to shore up the banking system.Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, repeatedly dodged questions from reporters this week about any new proposals Mr. Biden was considering. “We don’t want to let Congress off the hook,” she said on Tuesday. “We want Congress to continue to — to certainly — to take action. And so, we’re going to call on them to do just that.”Mr. Biden has given just one speech on bank regulation since his administration joined the Fed in announcing a rescue plan for Silicon Valley Bank depositors earlier this month. He last addressed the issue on March 17, in a brief exchange with reporters before boarding Marine One at the White House.In that exchange, Mr. Biden was asked: “Are you confident the bank crisis has calmed down?”He replied: “Yes.”Lawmakers pressed Ms. Yellen on whether the administration supported proposals that some members of Congress have offered to make bank customers, whose deposits are only federally guaranteed up to $250,000, feel more confident that their money is safe.Ms. Yellen demurred when asked about proposals to raise the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s cap on deposit insurance. Referring to recent moves to protect bank depositors, Ms. Yellen said during a speech at the A.B.A. gathering on Tuesday that “similar actions could be warranted if smaller institutions suffer deposit runs that pose the risk of contagion.”The Biden administration appears to have limited legal authority to unilaterally lift the deposit insurance cap, but financial sector analysts have speculated that the Treasury Department is studying whether it could utilize its Exchange Stabilization Fund, a pot of more than $200 billion of emergency money, to back bank deposits.“All she needs is approval from the president to tap into that basket,” Henrietta Treyz, director of economic policy research at Veda Partners, said of Ms. Yellen. “There are no other alternatives; there’s no chance of a bill passing Congress.”Ms. Yellen said on Wednesday that she was not considering such a move but rather would make case-by-case determinations of whether any banks facing runs pose a “systemic risk” to the economy.“I have not considered or discussed anything to do with blanket insurance or guarantees of all deposits,” Ms. Yellen said, adding that any changes to the deposit insurance limit would require legislation from Congress.Invoking the systemic-risk exception again would require approval from both the Fed and the F.D.I.C. At least one policymaker at the F.D.I.C. is skeptical that the exception should be applied to smaller banks, a person familiar with the situation said, which suggests that achieving consensus on such a move may not be a foregone conclusion.Uncertainty over any government plans to help further backstop banks loom large for the number of regional banks that have seen massive outflows of deposits and are exploring various ways to shore up their balance sheets. Both buyers and sellers are wary of striking a deal without full clarity on concessions the government might offer, two people familiar with the negotiations said.These include First Republic and Pacific Western Bank, which earlier Wednesday said, after tapping billions from an investment firm and the Federal Reserve, it was holding off on raising new capital in part because of depressed shares. Pacific Western has seen deposits fall 20 percent since the start of the year, while First Republic has lost nearly half.It is also unclear what concessions the F.D.I.C will offer as part of its efforts to sell the former Silicon Valley Bank. At least one bank, North Carolina-based First Citizens, has put forward an offer to buy that business, a person briefed on the matter said. The agency is now in the process of soliciting offers for various parts of SVB’s business including Silicon Valley Private Bank, an asset management firm, to discern whether it is more lucrative to sell the bank in pieces or as a whole.“We’ll need to wait and see what the bids are and what the least cost is to the deposit insurance fund,” said Julianne Breitbeil, a spokeswoman for the F.D.I.C, regarding any potential concessions the government plans to offer.The agency expects to issue an update on the sale process this weekend, Ms. Breitbeil said. More

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    Push to Insure Big Deposits Percolates on Capitol Hill

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    The government insures only deposits of less than $250,000, but there is precedent for lifting that cap amid turmoil. It could happen again.WASHINGTON — Lawmakers are looking for ways to resolve a major concern that threatens to keep the banking industry in turmoil: The federal government insures bank deposits only up to $250,000.Some members of Congress are looking for ways to boost that cap, at least temporarily, in order to stop depositors from pulling their money out of smaller institutions that have been at center of recent bank runs.Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, and other lawmakers are in talks about introducing bipartisan legislation as early as this week that would temporarily increase the deposit cap on transaction accounts, which are used for activities like payroll, with an eye on smaller banks. Such a move would potentially reprise a playbook used during the 2008 financial crisis and authorized at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 to prevent depositors from pulling their money out.Others, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, have suggested lifting the deposit cap altogether.Any broad expansion to deposit insurance could require action from Congress because of legal changes made after the 2008 financial crisis, unless government agencies can find a workaround. The White House has not taken a public position, instead emphasizing the tools it has already rolled out to address banking troubles.Many lawmakers have yet to solidify their positions, and some have openly opposed lifting the cap, so it is not clear that legislation adjusting it even temporarily would pass. While such a move could calm nervous depositors, it could have drawbacks, including removing a big disincentive for banks to take on too much risk.Still, Senate staff members from both parties have been in early conversations about whether it would make sense to resurrect some version of the previous guarantees for uninsured deposits, according to a person familiar with the talks.Even after two weeks of aggressive government action to shore up the banking system, jitters remain about its safety after high-profile bank failures. Some worry that depositors whose accounts exceed the $250,000 limit may pull their money from smaller banks that seem more likely to crash without a government rescue. That could drive people toward bigger banks that are perceived as more likely to have a government guarantee — spurring more industry concentration.“I’m concerned about the danger to regional banking and community banking in this country,” Mr. Khanna said in an interview. He noted that if regional banks lose deposits as people turn to giant banking institutions that are deemed too big to fail, it could make it harder to get loans and other financing in the middle of the country, where community and regional banks play a major role.“This should be deeply concerning, that our regional banks are losing deposits, and losing the ability to lend, he said.Representative Ro Khanna said broad temporary expansions to deposit insurance would likely require action from Congress.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesIf passed, a temporary guarantee on transaction deposits over the $250,000 federal insurance cap would be the latest step in a sweeping government response to an unfolding banking disaster.Silicon Valley Bank’s failure on March 10 has rattled the banking system. The bank was ill prepared to contend with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases: It held a lot of long-term bonds that had declined in value as well as an outsize share of uninsured deposits, which tend to be withdrawn at the first sign of trouble.Still, its demise focused attention on other weak spots in finance. Signature Bank has also failed, and First Republic Bank has been imperiled by outflows of deposits and a plunging stock price. In Europe, the Swiss government had to engineer the takeover of Credit Suisse by its competitor UBS.The U.S. government has responded to the turmoil with a volley of action. On March 12 it announced that it would guarantee the big depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature. The Federal Reserve announced that it would set up an emergency lending program to make sure that banks had a workaround to avoid recognizing big losses if they — as Silicon Valley Bank did — needed to raise cash to cover withdrawals.And on Sunday, the Fed announced that it was making its regular operations to keep dollar financing flowing around the world more frequent, to try to prevent problems from extending to financial markets.For now, the administration has stressed that it will use the tools it is already deploying to protect depositors and ensure a healthy regional and community banking system.“We will use the tools we have to support community banks,” Michael Kikukawa, a White House spokesman, said Monday. “Since our administration and the regulators took decisive action last weekend, we have seen deposits stabilize at regional banks throughout the country, and, in some cases, outflows have modestly reversed.”The midsize Bank Coalition of America has urged federal regulators to extend Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation protection to all deposits for the next two years, saying in a letter late last week that it would halt an “exodus” of deposits from smaller banks.“It would be prudent to take further action,” Mr. Khanna said.Yet not even all banking groups agree that such a step is necessary, especially given that a higher insurance cap might incite more regulation or lead to higher fees.The midsize Bank Coalition of America has urged federal regulators to extend F.D.I.C. insurance to all deposits for the next two years.Al Drago for The New York TimesLifting the deposit cap temporarily could send a signal that the problem is worse than it is, said Anne Balcer, senior executive vice president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group for small U.S. banks. She said many of its member banks were seeing an increase in deposits.“Right now, we’re in a phase of let’s exercise restraint,” she said.There is precedent for temporarily expanding deposit insurance. In March 2020, Congress’s first major coronavirus relief package authorized the F.D.I.C. to temporarily lift the insurance cap on deposits.And in 2008, as panic coursed across Wall Street at the outset of the global financial crisis, the F.D.I.C. created a program that allowed for unlimited deposit insurance for transaction accounts that chose to join the program in exchange for an added fee.Peter Conti-Brown, a financial historian and a legal scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, said the 2010 Dodd-Frank law ended the option for the agencies to temporarily insure larger transaction accounts the way they did in 2008.Now, he said, the regulators would either need congressional approval, or lawmakers would have to pass legislation to enable such a broad-based backstop for deposits. While regulators were able to step in and promise to protect depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, that is because the collapse at those banks was deemed to have the potential to cause broad problems across the financial system.For smaller banks, where failures would be much less likely to have systemwide implications, that means that uninsured depositors might not receive the same kind of protection in a pinch.In a nod to those worries, Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, suggested on Tuesday that even smaller banks could warrant a “systemic” classification in some cases, allowing the agencies to backstop their deposits.“The steps we took were not focused on aiding specific banks or classes of banks,” Ms. Yellen said in a speech. “And similar actions could be warranted if smaller institutions suffer deposit runs that pose the risk of contagion.”But the chances that such an approach — or another workaround that allows the government to take the action without passing legislation, such as tapping a pot of money at the Treasury called the Exchange Stabilization Fund — would be effective are not yet clear.Sheila Bair, who was chair of the F.D.I.C. from 2006 to 2011, said she thought that the Biden administration should propose legislation that would let the F.D.I.C. reconstitute a bigger deposit insurance program and use a “fast-track” legislative process to put it in place.While Dodd-Frank curbed the ability of the F.D.I.C. to restart the transaction account guarantee program on its own, it did provide for a streamlined process for future lawmakers to get it up and running again, she said.“I hope the president asks for it; I think it would settle things down pretty quickly,” Ms. Bair said in an interview. But some warned that enacting broad-based deposit insurance could set a dangerous precedent: signaling to bank managers that they can take risks unchecked, and leading to calls for more regulation to protect taxpayers from potential costs.Aaron Klein, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said he would oppose even a revamp of the 2008 deposit insurance because he thought it would be temporary in name only: It would reassert to big depositors that the government will come to the rescue.“If we think the market is going to believe that these things are temporary when they are constantly done in times of crisis,” he said, “then we’re deluding ourselves.”Alan Rappeport More