South Korean prosecutors on Wednesday requested a nine-year prison term for Samsung’s de facto chief, Lee Jae-yong, during his bribery retrial, where Lee apologized and vowed not to be implicated in similar allegations in an apparent plea for leniency. The case is a key element in an explosive 2016 scandal that triggered months of public protests and toppled South Korea’s president. A ruling on Lee could send him back to prison on charges that he bribed former President Park Geun-hye and her longtime confidante to get the government’s backing for his push to solidify his control over Samsung. The retrial comes as Lee faces immense pressure to navigate Samsung’s transition after his father and Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-Hee died in October. A team of prosecutors led by independent counsel Park Young-soo demanded the Seoul High Court sentence Lee to prison. They said Samsung “more actively sought unjust benefits” than other businesses with regard to the 2016 scandal. The prosecutors said Samsung, which is South Korea’s biggest company, should “set the example” for efforts to root out corruption. “Samsung is a business group with overwhelming power, and there is even a saying that South Korean companies are divided into Samsung
The Internal Revenue Service may have let thousands of people claim $57 million worth of income tax deductions last year that they shouldn’t have received, a federal watchdog says. An audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found holes in the IRS’ handling of the so-called qualified business income tax break established under Donald Trump’s 2017 tax reform package. The law allows certain owners of “pass-through” businesses — such as S corporations, partnerships and sole proprietorships — to deduct up to 20 percent of their business income from their individual income tax returns. The inspector general’s office said it found 12,980 returns filed last year that claimed about $57 million in “potentially erroneous” business-income deductions even though the IRS has developed more than a dozen rules to spot such faulty filings. The Jan. 13 report was heavily redacted, and details about what exactly was wrong with the returns and how the IRS handled them appeared to be blacked out. But it did say that “no actions were taken on the part of the IRS during processing toaddress these potentially erroneous claims.” Auditors suggested that the IRS could have spotted incorrect deductions by taking a closer look at returns
Drugmakers including Pfizer, Sanofi, and GlaxoSmithKline plan to raise US prices on more than 300 drugs in the United States on Jan. 1, according to drugmakers and data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors. The hikes come as drugmakers are reeling from effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reduced doctor visits and demand for some drugs. They are also fighting new drug price cutting rules from the Trump administration, which would reduce the industry’s profitability. The companies kept their price increases at 10 percent or below, and the largest drug companies to raise prices so far, Pfizer and Sanofi, kept nearly all of their increases 5 percent or less, 3 Axis said. 3 Axis is a consulting firm that works with pharmacists groups, health plans and foundation on drug pricing and supply chain issues. GSK did raise prices on two vaccines – shingles vaccine Shingrix and diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine Pediarix – by 7 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively, 3 Axis said. Teva Pharmaceuticals hiked prices on 15 drugs, including Austedo, which treats rare neurological disorders, and asthma steroid Qvar, which together grossed more than $650 million in sales in 2019 and saw price hikes of between 5 percent and 6
