Bigger bite is going to hurt, says 500G earner on LI

Long Island entrepreneur Butch Yamali is part of the 2 percent who may shoulder the burden of tax hikes in the proposed fiscal-cliff compromise — and he's not happy about it.

"Now my income is going to be taken away. Why would I work harder?" said Yamali, the owner of the Coral House catering hall in Baldwin, two restaurants in Lido Beach, a fleet of ice trucks and a vending-machine business.

Yamali, 50, said he makes well over $500,000 a year.

If no fiscal-cliff deal is reached, his taxes could increase by about $30,000.

Even with the proposed compromise, he's looking at at least $10,000 more.

"It will be like 40 percent," he said of his total tax burden.

"We got hit hard by Sandy, and now this? I take my money and [put] it back into my business, but now I'm not so sure," the father of three said.

Under the compromise being negotiated by President Obama and Congress, income over $450,000 would be taxed at 39.6 percent.

Yamali's capital gains and dividend income — about 10 percent of his total — would be taxed at 20 percent rather than the current 15 percent.

"You are getting penalized for working hard, getting penalized for achieving," he said. "I don't want to lay anyone off, but I am going to look at things and things that are not as profitable I may have to stop."

With two college-age daughters, he said, every penny counts.

"We have problems — with more zeroes — problems that don't let you sleep at night," he said.

20.49 | 0 komentar | Read More

Brooklyn girl is first baby of 2013

Not long after the champagne corks started popping and confetti was tossed into the air, a Brooklyn family welcomed a new addition that was a local hospital's first baby of 2013.

New York Methodist Hospital says that Jungmin Oh and Benjamin Brown of the borough's Park Slope neighborhood became the parents of daughter Gena at 12:54 a.m. Tuesday.

The baby weighs 7 pounds, 2 ounces and is 19.5 inches long.

20.49 | 0 komentar | Read More

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants better living standards, arms

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday called for improving the economy and living standards of his impoverished nation with the same urgency that scientists showed in successfully testing a long-range rocket recently.

Kim's first New Year's speech, delivered on state TV, was peppered with rhetoric, with calls for boosting the military's capabilities and making the science and technology sector world class. But other passages in the speech were also an acknowledgement of the poor state of the country's economy that has long lagged behind the rest of the region.

EPA

Kim Jong Un delivers a New Year's Day address in Pyongyang, North Korea.

North Korea has little arable land, is prone to natural disasters and struggles to grow enough food for its 24 million people.

The annual New Year's Day message lays out North Korea's policy goals for the year. But Kim gave no indication whether he plans to introduce economic reforms or allow free enterprise, except to say the economy should be underpinned by science and technology.

"The industrial revolution in the new century is, in essence, a scientific and technological revolution, and breaking through the cutting edge is a shortcut to the building of an economic giant," he said.

He then pointed at the success of a long-range rocket that North Korea fired on Dec. 12, ostensibly carrying a satellite into space.

"Let us bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant with the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in conquering space," he said.

North Korea has hailed the rocket as a big step in peaceful space exploration. Washington and others called the launch a banned test of ballistic missile technology and a step in Pyongyang's pursuit of a nuclear tipped long-range missile.

North Korea has tested two atomic devices since 2006, both times weeks after U.N. condemnation of a long-range launch. A recent analysis of North Korea's main nuclear test site indicates readiness for a possible third atomic explosion.

Kim made no mention of nuclear weapons, but indicated that military will continue to be boosted.

"The sector of defense industry should develop in larger numbers sophisticated military hardware of our own style that can contribute to implementing the Party's military strategy," he said.

"Only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country and defend the security and happiness of its people," Kim said.

The speech itself was a signal that Kim will continue with a leadership style more in line with his gregarious grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung who routinely addressed his people on New Year's Day, than with his father, Kim Jong Il, who avoided making public speeches. He never gave a TV address during his 17-year-rule, and his New Year's messages were published as joint editorials in the nation's three major newspapers.

With the speech — the first televised New Year's Day message by a North Korean leader in 19 years — Kim Jong Un has tried to tap into North Koreans' fond memories of his grandfather, said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in South Korea.

The rocket launch boosted public morale, Koh said. "Now people are expecting him to improve the economy and help them live better economically," Koh said. "Kim Jong Un knows that and feels the pressure of meeting that demand."

Kim, who took power after his father's death on Dec. 17, 2011, has asserted control over the government and the military by dismissing its powerful chief Ri Yong Ho. Some other officials who were viewed as more moderate, including Kim's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, were elevated.

South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye has said she will make efforts in her five-year term to boost aid and engage North Korea.

"If Kim Jong Un is going to engineer a shift from 'military-first' to 'It's the economy, stupid,' he is going to need Seoul's encouragement, and he doesn't have five years to wait," John Delury, an analyst at Seoul's Yonsei University, wrote recently.

He said it's up to South Korea "to unclench its fist first, so that the leader of the weaker state can outstretch his hand."

Kim's speech avoided harsh criticism of the United States, its wartime enemy. North Korea has used past New Year's editorials to accuse the U.S. of plotting war.

In other signs of changes in the country — at least at a superficial level — North Korea also had its first grand New Year's Eve celebration, with residents of the capital treated to the boom of cannons and fireworks at midnight.

In Pyongyang, residents danced in the snow at midnight Monday to celebrate the end of a big year for North Korea, including the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung and the first year of Kim Jong Un's leadership. Fireworks lit up the cold night sky, and people stood in fur-lined parkas, taking photos and laughing and dancing with each other in plazas.

20.49 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ex leaves lover dying in mom’s arms

A young Manhattan woman was stabbed to death yesterday by a former boyfriend, who then fled into a park, where he tried to kill himself, authorities and the victim's family said.

Edith Rojas, 19, was attacked by 21-year-old Jonathan Pena Castillo man at 3:47 p.m. on the sidewalk outside her family's apartment building on Thayer Streetin Inwood, cops said.

In a desperate bid for help, the dying Rojas called her mom from her cellphone, said a neighbor who witnessed the horrific scene.

"Her mother came screaming down the stairs. She was crazed," said the neighbor, who was getting her mail in the lobby just after Rojas was attacked.

"Her mother ran out to the sidewalk, she was holding her daughter's wounds with her hands. She just screamed until the ambulance arrived," the neighbor said. "They had to pull the mother off her daughter."

Rojas was pronounced dead at New York Presbyterian Hospital, police said.

Castillo fled to Inwood Hill Park and stabbed himself in the neck and abdomen before being caught, police said.

No charges had been filed as of late last night. Castillo was in critical condition at St. Luke's Hospital, where he was in custody.

About 20 relatives and friends were gathered last night at Rojas' family apartment.

"It's a really bad time," her father said through tears.

A neighbor, Angel Cabreja, said, "It's is so sad. She was a quiet person, a very respectful young lady. She never went looking for trouble. It's a tragedy that this bastard did this."

20.49 | 0 komentar | Read More

Senate approves fiscal deal hours after midnight; House may vote today

WASHINGTON — The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill early this morning that will avoid sending the nation's economy plummeting off the fiscal cliff — if the House goes along with it.

The Senate vote — which came nearly two hours after the original midnight deadline — was 89-8.

Congress has a chance to finish the job later today before the cliff's massive tax hikes take a bite out of middle-class paychecks, or stocks tank on Wall Street, which is closed because of New Year's.

The Republican-run House of Representatives was hoping to take up the measure today.

REUTERS

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid departs after this morning's vote on a deal designed to avoid sending the country's economy off the fiscal cliff.

Shortly after the Senate vote, President Obama said, "While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay."

BIGGER BITE IS GOING TO HURT, SAYS 500G EARNER ON LI

STOCKS LIFTED BY MARKET'S HIGH HOPES

"We are very, very close," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had said after striking a deal yesterday and before this morning's vote.

"Let's pass the tax-relief portion now. Let's take what's been agreed to and get moving," said McConnell, who led the negotiations for the Republicans.

"The president wants this, members of Congress want to protect taxpayers, and we can get it done now."

Obama heralded the deal as "within sight" at a hastily arranged White House press conference on Monday, where he also prodded Republicans to accept the bargain.

"One thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there's even one second left before you have to do what you're supposed to do, they will use that last second," he said, with a group of middle-class Americans as a backdrop.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed off on the pact, Reuters said.

Vice President Joe Biden met with Senate Democrats late last night to sell them on the agreement.

The Senate deal settled the central argument over taxes and especially the hot-button issue of tax hikes on the rich.

The two sides also reached an agreement to postpone for two months massive spending cuts, mostly to the military, that would have taken effect automatically as part of the fiscal cliff.

Under the tax deal, rates jump from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for individual incomes over $400,000 and family incomes over $450,000.

The rich also get hit with higher taxes on capital gains, dividends and inheritances over $5 million.

For example, taxes on capital gains and dividend income for individual incomes over $400,000 and family incomes over $450,000 would go from 15 percent to 23.8 percent, including a 3.8 percent ObamaCare tax.

Low-income households would benefit from the extension of various tax credits, including ones for college tuition.

Unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless would be extended for another year.

The deal does not include an extension of the payroll Social Security tax cut, allowing the rate to revert to 6.2 percent from the current 4.2 percent.

That tax was reduced in 2009 as part of Obama's economic-stimulus package, and it was expected to expire.

A House GOP leadership aide downplayed the fact that the legislative body failed to vote on the measure before the deadline.

The aide stressed that legislation as important as avoiding the fiscal cliff and saving the economy was "not something to be brought up in the dead of night."

The outline of the deal immediately drew criticism from the left.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) called it a "tremendous victory for Republicans," and said he was cranky about plans to exempt almost all multimillion-dollar estates from the new higher inheritance tax.

The 11th-hour agreement hammered out by McConnell and Biden was the first concrete compromise on tax rates since the fiscal-cliff budget battle started more than a year ago.

Obama backed off his initial demand that taxes go up on individual incomes over $200,000 and family incomes over $250,000.

McConnell gave up the GOP's ingrained opposition to any tax hikes at all.

Obama touted several tax credits that he said would be in the compromise, including clean-energy tax credits, tuition tax credits, and the child tax credit.

Meanwhile, the GOP rapped Obama's campaign-like event yesterday, where he chided Congress.

"In the middle of sensitive negotiations, he's running a political campaign with props behind him? I find it unseemly," fumed Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).

With AP

smiller@nypost.com.

20.49 | 0 komentar | Read More

Senate approves fiscal deal hours after midnight; House may vote today

WASHINGTON — The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill early this morning that will avoid sending the nation's economy plummeting off the fiscal cliff — if the House goes along with it.

The Senate vote — which came nearly two hours after the original midnight deadline — was 89-8.

Congress has a chance to finish the job later today before the cliff's massive tax hikes take a bite out of middle-class paychecks, or stocks tank on Wall Street, which is closed because of New Year's.

The Republican-run House of Representatives was hoping to take up the measure today.

REUTERS

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid departs after this morning's vote on a deal designed to avoid sending the country's economy off the fiscal cliff.

Shortly after the Senate vote, President Barack Obama said, "While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay."

"We are very, very close," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had said after striking a deal yesterday and before this morning's vote.

"Let's pass the tax-relief portion now. Let's take what's been agreed to and get moving," said McConnell, who led the negotiations for the Republicans.

"The president wants this, members of Congress want to protect taxpayers, and we can get it done now."

Obama heralded the deal as "within sight" at a hastily arranged White House press conference on Monday, where he also prodded Republicans to accept the bargain.

"One thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there's even one second left before you have to do what you're supposed to do, they will use that last second," he said, with a group of middle-class Americans as a backdrop.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed off on the pact, Reuters said.

Vice President Joe Biden met with Senate Democrats late last night to sell them on the agreement.

The Senate deal settled the central argument over taxes and especially the hot-button issue of tax hikes on the rich.

The two sides also reached an agreement to postpone for two months massive spending cuts, mostly to the military, that would have taken effect automatically as part of the fiscal cliff.

Under the tax deal, rates jump from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for individual incomes over $400,000 and family incomes over $450,000.

The rich also get hit with higher taxes on capital gains, dividends and inheritances over $5 million.

For example, taxes on capital gains and dividend income for individual incomes over $400,000 and family incomes over $450,000 would go from 15 percent to 23.8 percent, including a 3.8 percent ObamaCare tax.

Low-income households would benefit from the extension of various tax credits, including ones for college tuition.

Unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless would be extended for another year.

The deal does not include an extension of the payroll Social Security tax cut, allowing the rate to revert to 6.2 percent from the current 4.2 percent.

That tax was reduced in 2009 as part of Obama's economic-stimulus package, and it was expected to expire.

A House GOP leadership aide downplayed the fact that the legislative body failed to vote on the measure before the deadline.

The aide stressed that legislation as important as avoiding the fiscal cliff and saving the economy was "not something to be brought up in the dead of night."

The outline of the deal immediately drew criticism from the left.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) called it a "tremendous victory for Republicans," and said he was cranky about plans to exempt almost all multimillion-dollar estates from the new higher inheritance tax.

The 11th-hour agreement hammered out by McConnell and Biden was the first concrete compromise on tax rates since the fiscal-cliff budget battle started more than a year ago.

Obama backed off his initial demand that taxes go up on individual incomes over $200,000 and family incomes over $250,000.

McConnell gave up the GOP's ingrained opposition to any tax hikes at all.

Obama touted several tax credits that he said would be in the compromise, including clean-energy tax credits, tuition tax credits, and the child tax credit.

Meanwhile, the GOP rapped Obama's campaign-like event yesterday, where he chided Congress.

"In the middle of sensitive negotiations, he's running a political campaign with props behind him? I find it unseemly," fumed Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)

With AP

smiller@nypost.com.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bigger bite is going to hurt, says 500G earner on LI

Long Island entrepreneur Butch Yamali is part of the 2 percent who may shoulder the burden of tax hikes in the proposed fiscal-cliff compromise — and he's not happy about it.

"Now my income is going to be taken away. Why would I work harder?" said Yamali, the owner of the Coral House catering hall in Baldwin, two restaurants in Lido Beach, a fleet of ice trucks and a vending-machine business.

Yamali, 50, said he makes well over $500,000 a year.

If no fiscal-cliff deal is reached, his taxes could increase by about $30,000.

Even with the proposed compromise, he's looking at at least $10,000 more.

"It will be like 40 percent," he said of his total tax burden.

"We got hit hard by Sandy, and now this? I take my money and [put] it back into my business, but now I'm not so sure," the father of three said.

Under the compromise being negotiated by President Obama and Congress, income over $450,000 would be taxed at 39.6 percent.

Yamali's capital gains and dividend income — about 10 percent of his total — would be taxed at 20 percent rather than the current 15 percent.

"You are getting penalized for working hard, getting penalized for achieving," he said. "I don't want to lay anyone off, but I am going to look at things and things that are not as profitable I may have to stop."

With two college-age daughters, he said, every penny counts.

"We have problems — with more zeroes — problems that don't let you sleep at night," he said.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Brooklyn girl is first baby of 2013

Not long after the champagne corks started popping and confetti was tossed into the air, a Brooklyn family welcomed a new addition that was a local hospital's first baby of 2013.

New York Methodist Hospital says that Jungmin Oh and Benjamin Brown of the borough's Park Slope neighborhood became the parents of daughter Gena at 12:54 a.m. Tuesday.

The baby weighs 7 pounds, 2 ounces and is 19.5 inches long.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants better living standards, arms

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday called for improving the economy and living standards of his impoverished nation with the same urgency that scientists showed in successfully testing a long-range rocket recently.

Kim's first New Year's speech, delivered on state TV, was peppered with rhetoric, with calls for boosting the military's capabilities and making the science and technology sector world class. But other passages in the speech were also an acknowledgement of the poor state of the country's economy that has long lagged behind the rest of the region.

EPA

Kim Jong Un delivers a New Year's Day address in Pyongyang, North Korea.

North Korea has little arable land, is prone to natural disasters and struggles to grow enough food for its 24 million people.

The annual New Year's Day message lays out North Korea's policy goals for the year. But Kim gave no indication whether he plans to introduce economic reforms or allow free enterprise, except to say the economy should be underpinned by science and technology.

"The industrial revolution in the new century is, in essence, a scientific and technological revolution, and breaking through the cutting edge is a shortcut to the building of an economic giant," he said.

He then pointed at the success of a long-range rocket that North Korea fired on Dec. 12, ostensibly carrying a satellite into space.

"Let us bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant with the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in conquering space," he said.

North Korea has hailed the rocket as a big step in peaceful space exploration. Washington and others called the launch a banned test of ballistic missile technology and a step in Pyongyang's pursuit of a nuclear tipped long-range missile.

North Korea has tested two atomic devices since 2006, both times weeks after U.N. condemnation of a long-range launch. A recent analysis of North Korea's main nuclear test site indicates readiness for a possible third atomic explosion.

Kim made no mention of nuclear weapons, but indicated that military will continue to be boosted.

"The sector of defense industry should develop in larger numbers sophisticated military hardware of our own style that can contribute to implementing the Party's military strategy," he said.

"Only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country and defend the security and happiness of its people," Kim said.

The speech itself was a signal that Kim will continue with a leadership style more in line with his gregarious grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung who routinely addressed his people on New Year's Day, than with his father, Kim Jong Il, who avoided making public speeches. He never gave a TV address during his 17-year-rule, and his New Year's messages were published as joint editorials in the nation's three major newspapers.

With the speech — the first televised New Year's Day message by a North Korean leader in 19 years — Kim Jong Un has tried to tap into North Koreans' fond memories of his grandfather, said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in South Korea.

The rocket launch boosted public morale, Koh said. "Now people are expecting him to improve the economy and help them live better economically," Koh said. "Kim Jong Un knows that and feels the pressure of meeting that demand."

Kim, who took power after his father's death on Dec. 17, 2011, has asserted control over the government and the military by dismissing its powerful chief Ri Yong Ho. Some other officials who were viewed as more moderate, including Kim's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, were elevated.

South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye has said she will make efforts in her five-year term to boost aid and engage North Korea.

"If Kim Jong Un is going to engineer a shift from 'military-first' to 'It's the economy, stupid,' he is going to need Seoul's encouragement, and he doesn't have five years to wait," John Delury, an analyst at Seoul's Yonsei University, wrote recently.

He said it's up to South Korea "to unclench its fist first, so that the leader of the weaker state can outstretch his hand."

Kim's speech avoided harsh criticism of the United States, its wartime enemy. North Korea has used past New Year's editorials to accuse the U.S. of plotting war.

In other signs of changes in the country — at least at a superficial level — North Korea also had its first grand New Year's Eve celebration, with residents of the capital treated to the boom of cannons and fireworks at midnight.

In Pyongyang, residents danced in the snow at midnight Monday to celebrate the end of a big year for North Korea, including the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung and the first year of Kim Jong Un's leadership. Fireworks lit up the cold night sky, and people stood in fur-lined parkas, taking photos and laughing and dancing with each other in plazas.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ex leaves lover dying in mom’s arms

A young Manhattan woman was stabbed to death yesterday by a former boyfriend, who then fled into a park, where he tried to kill himself, authorities and the victim's family said.

Edith Rojas, 19, was attacked by 21-year-old Jonathan Pena Castillo man at 3:47 p.m. on the sidewalk outside her family's apartment building on Thayer Streetin Inwood, cops said.

In a desperate bid for help, the dying Rojas called her mom from her cellphone, said a neighbor who witnessed the horrific scene.

"Her mother came screaming down the stairs. She was crazed," said the neighbor, who was getting her mail in the lobby just after Rojas was attacked.

"Her mother ran out to the sidewalk, she was holding her daughter's wounds with her hands. She just screamed until the ambulance arrived," the neighbor said. "They had to pull the mother off her daughter."

Rojas was pronounced dead at New York Presbyterian Hospital, police said.

Castillo fled to Inwood Hill Park and stabbed himself in the neck and abdomen before being caught, police said.

No charges had been filed as of late last night. Castillo was in critical condition at St. Luke's Hospital, where he was in custody.

About 20 relatives and friends were gathered last night at Rojas' family apartment.

"It's a really bad time," her father said through tears.

A neighbor, Angel Cabreja, said, "It's is so sad. She was a quiet person, a very respectful young lady. She never went looking for trouble. It's a tragedy that this bastard did this."

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More