Jimmy Carter state funeral set for Jan. 9 | The Excerpt
On Tuesday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Former President Jimmy Carter will lie in state at the Capitol rotunda. Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the Treasury Department's computer security and stole documents. Paste BN Consumer Travel Reporter Zach Wichter looks at some airline topics he's keeping an eye on in 2025. President-elect Donald Trump loses an appeal of a sexual abuse and defamation j udgment in the E. Jean Carroll case.Paste BN Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé explains which documents you should keep and which ones you can toss.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more Paste BN podcasts right here
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Tuesday, December 31st, 2024. This is The Excerpt.
Today, we have details on next month's funeral proceedings for the late former President Jimmy Carter. Plus, the Treasury Department says Chinese hackers stole documents in a major incident this month. And we talk through some of the big airline topics in the new year.
♦
The official state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter will be held January 9th at the Washington National Cathedral, the White House confirmed yesterday. The Carter Center released a statement saying the family has accepted an invitation from Congress for Carter to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda. Funeral services will begin on January 4th and end January 9th, moving from Carter's home state of Georgia to Washington DC. President Joe Biden has declared the 9th a National Day of Mourning, ordered US flags to fly at half staff for 30 days, and issued an executive order closing all executive departments and agencies of the federal government that day. Carter died Sunday at the age of 100.
♦
Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the US Treasury Department's computer security this month and stole documents. The Treasury called it a major incident, according to a letter to lawmakers provided to Reuters yesterday. The hackers compromised a third-party cybersecurity service provider called BeyondTrust and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said. The Treasury Department said it was alerted to the breach on December 8th and that it was working with the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to assess the hack's impact.
♦
It's been a rough week for aviation worldwide to end the year, headlined by a crash that killed 179 people in South Korea. Still, experts say commercial air travel remains very safe and the US aviation system is among the safest in the world. With that in mind, I caught up with Paste BN Consumer Travel reporter Zach Wichter for a look ahead at some of the airline topics he's keeping an eye on in 2025.
Hello, Zach.
Zach Wichter:
Hey, how's it going?
Taylor Wilson:
Good, good. Thanks for hopping on again today. So, Zach, you wrote about some of the airline topics you're looking out for in the new year. I think it makes sense to just start with Boeing, right? The company that has just stayed in the headlines in recent years. What's the expectations, Zach, for 2025 when it comes to really one of the world's most important aerospace companies?
Zach Wichter:
2024 started off with an extremely high profile incident involving a relatively new Boeing airplane when an Alaska Airlines flight lost a piece of the fuselage mid-flight. And since then throughout the year, Boeing has really been in the headlines for various quality control issues at its factories and concerns with some of the new aircraft that were coming off the line. We saw, I believe, a production stoppage during part of the year. Things are slowly getting better. The company, on a tour that I went on of one of the factories out in the Seattle area in the spring, really emphasized that they are doing a lot to address the issues. They aren't trying to say that they're not happening. They're saying that they are working with their employees and the people who work on their factory lines to make sure that quality comes back to the forefront.
And so I think the two big questions for me with Boeing are, do they continue on this trajectory? Are they actually addressing these issues and are things actually getting better? And then sort of relatedly, because part of this was increased regulatory oversight of Boeing, are we going to see that same kind of oversight in a new administration? There is some leeway in the federal government and with the regulators in terms of how hands-on versus how hands-off they choose to be with private companies. And so it remains to be seen if the Trump administration is going to take the same sort of active posture that the Biden administration did in its regulatory authority with Boeing.
Taylor Wilson:
You mentioned Biden and Trump. I think airline passengers often feel, Zach, really just kind of powerless to these companies. But we saw some new protections over the last few years. Will these be here to stay under Trump 2.0?
Zach Wichter:
It may be kind of a mixed bag with the consumer protections. Some of them, like the automatic refund rule, were codified in recent legislation, and so that means it would take an act of Congress to repeal that rule. The automatic refund rule is that if an airline cancels or significantly delays your flight, you are automatically entitled to a refund without having to apply for it. And you should get that within seven days to your form of payment if you paid with a credit card, and you're entitled to that if you choose not to travel on the delayed flight or on an alternative flight the airline offers you.
Other things that were done through less formal but still official rulemaking at the DOT, those could be a little bit more up in the air. For example, the Department of Transportation recently finalized a rule on increased accessibility on airplanes and greater training for airline employees who handle mobility devices and who help transfer wheelchair users from their mobility device to seats on the airplane and interact with disabled travelers in other ways. That was again finalized. It's on the books now. But that's the sort of thing that a new administration would have a little bit more leeway to repeal or to not enforce as strongly because it's not actually law. It's just a rule and there are just fewer enforcement mechanisms with that.
Taylor Wilson:
Zach, some have criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for short staffing issues in recent years. Can you talk through that a little bit, and what's the conversation look like around the FAA going into the new year?
Zach Wichter:
Short staffing at the Federal Aviation Administration has been a huge problem for many years, particularly in the air traffic control towers. Under the Biden-Harris administration, they've kind of stemmed the tide of losses at the FAA. The workforce at the FAA was on a downward trajectory where they were losing employees year over year. And now, at the very least, that kind of has flatlined a little bit and they're slowly starting to hire back up to the level that the FAA should be staffed at.
And so it depends again on the priorities of the incoming administration. I believe that there's funding in the most recent FAA reauthorization, which is a five-year piece of legislation. So they should be able at least for the next few years to continue hiring. But if money gets shifted around for some reason or if the appropriation doesn't happen exactly the right way, that's something that theoretically could change. And so that's just something we're going to be keeping our eyes on also.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Zach Wichter covers consumer travel for Paste BN. Folks can go find more of the Cruising Altitude column with a link in today's show notes. Thanks, as always, Zach.
Zach Wichter:
Yep. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
A New York Federal Appeals Court yesterday upheld a jury's verdict that President-elect Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed columnist E. Jean Carroll and owes her $5 million for doing so. Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, thanked the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals for its careful consideration, in her words, of the arguments. Trump's spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said the American people have re-elected Trump and demand a swift dismissal of litigation, including Carroll's lawsuit. Cheung said Trump will continue to appeal the case. Carroll brought the lawsuit against the former President claiming he assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s and then hurt her reputation by attacking her allegations as a con job in 2022. Trump has strongly denied her claims and disputed a Manhattan civil jury's unanimous verdict.
♦
While moving around boxes of decorations this holiday season, you may have noticed old stacks of documents from years ago. Can you throw them away? I spoke with Paste BN Personal Finance reporter Daniel de Visé about which records you actually need to hold onto.
Hello, Daniel.
Daniel de Visé:
Hey, good to see you. Happy holidays.
Taylor Wilson:
Happy holidays to you, sir. So let's talk about the records you should not throw out, starting with tax returns and other tax documents. How long should you keep these records, Daniel, and why?
Daniel de Visé:
First of all, we're not talking about Beatles records. Those, of course, you keep forever.
Yeah, I looked into this because I was getting out my holiday decorations and I found all these papers in the basement. And this article, I wrote really for older people who have paper, because over the last 10, 15 years most of us keep stuff online. So if you have stuff in the basement that's paper records, that's old, yeah, everybody kind of knows about the seven-year rule. And that is that we vaguely know in the back of our minds that stuff related to taxes you're supposed to keep for seven years. But I just basically reached out to a bunch of tax experts to ask if that means everything and kind of what that all comes from.
Taylor Wilson:
Now, let's just get into the specifics here, Daniel, of the tax documents specifically. I mean, which ones should you keep? Is there anything you can throw away? And you mentioned the seven-year rule. Is that really the rule, the kind of guiding light to go by?
Daniel de Visé:
Yeah. Well, okay, so the IRS can audit you for any reason for three years. That I didn't know. The seven-year thing comes from if you make a serious mistake, like unreported income or something, then they have six years. And so the seventh year is like a buffer. So that's where the seven-year rule comes from. So given those facts, you should keep your tax returns always for at least seven years. Some more conservative, careful CPAs would say keep your tax returns forever. And then the supporting documents, your W-2, your 1099s, receipts, expense records, by the same argument, you can usually toss those after seven years. Because again, the IRS, even if you make a really serious error, usually won't come after you after those seven years.
Taylor Wilson:
So what about bank and credit card statements? What do the experts say here, Daniel?
Daniel de Visé:
If they don't have anything to do with your taxes, they can typically be shredded or recycled safely after a year, unless again, you're keeping them for tax purposes. So my experts told me, keep those statements from banks and credit card companies for at least a year. Arguably, if you're worried about it, one of my experts said, "Well, maybe keep them for seven years, because you never know." But those you can usually get rid of a little sooner.
Taylor Wilson:
So let's shift to property and investment records. How long do you need to keep track of these?
Daniel de Visé:
So this would be like if you buy a house or you have investments of any sort, you keep the records for as long as you have the assets. I call this seven years plus, because then you also keep the records for seven years after you sell. And I'm guessing that seven-year thing also has to do with taxes. So you sell your house, you keep the records of that house for at least seven years after you've sold it and then you can get rid of it.
Taylor Wilson:
Daniel, you and I talk a lot about retirement here on the show. When it comes to retirement records, does that seven-year plus rule apply here as well?
Daniel de Visé:
Same rule. If you have an IRA, 401(k), you keep the records of that account, paper records as long as it's active and for seven years, because again, the seven-year rule after it's closed; seven years plus.
Taylor Wilson:
And which records can you toss, maybe not needing to wait those seven years? I know some listeners who maybe still do hold onto paper records are maybe eager to get some of that new year cleaning going and get some of those records out of the house. Which records can you toss?
Daniel de Visé:
Well, I pushed my tax experts. First of all, I asked them what other stuff do you really have to keep? Okay? And I've got five categories; adoption papers, birth certificates, death certificates, divorce decrees, lawsuit stuff, marriage certificates, diplomas, transcripts, health immunization records, all those you're supposed to keep forever. There's other stuff like property assessments, Social Security statements, some of those you keep until the next one comes. So if there's anything that I didn't mention in the last few minutes, you're pretty much safe following the seven-year rule and get rid of it after seven years.
Taylor Wilson:
That sounds good. Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for Paste BN. Thank you, sir.
Daniel de Visé:
Thank you, sir. Happy holidays.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.