Yeshiva World News

Police estimate over 60,000 mispallalim will be making their way to Kever Shmuel HaNavi in Yerushalayim on the Yahrzeit, 28 Iyar. The Ungver Rebbe Shlita will be present for the traditional hadlaka set for 19:00. The hadlaka is viewed by many as the main event of the day.

Buses to the tziyun are running more often. Private vehicles will not be permitted but cars will have to park at the park and ride sites, and from there travel by shuttle bus. For people coming from the Modi’in area the parking lot is near the end of 443 close to Ofir Prison.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

When it comes to real estate transactions, many clients have asked what exactly is a 1031 exchange, what are the guidelines and timelines, and can a 1031 exchange legally defer their capital gains taxes? This article attempts to explain the 1031 structure in its basic and most simple form.

A l031 exchange is a transaction in which a taxpayer/investor is allowed to exchange an investment property for another investment property by deferring the tax consequence of a sale. Additionally, an investor may want to buy multiple properties requiring a more complex 1031 exchange. The limitation is three properties but there are different ways to complete the transactions in order to maximize the 1031 benefits. These types of transactions are authorized by §1031 of the IRS Code. In short, §1031 allows for a tax-deferred exchange. This means that taxpayers/investors do not have to pay a capital gains tax when they sell an investment property and reinvest the proceeds from that property into a like-kind or similar asset(s).

The IRS Code actually reads: “No gain or loss shall be recognized on the exchange of property held for productive use in a trade or business or for investment, if such property is exchanged solely for property of like kind, which is to be held either for productive use in a trade or business or for investment.”

Properties that DO NOT qualify under a 1031 exchange are personal residences, interests in partnerships, business inventory, and property owned by dealers.

In order to qualify for a 1031 exchange, many rules have to be followed. Beware – for the devil is in the detail.

Requirements for a 1031 Exchange

• Timelines for a 1031 Exchange

The investor (or exchanger) must follow the strict 45 / 180-day guidelines for a proper exchange. Once the exchanger sells his/her property (relinquished property) he/she has 45 days from the closing date of the property sold to identify new property(s) of equal or greater value. Once identified, the exchanger has 180 days from the day he/she sold their property to acquire the property(s) identified and close on the new property. The IRS offers no flexibility on these time periods.

• Like-Kind Property in a 1031 Exchange

The investor must acquire “like-kind” property. This means that it must be other qualifying forms of real estate. For example, the exchanger could sell a duplex and purchase a commercial property, or he/she could sell a piece of land and buy an apartment building. The property just needs to be “like-kind.”

• Exchange Property Held for Investment

The property sold (relinquished property) and the newly acquired property (replacement property) must be held for investment or business purposes. Therefore, you cannot sell your primary residence and buy an investment property, nor could you sell and investment property and purchase a primary home.

• Equal or Greater Debt and Equity in a 1031 Exchange

If the exchanger sells a property for $1 million, in which $500,000 was equity and $500,000 was debt, then the exchanger needs to purchase $1 million or more worth of property. Furthermore, the exchanger needs to use all the equity and replace all of the debt to defer 100% of the capital gains taxes.

The exchanger may add additional proceeds to the new purchase if he/she wishes and the exchanger can take on additional debt if desired as well. If the exchanger does not wish to use all of the sales proceeds he/she may do a partial exchange and pay the applicable capital gains taxes on the difference. This is referred to as “boot.”

• Constructive Receipt and Qualified Intermediary for a 1031 Exchange

The exchanger may not receive cash from the sale. This is known as “constructive receipt” and would trigger a taxable event on those monies received. According to the IRS safe harbor provisions, the exchanger must use a Qualified Intermediary or QI to facilitate the 1031 transaction.

The QI is an independent 3rd party (not your attorney, agent, broker or CPA) who holds the sales proceeds and purchases the replacement property on your behalf. It is extremely important in today’s environment to associate only with reputable, insured and bonded qualified intermediaries.

In conclusion, the main benefit of a 1031 exchange is the deferral of capital gains tax, which can be significant depending on the price of the properties involved. It is important to work closely with your accountant, tax advisor and real estate attorney to find the best possible structure for your needs. May we all find success in everything we do- Amen.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­The attorneys in the Real Estate Practice Group at Yedid & Zeitoune have a combined 25 years of real estate experience and are ready to assist you with all your commercial & residential real estate needs.

Isaac Yedid, Esq. and Raymond Zeitoune, Esq.

Yedid & Zeitoune, PLLC

1172 Coney Island Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11230

Phone: (347) 461-9800 Fax: (718) 421-1695 Email: info@yzlawoffice.com

NYC Office – By Appointment Only:

152 Madison Avenue, Suite 1105 New York, New York 10016

Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday called National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden a fugitive and challenged him to “man up and come back to the United States.”

Kerry was asked about Snowden in a nationally broadcast interview in the wake of an interview in which Snowden said he never intended to be holed up in Russia but was forced to go there because Washington decided to “revoke my passport.”

Asked about this, Kerry replied on NBC’s “Today” show: “Well, for a supposedly smart guy, that’s a pretty dumb answer, after all.”

Snowden, a former NSA contract analyst, leaked a massive volume of NSA documents to the media.

“If Mr. Snowden wants to come back to the United States,” Kerry said, “we’ll have him on a flight today.” Kerry said Snowden should “stand up in the United States and make his case to the American people.”

In his interview with NBC anchor Brian Williams, a portion of which was broadcast Tuesday, Snowden said he was “trained as a spy” and argued that he had a much larger role in U.S. intelligence than the government has acknowledged.

“I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas,” he said.

Kerry said, “A patriot would not run away. … He can come home but he’s a fugitive from justice.”

“Let him come back and make his case,” the secretary added. “If he cares so much about America and he believes in America, he should trust the American system of justice.”

“I think he’s confused,” Kerry added. “I think it’s very sad. But this is a man who has done great damage to his country.”

(AP)

· Arabs who pelted police on Har Habayis with rocks earlier are holed up in al-Aqsa Mosque.

· Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto continues his testimony with police and will be taking a polygraph exam.

· Two Syrian nationals were admitted to Ziff Hospital in Tzfas during the night. They are in very serious and moderate condition.

· Former IDF Chief Rabbi Mordechai Piron z”l was niftar at the age of 93. The levaya is at 14:30 in Har Menuchos.

· Security forces destroyed illegal structures in the Binyamin Regional Council of Shomron, in the Zayit Ra’anan community.

· Seven dunams (1.75 acres) of nature reserves in S. Yerushalayim near Ramat Rachel went up in flames this morning. Investigators report the fire was the result of arson.

· 12:00: Train service in the Zichron Yaakov area halted due to a fire.

· A 37-year-old Hadera man is in custody after police found his rental car business was renting stolen and impounded vehicles.

· A 25-year-old Yokneam male was indicted in a price tag attack in which he allegedly slashed the tires of an Arab owned vehicle in a hate crime.

· Many Jerusalem streets will close at 15:00 to accommodate Jerusalem Day marchers.

· MK Tzachi Hanegbi, a close ally of PM Netanyahu, is now the deputy foreign minister. Ze’ev Elkin, who held the post, accepted a rotation arrangement with Yariv Levin to head the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

As the nation emerges from more than a decade of war, President Barack Obama is seeking to recast U.S. foreign policy as an endeavor aimed at building international consensus and avoiding unilateral overreach.

Obama was to outline his approach Wednesday during a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The speech comes one day after the president put forward a blueprint for ending U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan by the time he leaves office.

“I’m confident that if we carry out this approach, we can not only responsibly end our war in Afghanistan and achieve the objectives that took us to war in the first place, we’ll also be able to begin a new chapter in the story of American leadership around the world,” Obama said Tuesday during an appearance in the White House Rose Garden.

Obama’s efforts to pull the U.S. out of the lengthy and expensive conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have largely defined his foreign policy for much of his presidency. But he’s at times struggled to articulate how his response to a new set of challenges in places like Syria, Ukraine and Iran fit into an overarching foreign policy philosophy.

That’s left Obama open to intense criticism from opponents who argue he has squandered America’s global leadership and lacks the credible threat of action that can stop international foes. That criticism has deeply frustrated the president and is a driving factor in his decision to deliver Wednesday’s speech.

White House officials say Obama will argue that the U.S. is a linchpin in efforts to seek international cooperation, a posture that puts the nation on stronger footing than when it acts alone. Officials point to U.S. actions involving Ukraine, with Washington rallying European nations to join the U.S. in enacting economic sanctions on Russia after Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula. And with Iran, the U.S. led secret talks with the Islamic republic that spurred broader international nuclear negotiations.

The crisis in Syria continues to be among the most vexing problems facing the White House. Even as Obama contends that an agreement to strip Syria of its chemical weapons was a success, that deal has done nothing to end the bloody civil war, which is now in its fourth year and which, according to activists, has left more than 160,000 people dead.

Obama is expected to cast Syria as a counterterrorism challenge in his speech Wednesday, making clear the U.S. continues to believe the right approach is strengthening the moderate opposition fighting forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. Administration officials say Obama may soon sign off on a project to train and equip those rebels, though it appeared unlikely that program would be ready for him to announce at West Point.

The president is also expected to discuss the counterterrorism threat facing the U.S. more broadly, arguing as he often has that core al-Qaida has been weakened even if splinter groups become a growing menace.

Counterterrorism missions will be a central part of the continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan that Obama announced Tuesday. Though combat missions will officially end later this year, Obama is leaving behind about 10,000 U.S. troops to train Afghan security forces and try to push back extremists.

The U.S. troop presence will be cut in half by the end of 2015 and concentrated in the capital of Kabul and at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. By the end of 2016, as Obama is preparing to leave the White House, the U.S. troop presence will be cut to fewer than 1,000.

The drawdown blueprint is contingent on Afghanistan’s government signing a stalled bilateral security agreement. While Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the accord, U.S. officials say they’re confident that either of the candidates running to replace him will finalize the deal.

(AP)

President Barack Obama has asked his Homeland Security chief to hold off on completing a review of U.S. deportation policies until the end of the summer, senior White House officials said Tuesday, in a move aimed at salvaging any hopes for Congress to act on immigration this year.

Obama in March directed the government to examine whether deportation practices can be made more humane, seeking to pacify frustrated immigration advocates. But that step emboldened House Republicans to argue they can’t trust Obama to enforce the law, and that bypassing lawmakers through executive action would deliver a death knell to the broader immigration overhaul that Obama and Democrats are seeking.

Caught in the middle, Obama is seeking to preserve what the White House sees as a narrow window in June and July in which Congress could conceivably act before Washington’s focus becomes consumed by the November midterm elections.

“The president really wants to maximize the opportunity to get a permanent solution enacted, which requires Congress,” said Cecilia Munoz, the director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council.

The delay defuses an emerging split among traditional Obama allies that emerged after the president commissioned the deportation review.

Some immigration advocates and Democrats urged Obama to take immediate executive action in the face of congressional procrastination. But others insisted the focus should remain on pressuring House Republicans to act while there’s still a chance — however slim — to pass a bill that could provide a path to citizenship for the 11.5 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

“We’ve got maybe a window of two, three months to get the ball rolling in the House of Representatives,” Obama said earlier this month.

That window, White House officials said, has opened now that primary elections have wrapped up in many states where Republican incumbents are being challenged by tea party candidates who oppose an immigration overhaul. But a make-or-break deadline comes when lawmakers leave Washington for a monthlong August recess to focus on campaigning.

In Denver on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden made similar remarks about Republican opposition to immigration reform and reluctance to deal with legislation during campaigns.

“They’ve got their chance now,” Biden said. “Most of the primaries are over.”

Obama informed Johnson of his decision to delay the review during a White House meeting last week in which Johnson updated the president on the review’s progress, a senior White House official said. Homeland Security will continue working on the review but won’t release the results until the window for congressional action has closed, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity.

Obama’s announcement comes the same day a coalition of groups backing an immigration overhaul asked Obama to hold off in order to “give the House leadership all of the space they may need.” Among the groups urging Obama to delay were the National Immigration Forum, the Service Employees International Union and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

On the congressional front, the Senate last year passed a comprehensive bill with bipartisan support that Obama says meets his criteria for what an immigration fix must include. Republicans have refused to take up that bill, saying they preferred their own piecemeal approach. But House GOP leadership has made no move to bring legislation to a vote. And last week, GOP leaders last week blocked any votes on immigration legislation — including one offered as an amendment by a Republican — in yet another ominous sign for immigration’s prospects.

Johnson has offered few details about what potential policy changes he’s considering or what the timeline for acting might be. But Obama has previously taken modest executive steps to ease deportation. Two years ago, he offered protection from deportation and extended work permits to some immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Johnson has said he’s reviewing a possible expansion of that program, but he and Obama have both cautioned that the government is constrained in what it can do without Congress.

(AP)

China is targeting popular smartphone-based instant messaging services in a month-long campaign to crack down on the spreading of rumors and what it calls “hostile forces at home and abroad,” the latest move to restrict online freedom of expression.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the campaign started Tuesday and the services targeted included WeChat, a service run by TenCent Holdings Ltd, which incorporates social media functions that resemble microblog features and that has surged in popularity the last two years.

Users can use such services to send messages to a select group of friends, or can follow public accounts, run by companies, social groups or celebrities, for example. Some accounts are also used by intellectuals, journalists and activists to comment on politics, law and society, and to post news reports shunned by mainstream media. Some accounts attract hundreds of thousands of followers.

Xinhua said the campaign will target public accounts.

Noting that such services had become popular online communication channels, Xinhua said: “Some people have used them to distribute illegal and harmful information, seriously undermining public interests and order in cyberspace.”

The communist government encourages Internet use for education and business but operates an extensive monitoring system. Operators of social media are required to enforce censorship rules against material deemed subversive or obscene.

In March, WeChat removed at least 40 accounts with content about political, economic and legal issues, suggesting that authorities were tightening control over discussion of sensitive topics.

Earlier this year, the ruling Communist Party announced the creation of an Internet security group led by President Xi Jinping. Observers say authorities are wary of millions of Chinese with Internet access getting ideas that might threaten the Communist Party system.

(AP)

Rami Levy Communications has joined the growing kosher cellular market in Israel.

Levy launched his mobile communications company in 2011, and he has been working to become approved by the Vaad Rabbonim for Communications. As of Tuesday, 27 Iyar 5774, Levy’s company is certified and can now compete in the kosher phone market as well.

Levy’s plan offers a onetime payment for a SIM card of 49 shekels. The phone is free for the first three months and then a monthly charge of 49.90 shekels for unlimited use. There is no commitment and one may leave to another company at any time, as the new communications law states.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

The point where the roiling ocean meets the fury of a hurricane’s winds may hold the key to improving storm intensity forecasts — but it’s nearly impossible for scientists to see.

That may change this summer, thanks to post-Hurricane Sandy federal funding and a handful of winged drones that can spend hours spiraling in a hurricane’s dark places, transmitting data that could help forecasters understand what makes some storms fizzle while others strengthen into monsters. Knowing that information while a storm is still far offshore could help emergency managers better plan for evacuations or storm surge risks.

A hurricane is like an engine, and warm ocean water is its fuel. One secret, scientists say, is getting a better understanding of how the warm water transfers energy to tropical storms.

“We really need to get a better idea of what’s going on down there before we even look to improve our intensity forecast,” said Joe Cione, who studies how storms interact with the ocean at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division in Miami.

Hurricane hunter aircraft typically don’t fly below 5,000 feet and can’t descend below 1,500 feet, and real-time radar doesn’t provide information about the thermodynamics at work inside a storm’s cloudy core. Canisters stuffed with electronics dropped from the planes transmit data about a storm’s pressure, temperature, winds and moisture as they fall to the ocean, but they remain airborne for only a few minutes.

The kind of drone that Cione plans to launch from the hurricane hunters will spend hours descending slowly, cruising on the air currents spinning through a storm, possibly even orbiting a hurricane’s eyewall. The amount of data the 3-foot, 7-pound drone — the Coyote, shaped like a thin missile with retractable wings — could collect in the lowest parts of a hurricane would give researchers a movie compared to the snapshots sent back by the canisters, Cione said.

The drones have a propeller and are controlled by someone in the hurricane hunter aircraft, but they are designed to float on air currents, not fly against strong winds. And the small drones are disposable — once they hit the water, they won’t be recovered.

Hurricane forecasters have gotten good at predicting where a storm is will hit, and the so-called “cone of uncertainty” that shows a storm’s likely path will shrink again this year. Improvements in predicting changes in the intensity of storms, though, have lagged.

Several factors can alter a storm’s intensity, such as cold water from the ocean’s depths mixing with warm water at the surface, wind shear, the cyclical rebuilding of the wall of clouds that ring a hurricane’s eye or a change in the energy a storm is pulling from the ocean. That last variable is what Cione calls a “data void region,” and it’s where the drones will aim.

“There’s a reason you don’t have hurricanes over land — they need the water, they need that evaporation and condensation, which is the source of their energy. So, how does that happen?” Cione said. “If we can’t sample this region very well, very accurately, all the time, we could have the potential to miss how much energy is coming out of the ocean by a third or a half.”

Cione plans to test five or six drones in the peak of hurricane season, and possibly next year, to see how well they communicate data in real time. The $1.25 million project is among a slew of other NOAA hurricane research funded by last year’s Sandy supplemental bill that authorized $60 billion for disaster relief agencies.

The potential for the data collected by the drones is priceless, Cione said.

“A lot of people talk about first responders, and I have the utmost respect for that, but we’re sort of like pre-first-responders,” Cione said. “Imagine these type of things out there 12 hours before landfall, and it’s a category higher than we think. Maybe that’s the difference between evacuating people and not evacuating people.”

It’s the kind of information forecasters would have liked to have had when Hurricane Charley suddenly strengthened to Category 4 as it sped into southwest Florida in 2004.

Forecasters knew where it was going, and they warned coastal residents to prepare for a possibly major hurricane. But they couldn’t see that it would intensify into a monster even as it approached land — forecasters still can’t explain what’s behind that rapid intensification process.

Charley cut a swath of destruction across Florida, killing nine people in the state.

“At the 11th hour, having the intensity information is good, yes. It helps me to tell people, ‘Stay where you are, don’t go outside because you’re now putting yourself at far greater risk of injury from flying debris,’” said Charlotte County Emergency Management Director Wayne Sallade, who is still chief almost a decade after Charley’s landfall.

However, it would be even more helpful to know more about whether a hurricane might continue strengthening when it’s 36 hours or more from landfall, Sallade said. That would help determine the risk of storm surge — the dangerous water rise created by tropical storms.

Good forecasts hinge on details, and intensity forecasts may just need a little tweaking, not a complete overhaul, to improve dramatically, said Florida International University hurricane expert Hugh Willoughby, who led NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division from 1995 until 2002.

“I think the problem is we’re not getting enough of the details right,” Willoughby said. “It’s not something where there’s going to be a huge breakthrough.”

(AP)

A bus that operated on Shabbos in the Krayot area has stopped as a result of the efforts of Degel Hatorah elected officials in Kiryat Ata. Kiryat Ata Councilman Rav Simon Mushiashvilli is quoted by Yated Neeman explaining he began receiving requests for assistance a number of months ago. Residents pointed out the 21 bus travels through the Krayot area and ends its run in Kiryat Ata on Shabbos afternoon. This they explained is problematic for the frum community in Kiryat Ata.

The councilman turned to MK Moshe Gafne, who then turned to the head of Rechasim, Rav Yitzchak Reich. They then contacted the regional Egged official to discuss the matter. Egged’s Ami Drei explained the bus company has no desire to challenge the religious status quo or disturb residents.

The decision was made by Egged that the bus would continue operating but it would not enter Kiryat Ata as the bus company understands the religious sensitivities of the area’s frum residents.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)