Paying

Musk's plan to buy Twitter has worried policymakers around the world.Joe Skipper | ReutersElon Musk can't just walk away from his deal to acquire Twitter by paying an agreed-upon $1 billion breakup fee. It's not that simple.Musk tweeted Friday that he has decided to put his acquisition of Twitter "on hold" as he researches whether the amount of fake/spam accounts on Twitter is actually just 5%, as the company has long claimed.He followed that tweet with another reiterating that he is still committed to the acquisition.But…

College students and their families should keep an eye on the Treasury Department’s government-bond auction this week. It could influence their finances for years to come.The auction, scheduled for Wednesday, will be the main determinant of the interest rate on new federal student loans. Because bond yields have soared this year, that rate is likely to be much higher than the last time these student-loan rates were set a year ago. The higher cost is an example of how a surge in interest rates is hitting every corner of…

WASHINGTON—Americans can earn guaranteed 4% interest when money-market funds and savings accounts aren’t paying even half that. The catch: The IRS has to be sitting on your tax refund. That 4% rate for individuals took effect in April—up a percentage point from the prior quarter. The rate for large corporate refunds is 1.5%, up from 0.5%. Generally, the Internal Revenue Service has 45 days to process a tax return and pay a refund. After that, interest starts accruing in amounts tied to federal…

Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, has agreed to pay out $141 million after it “cheated millions of low-income Americans out of free tax filing services,” in the words of New York Attorney General Letitia James. Most of that money will go to consumers that were tricked into paying for its service. This comes as the result of an agreement it made with the AG (and officials from all 50 states and DC), which will also require the company to change its marketing practices. According to the Attorney General’s press…

The nearly nonstop series of new U.S. sanctions being levied in a bid to halt Russia’s war machine have complicated events for companies facing their own external threat: ransomware attacks.The ever-lengthening lists of sanctioned entities pose risks to U.S. companies that want to pay to get their systems back online after an attack, experts said. Ed McNicholas, co-leader of the cybersecurity practice at law firm Ropes & Gray LLP, said ensuring that ransomware payments aren’t going to…

Microsoft Corp's LinkedIn boosted subscription revenue by 8 percent after arming its sales team with artificial intelligence software that not only predicts clients at risk of canceling, but also explains how it arrived at its conclusion.The system, introduced last July and to be described in a LinkedIn blog post on Wednesday, marks a breakthrough in getting AI to "show its work" in a helpful way.While AI scientists have no problem designing systems that make accurate predictions on all sorts of business outcomes, they…