FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Jim Bennett
801-971-5457
jim@unitedutah.org
Sara Jarman
503-473-6356
press@unitedutah.org
UNITED UTAH PARTY ANNOUNCES 2019 SUMMIT ON TAX REFORM
Understanding the Storm Around Tax Reform
SALT LAKE CITY – UT In light of the legislature's discussion over whether to reform Utah taxes, the United Utah Party will be hosting a summit on tax reform on Saturday, September 28, at 10:30 am at the Day-Riverside Branch located at 1575 W. 1000 N., Salt Lake City, 84116.
The Tax Summit is an opportunity for citizens to learn more about the debate over tax reform. Various perspectives on tax reform will be presented on how or even whether Utah's tax structure should be revamped.
Presenters at the summit will include John Valentine, Chair, Utah State Tax Commission John Dougall, Utah State Auditor and Joel Briscoe, Utah State Representative. Jim Bennett, former United Utah Party Congressional candidate, will be the moderator for the event.
"We invite all interested citizens to come to this summit and find out more about the pros and cons of tax reform proposals,” Richard Davis, chair of the United Utah Party, explained. “This is one of the missions of the United Utah Party to bring together people of differing views to find common ground. Come and learn more about what this issue is and what the proposals are, and ask questions of experts on tax reform."
The United Utah Party is a new political party in Utah dedicated to providing practical, rather than ideological, solutions to current problems. It is intent on reforming government to increase citizen participation and influence in the political system.
About the Presenters
Jim Bennett, a son of the late Senator Bob Bennett, was active in Republican Party politics for many years. In 2017, Bennett ran for Congress in Utah's 3rd Congressional District as a candidate of the newly formed United Utah Party. Bennett won 10 percent of the vote, the highest vote total of any non-major party Congressional candidate in Utah history.
John Valentine was appointed by Governor Gary R. Herbert to serve as chair of the Utah State Tax Commission in 2014. Prior to his appointment, he served in the Utah Legislature from 1988 to 2014, first in the House of Representatives from 1988 to 1998 and then in the Senate from 1998 to 2014. He was also awarded the Tax Practitioner of the Year by the Utah State Bar in 2008.
Joel Briscoe has been serving as a representative in the Utah State House since 2010, representing District 25 in Salt Lake County. He serves on several legislative committees, including the House Revenue and Taxation Committee, the Education Appropriations Committee, and the Tax Restructuring and Equalization Task Force.
John Dougall was elected as State Auditor in 2012. He served in the Utah House of Representatives for 10 years, where he was the House sponsor of Utah’s 2007 income tax reform. Dougall has a reputation as a champion of government transparency, a fiscal hawk, a taxpayer watchdog, and a tax policy nerd.
Christopher Collard has been a research analyst with the Utah Foundation for the past five years. After completing a B.A. from Brigham Young University and a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Utah, he elected to dedicate his time to the exploration of Utah economic data.
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This October 21-23 in Salt Lake City, Utah, hundreds of thought leaders, community members, commitment makers, and organizations will gather for the 2019 CSforALL Summit. Together, we'll celebrate over 100+ of new and past organizations that have made an actionable commitment in support of the ultimate goal of computer science for all US students.
This year’s Summit is focused on System Change. As the movement matures, we are challenging the community to dig deep and think long term, moving beyond individual efforts to inspire students and prepare educators, to transforming the systems that will ensure that computer science becomes an integral and sustained part of the K-12 experience, both in and out of schools.
Our initial speakers were announced last month, including:
Sylvia Acevedo, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA
Spencer J. Cox, Utah’s 8th Lieutenant Governor
Steve Daly, President and CEO of Ivanti
Dr. F. Ann Millner, State Senator for Utah’s 18th District
Debra Sanchez, Senior Vice President, Education and Children’s Content at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
See full list of speakers here.
The national computer science community gathers to celebrate the continued work to make high-quality CS an integral part of K-12 education in the United States. We are excited to share a big announcements this year, including:
CSforALL’s EcosystemsforCS team will announce 10 national community winners!
CSforALL will announce commitments from 200+ national organizations
Sponsors, organizations come from government to start-ups to help support the CS movement, including; Dell, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Comcast, Lego, Cartoon Network and many more.
Explore our exhibit hall! We have robots, gadgets, gears and more to interact with, come check them out all three days.
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Better Business Bureau Study Examines Risk to Businesses from Business Email Compromise Scams
Salt Lake City, UT., Sept. 26, 2019 – An in-depth investigative study by Better Business Bureau (BBB) finds that business email compromise scams are skyrocketing in frequency and have cost businesses and other organizations more than $3 billion since 2016.
Business email compromise fraud is an email phishing scam that typically targets people who pay bills in businesses, government and nonprofit organizations. It affects both big and small organizations, and it has resulted in more losses than any other type of fraud in the U.S., according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
The investigative study – “Is That Email Really From ‘The Boss?’ The Explosion of Business Email Compromise (BEC) Scams” – looks at the prevalence of BEC scams and the criminal systems that perpetrate them. It digs into the scope of the problem, who is behind it, the multi-pronged fight to stop it and the steps consumers can take to avoid it.
BEC fraud takes many forms, but in essence, the scammer poses as a reliable source who sends an email from a spoofed or hacked account to an accountant or chief financial officer (CFO), asking them to wire money, buy gift cards or send personal information, often for a plausible reason. If money is sent, it goes into an account controlled by the con artist.
The FBI recognizes at least six types of activity as BEC or email account compromise (EAC) fraud, which differ based on who appears to be the email sender – a chief executive officer (CEO) asking the CFO to wire money to someone, a vendor or supplier requesting a change in invoice payment, executives requesting copies of employee tax information, senior employees seeking to have their pay deposited into a new bank account, an employer or clergyman asking the recipient to buy gift cards on their behalf, even a realtor or title company redirecting proceeds from a real estate sale into a new account. These targeted email phishing scams are sometimes called “spear phishing.”
This serious and growing fraud has tripled over the last three years, jumping 50% in the first three months of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017. In 2018, 80% of businesses received at least one of these emails. From 2016 through May 2019, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 58,571 complaints on BEC fraud, with reported losses in the U.S. totaling $3.1 billion. BBB’s report finds that the average BEC loss involving wire transfers is $35,000, while the average loss involving gift cards is $1,000 to $2,000. However, the cost to businesses can be much higher: Google and Facebook lost more than $100 million to BEC fraud before the perpetrator was arrested in 2017.
According to BBB’s report, the majority of defendants who have been arrested or charged for BEC fraud in the U.S. over the last three years are of Nigerian origin. The report says 90% of BEC groups operate out of Nigeria, with other Nigerian fraud groups operating from the U.S., Canada and many other countries around the world. In breaking down the anatomy of a BEC scam, the report notes that fraud gangs need the names of people within an organization, their job function and their email username and password, often obtained with illicit open source tools or free trials or lead generation services; that they must send emails directly to people, impersonating a trusted superior or partner and seeking money, which they can accomplish with a fake email address or domain name or by hacking a real person’s email account; and that they need a way to obtain money sent by victims, often via money mules, as detailed in a February 2019 BBB study about romance scam victims who become money mules.
Active efforts are being made to fight BEC fraud. On August 22, 2019, 80 defendants, believed to be responsible for at least $6 million in losses, were indicted in Los Angeles for BEC fraud in a major effort led by the FBI. On September 10, 2019, a worldwide law enforcement effort yielded 74 arrests for BEC-related fraud in the U.S., 167 in Nigeria and 40 in several other countries, with nearly $3.7 million in assets seized from the fraudsters. The U.S. Justice Department has brought at least 22 cases in the last three years, many as part of a collective enforcement effort dubbed “Operation Wire Wire,” named for BEC fraud’s common name among Nigerian fraudsters.
“Business Email Compromise can happen to small and large businesses alike,” says Jane Rupp, CEO of BBB Serving Northern Nevada and Utah. “BBB urges businesses to prepare and talk about this type of fraud with appropriate staff.”
The report recommends:
BBB urges businesses and other organizations to take technical precautions such as multifactor authentication for email logins and other changes in email settings, along with verifying changes in information about customers, employees or vendors. The report also urges culture and training changes in organizations – namely, confirming requests by phone before acting and training all employees in internet security.
There is a strong need for more international cooperation between law enforcement agencies.
Email system providers should consider enabling additional features to help prevent BEC fraud, including default settings with more security.
Law enforcement should recognize that BEC fraud gangs engage in many varieties of the fraud at the same time and focus on the key actors in the frauds, not just supporting actors such as money mules.
What to do if your organization has lost money to a BEC fraud:
If an organization finds that it has been a victim of a BEC fraud, it needs to immediately call its bank to stop the payment and report it to the FBI. If a report is filed within 48 hours, there is a chance the money can be recovered.
Complain to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. IC3 also asks people to report unsuccessful BEC attempts as well. Information from attempts may help establish patterns or identify mule bank accounts.
Report fraud to BBB Scam Tracker.
About BBB
For more than 100 years, the Better Business Bureau has been helping people find businesses, brands, and charities they can trust. In 2018, people turned to BBB more than 173 million times for BBB Business Profiles on nearly 5.4 million businesses and Charity Reports on 11,000 charities, all available for free at BBB.org. Today, BBB serving Northern Nevada and Utah is supported by just over 4,500 Accredited Businesses that have voluntarily committed to adhere to BBB’s Standards of Trust.
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Better Business Bureau Study Examines Risk to Businesses from Business Email Compromise Scams
Salt Lake City, UT., Sept. 26, 2019 – An in-depth investigative study by Better Business Bureau (BBB) finds that business email compromise scams are skyrocketing in frequency and have cost businesses and other organizations more than $3 billion since 2016.
Business email compromise fraud is an email phishing scam that typically targets people who pay bills in businesses, government and nonprofit organizations. It affects both big and small organizations, and it has resulted in more losses than any other type of fraud in the U.S., according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
The investigative study – “Is That Email Really From ‘The Boss?’ The Explosion of Business Email Compromise (BEC) Scams” – looks at the prevalence of BEC scams and the criminal systems that perpetrate them. It digs into the scope of the problem, who is behind it, the multi-pronged fight to stop it and the steps consumers can take to avoid it.
BEC fraud takes many forms, but in essence, the scammer poses as a reliable source who sends an email from a spoofed or hacked account to an accountant or chief financial officer (CFO), asking them to wire money, buy gift cards or send personal information, often for a plausible reason. If money is sent, it goes into an account controlled by the con artist.
The FBI recognizes at least six types of activity as BEC or email account compromise (EAC) fraud, which differ based on who appears to be the email sender – a chief executive officer (CEO) asking the CFO to wire money to someone, a vendor or supplier requesting a change in invoice payment, executives requesting copies of employee tax information, senior employees seeking to have their pay deposited into a new bank account, an employer or clergyman asking the recipient to buy gift cards on their behalf, even a realtor or title company redirecting proceeds from a real estate sale into a new account. These targeted email phishing scams are sometimes called “spear phishing.”
This serious and growing fraud has tripled over the last three years, jumping 50% in the first three months of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017. In 2018, 80% of businesses received at least one of these emails. From 2016 through May 2019, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 58,571 complaints on BEC fraud, with reported losses in the U.S. totaling $3.1 billion. BBB’s report finds that the average BEC loss involving wire transfers is $35,000, while the average loss involving gift cards is $1,000 to $2,000. However, the cost to businesses can be much higher: Google and Facebook lost more than $100 million to BEC fraud before the perpetrator was arrested in 2017.
According to BBB’s report, the majority of defendants who have been arrested or charged for BEC fraud in the U.S. over the last three years are of Nigerian origin. The report says 90% of BEC groups operate out of Nigeria, with other Nigerian fraud groups operating from the U.S., Canada and many other countries around the world. In breaking down the anatomy of a BEC scam, the report notes that fraud gangs need the names of people within an organization, their job function and their email username and password, often obtained with illicit open source tools or free trials or lead generation services; that they must send emails directly to people, impersonating a trusted superior or partner and seeking money, which they can accomplish with a fake email address or domain name or by hacking a real person’s email account; and that they need a way to obtain money sent by victims, often via money mules, as detailed in a February 2019 BBB study about romance scam victims who become money mules.
Active efforts are being made to fight BEC fraud. On August 22, 2019, 80 defendants, believed to be responsible for at least $6 million in losses, were indicted in Los Angeles for BEC fraud in a major effort led by the FBI. On September 10, 2019, a worldwide law enforcement effort yielded 74 arrests for BEC-related fraud in the U.S., 167 in Nigeria and 40 in several other countries, with nearly $3.7 million in assets seized from the fraudsters. The U.S. Justice Department has brought at least 22 cases in the last three years, many as part of a collective enforcement effort dubbed “Operation Wire Wire,” named for BEC fraud’s common name among Nigerian fraudsters.
“Business Email Compromise can happen to small and large businesses alike,” says Jane Rupp, CEO of BBB Serving Northern Nevada and Utah. “BBB urges businesses to prepare and talk about this type of fraud with appropriate staff.”
The report recommends:
BBB urges businesses and other organizations to take technical precautions such as multifactor authentication for email logins and other changes in email settings, along with verifying changes in information about customers, employees or vendors. The report also urges culture and training changes in organizations – namely, confirming requests by phone before acting and training all employees in internet security.
There is a strong need for more international cooperation between law enforcement agencies.
Email system providers should consider enabling additional features to help prevent BEC fraud, including default settings with more security.
Law enforcement should recognize that BEC fraud gangs engage in many varieties of the fraud at the same time and focus on the key actors in the frauds, not just supporting actors such as money mules.
What to do if your organization has lost money to a BEC fraud:
If an organization finds that it has been a victim of a BEC fraud, it needs to immediately call its bank to stop the payment and report it to the FBI. If a report is filed within 48 hours, there is a chance the money can be recovered.
Complain to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. IC3 also asks people to report unsuccessful BEC attempts as well. Information from attempts may help establish patterns or identify mule bank accounts.
Report fraud to BBB Scam Tracker.
About BBB
For more than 100 years, the Better Business Bureau has been helping people find businesses, brands, and charities they can trust. In 2018, people turned to BBB more than 173 million times for BBB Business Profiles on nearly 5.4 million businesses and Charity Reports on 11,000 charities, all available for free at BBB.org. Today, BBB serving Northern Nevada and Utah is supported by just over 4,500 Accredited Businesses that have voluntarily committed to adhere to BBB’s Standards of Trust.
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U.S. Senate Committee Funds Cattlemen’s Mass Mustang Roundup & Incarceration to Tune of $35 Million
WASHINGTON, DC - Today, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a Fiscal Year 2020 spending bill that includes a shocking $35 million in funding to implement a potentially catastrophic mass mustang roundup proposal promoted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the so-called “American Mustang Foundation” and other agribusiness lobbying groups and, shockingly, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the ASPCA, and Return to Freedom, a sanctuary.
The proposal, misleadingly dubbed a “Path Forward for Wild Horse and Burro Management,” will accelerate the removal (by helicopter roundup) of wild mustangs from public lands and allow for inhumane management methods, such as cruel surgeries to sterilize wild mares by ripping out their ovaries. Although billed as a “non-lethal plan,” the proposal is a poorly disguised path to slaughter. It could increase the number of horses to 150,000 maintained in captivity at taxpayer expense with no guarantee of funding for their long-term care.
“This scheme is the biggest threat to wild horses and burros in the West in decades, and the American taxpayer is going to finance the whole shebang” said Marty Irby, Executive Director at Animal Wellness Action and a lifelong horseman. “If this ghastly plan is implemented, we'll see massive round-ups, swelling captive wild horse populations, and jubilation from cattlemen's associations that secured political cover from the Humane Society of the U.S., Humane Society Legislative Fund, and ASPCA for their long-time aspiration to secure a government-funded wild horse depopulation program."
“The misguided proposal is a road to destruction for America's wild free-roaming horse and burro herds,” said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of the American Wild Horse Campaign. “It’s a sweeping betrayal of America’s wild herds by the nation’s largest animal welfare groups. This is a $35 million-dollar giveaway to the commercial livestock industry, which covets the public lands where wild horses roam. We’re shocked that the Senate has appropriated taxpayer funds to perpetuate a failed system of roundup wand removal when humane fiscally responsible solutions are available.”
“We might as well call this what it is: “The Path Backward” or “The Path to Extinction,” since they’re reducing wild horses to the number that existed in 1971," said Ginger Kathrens, Director of The Cloud Foundation. “That extinction-level number is what caused Congress to unanimously pass the Wild Horse and Burro Act. This 'plan' will rip tens of thousands of horses and burros from their dedicated land and their families at catastrophic cost to the American taxpayer…billions of dollars spent to incarcerate them in cramped corrals for the rest of their lives, except for the few that are adopted. Why? So private livestock interests, (subsidized by the BLM through your tax dollars), can run cattle on public lands. It's time for the American people to stand up and say, 'No more. Not with my tax dollars. There are better programs to spend these billions of dollars on than this.'"
The BLM currently spends 73% of its budget to roundup and remove horses from the public lands and deal with them once removed; zero percent of the budget is spent to implement humane management of horses on the range with birth control. Nothing in the Senate bill would prevent the BLM from spending the entire $35 million to round up and warehouse wild horses and continue the “business as usual” practices that the National Academy of Science called “expensive and unproductive for the BLM and the public it serves.” The BLM could also use the funds to implement gruesome sterilization surgeries on wild mares in which their ovaries are ripped out in an archaic procedure used in the livestock industry.
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The American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) is the nation’s leading wild horse protection organization, with more than 700,000 supporters and followers nationwide. AWHC is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse and burros in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. In addition to advocating for protection and preservation of America’s wild herds, AWHC implements the largest wild horse fertility control program in the world through a partnership with the State of Nevada for wild horses that live in the Virginia Range near Reno.
Animal Wellness Action (AWA) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) organization with a mission of helping animals by promoting legal standards forbidding cruelty. We champion causes that alleviate the suffering of companion animals, farm animals, and wildlife. We advocate for policies to stop dogfighting and cockfighting and other forms of malicious cruelty and to confront factory farming and other systemic forms of animal exploitation. To prevent cruelty, we promote enacting good public policies and we work to enforce those policies. To enact good laws, we must elect good lawmakers, and that’s why we remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones don’t. We believe helping animals helps us all.
The Cloud Foundation (TCF) is a Colorado 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation, that grew out of Executive Director Ginger Kathrens' knowledge and fear for wild horses in the West. TCF works to educate the public about the natural free-roaming behavior and social structure of wild horses and the threats to wild horse and burro society, to encourage the public to speak out for their protection on their home ranges and to support only humane management measures. Kathrens served as the Humane Advisor on BLM’s National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board.
Background
Key components of the “controversial and dangerous” cattlemen’s proposal includes:
Humane solutions preferred by AWHC, AWA, and TCF include:
