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A |     WASHINGTON -- Charles and Kathleen Moore are about to have their day in the Supreme Court over a $15,000 tax bill they contend is unconstitutional.The couple from Redmond, Washington, claim they had to pay the money because of their investment in an Indian company from which, as Charles Moore, 62, said in a sworn statement, they “have never received a distribution, dividend, or other payment.”But significant parts of the story they have told to reach this point seem at odds with public records.The Moores are the public face of a high court case backed by business and conservative political interests that could call into question other parts of the U.S. tax code and rule out a much-discussed but never-enacted tax on wealth. The case is set for arguments on Dec. 5. The Moores are the latest example of plaintiffs whose lawsuits seem to simply be exercising their legal rights, but whose cases are backed by others with enormous amounts of money or a consequential social issue at stake. The Moores sought help from the anti-regulatory Competitive Enterprise Institute.Underscoring the case's importance at a recent Heritage Foundation event, lawyer Paul Clement said, "The constitutionality of a wealth tax may well be decided in the context of this case.”Details of the Moores' involvement with the company, initially called KisanKraft Machine Tools Private Limited, were first reported by Tax Notes, which caters to tax professionals. The public documents are filings with the Indian government.At issue in the case is a provision of the 2017 tax bill enacted by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed by then-President Donald Trump. The law applies to companies that are owned by Americans, but do their business in foreign countries. It imposes a one-time tax on investors' shares of profits that have not been passed along to them, in order to offset other tax benefits. The measure is expected to generate $340 billion in tax revenues.The Moores, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and conservative think tanks, contend that the provision violates the 16th Amendment, which allows the federal government to impose an income tax on Americans.The $15,000 tax bill was for the Moores' share of KisanKraft's profits."If you haven’t received any income, how can you be required to pay income taxes?” Charles Moore asks in a video posted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.But far from being a passive investor with no influence over the company, Moore, who worked at Microsoft during his career in software development, served on KisanKraft's board of directors for five years.“The story the Moores told about Charles' involvement with KisanKraft is directly at odds with the fiduciary responsibilities of an individual holding a board seat for an Indian company,” Mindy Herzfeld, a professor of tax practice at the University of Florida law school, wrote in Tax Notes.And there are other indications of Moore's more extensive involvement with KisanKraft than his testimony indicated. The company paid for his travel to India four times and he made at least two investments beyond the $40,000 stake he put up in 2006.Moore also was prepared to invest an another roughly $250,000. That money was ultimately returned by KisanKraft, along with 12% interest.One other inconsistency is that while the Moores say they jointly invested the money, only Charles Moore's name appears in company documents.The couple and their lawyers did not disclose any of that information in legal filings in three different federal courts, including the Supreme Court.“The original declaration on which the case is built is full of lies,” said Reuven Avi-Yonah, an international tax expert at the University of Michigan law school.In a brief conversation with The Associated Press, Kathleen Moore said she and her husband would not discuss the case and referred questions to their lawyers. Andrew Grossman, the Moore's lead attorney, did not respond to messages seeking comment.The omissions, along with the Moores' failure to take advantage of other legal options that would have deferred, if not eliminated, their tax liability make Avi-Yonah and other experts in international tax law suspect the case was manufactured to get at a larger issue, the tax on billionaires that has been proposed by some prominent Democrats but never enacted.A wealth tax would apply not to the incomes of the very richest Americans, but their assets, like stock holdings, that now only get taxed when they are sold. “There really was no reason for the court to take it on, other than to send a signal to warn off the Congress from passing a billionaire tax," said Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.Other provisions of the tax code could be upended by the court's decision, including measures relating to partnerships, limited liability companies and other business formations, Rosenthal said.Changes to those provisions also could affect some justices' finances. Chief Justice John Roberts holds a one-eighth interest worth up to $15,000 in an Irish partnership that owns a cottage in county Limerick, Ireland, and Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni, owns a limited liability company that generated between $50,000 and $100,000 in income last year from Nebraska real estate, according to the justices' financial disclosure forms. Two other recent Supreme Court cases advanced by conservative interests also raised questions about whether facts had been manipulated to get the disputes in front of the court. One of those involved a wedding website designer in Colorado who did not want to work with same-sex couples and a public high school football coach in Washington who wanted to pray on the field.Rosenthal said that “the ugly facts matter” and that the justices could return the Moores' case to a lower court without ruling on it.Charles Moore said in his sworn statement that he agreed to invest in the company that was being formed by his friend and former colleague at Microsoft, Ravindra “Ravi” Kumar Agrawal, because he liked the business plan and trusted his friend.“Moreover, I thought KisanKraft was formed for a noble purpose and had the potential to improve the lives of small and marginal farmers in India,” Moore said. The case had already kicked up ethical questions. Senate Democrats had asked Justice Samuel Alito to step aside from the case because of his interactions with David Rivkin, another lawyer who also is representing the Moores. The Democrats said Alito had cast doubt on his ability to judge the case fairly because he sat for four hours of Wall Street Journal opinion page interviews with an editor at the newspaper and Rivkin.Alito rejected the demands in a four-page statement issued by the court in which he said there “is no valid reason” for his recusal. ___Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.___This story has been corrected to reflect that Mindy Herzfeld is a professor of tax practice at the University of Florida law school, not director of the master's program in international tax.。    视频加载中...潮新闻客户端 ​记者 谢春晖“我躺在床上刷手机，突然感觉窗‘嘎吱’在响，抬头看到吊灯在摇。”1月21日0点20分左右，住在杭州萧山区的小朱感觉楼在晃，打开朋友圈一看，已经被“夜猫子”们刷屏了……“是不是地震了？”“被晃醒了，正在想，要不要逃？”小朱这才反应过来，不是自己刷手机刷出幻觉了，而是可能地震了。（网友“小朱”家震感明显）1月21日0点30分，中国地震台网速报发布消息，中国地震台网正式测定：01月21日00时17分在台湾台南市（北纬23.24度，东经120.51度）发生6.2级地震，震源深度14千米。中国地震台网速报截图随后，潮新闻记者在多位杭州市民的朋友圈里看到了正在摇晃的吊灯视频。

B | “我倒是没有感觉到，但是朋友圈里看到有人在发‘地震了‘，抬头一看吊灯果然在摇。

C | ”杭州市民王女士说。

D | 在微博平台上，浙江温州、宁波等地的网友也纷纷表示，有震感，感觉楼在晃。“希望大家都能平安。”王女士说。

E | 新闻+：为啥台湾发生地震，浙江多地会有震感？2024年4月，台湾花莲发生地震，浙江多地也曾有震感。

F | 当时，潮新闻记者就采访了杭州市建委及有关专家。（此前报道：浙江多幢高层建筑地震中“摇了”，会对楼体造成破坏吗？专家解答）浙江省建筑设计研究院有限公司地下工程设计院总工程师李冰河表示：台湾距浙江省省会杭州大概800多公里，南部的温州市丽水市则距离更近。地震时产生的地震波经过几百公里的传播，高频率的地震波已经衰减掉殆尽，剩下的主要以低频的长周期地震波为主。低频的长周期地震波与城市中高楼本身自震周期频率相似，二者形成共振，在高楼中的人们便有所感觉感觉到轻微的震动。楼层越高，共振效应越明显，自然就越容易感觉出震感。从概率上讲，高层建筑物受到远震影响的概率要比遇到近震影响的概率大得多。另外，浙江省存在大量深厚软土地层，软土场地对地震波有显著的放大效应。因此，浙江多地高楼震感明显。“转载请注明出处”。