A luxury jewellery brand has sparked disbelief with its £21,995 Christmas advent calendar. I thought £4,000 for the Dior calendar was expensive. Luckily, it comes with free delivery. This better come with the Krabby Patty secret formula,’ said @hanvxvh on TikTok, from Manchester. It also includes a candle, diffuser and gin. For £21,000 I want a lock of Jesus Christ’s hair, Zeus’s lightning bolt, maybe an extraterrestrial. As the jewellery included is worth £25,515, purchasers will save £3,520 by buying it in the advent calendar format. I just screamed in poor. UK-based C W Sellors is selling the S220, modelled on Chatsworth House for the eye-watering sum – and there’s only one left in stock. That advent calendar is bigger than the house I live in! It also gives the option of paying in monthly installments of £348.79, meaning it would take five years to pay off. The calendar has taken social media by storm, sparking disbelief at the enormous sum. It includes 23 pieces of jewellery in total behind its 24 doors, including several 18 carat necklaces and pendants – putting the classic chocolate calendar to shame. She said 21,000 smackeroos for this advent calendar! How many units have sold? C W Sellors told Femail previously the brand enjoys a ‘special relationship’ with Chatsworth House, but have produced the calendar themselves.

Conversely, if the White House’s stance on trade resulted in fewer tariffs on U.S.

Midwest, would have the most exposure to risk from an economic slowdown. U.S. companies in China, it could boost the U.S. As a result, quick-service restaurants may cut prices, especially if tariffs begin to hit customers’ wallets. Conversely, if the White House’s stance on trade resulted in fewer tariffs on U.S. Ongoing trade disputes have pushed down grain prices, which could lead to increased protein production and ultimately lower prices for poultry and cattle. That same scenario would help off-price discretionary retailers such as TJX Companies Inc , Ross Stores Inc and Burlington Stores Inc , according to Cowen. Walmart Inc and Costco Wholesale Corp derive more than half of their sales from groceries, which shields them from tariff pressures, Cowen said. Restaurants are insulated from tariffs because they source most of their food from within the United States. Both chains would benefit from shoppers seeking lower prices in the event of an economic downturn. Discount and off-price retailers (More Support) are also well-positioned as trade tensions ratchet up. That scenario would benefit large chains such as McDonald’s Corp and Taco Bell, owned by Yum Brands Inc, but not regional chains such as Sonic Corp or Jack in the Box Inc, Cowen analysts said. As with banks, the biggest tariff-related risk for the industry is a general economic slowdown.

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Workers at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are said to be completely ‘paralyzed’ in the middle of tax season as chaos reigns supreme following the arrival of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The tax-collecting agency that has long been a target for Republicans, is planning to eliminate 20% to 25% of its workforce by May 15, according to a person briefed on the agency’s plans. Within minutes, Kliger was reportedly demanding access to databases holding the sensitive financial data of millions of American taxpayers. Kliger marched into the IRS headquarters in Washington DC without so much as a security escort. The agency has been thrown into turmoil with inside sources saying the future of America’s tax collection itself is teetering on the edge of collapse. Stunned staffers say his mission was to seize control of the IRS’s tax administration systems. The 20% to 25% target includes the roughly 5,000 IRS employees who took a buyout last month and potentially 7,000 probationary workers who were fired, though court rulings could lead to the reinstatement of probationary staff, the person said. It all began quietly on a gray morning in mid-February when Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old tech wiz who was seemingly plucked straight from a Silicon Valley coding bootcamp. The IRS had about 100,000 workers when Trump took office, meaning up to 25,000 are set to lose their jobs. They just randomly drop by people’s offices, demanding access to systems; they’re bullying us and there’s no discipline in what they are doing, which really worries me,’ one IRS employee said during a hushed phone call with CNN.

That data is protected under some of the strictest confidentiality laws in the federal government. They’ll come in and say we’re going to delete that initiative – ‘delete’ is one of their favorite terms,’ an IRS employee said. Corcos was there to trim the fat off the IRS with ‘delete’ quickly becoming his favorite word. So, we are scrambling to figure out: Does Sam have that authority? Did Treasury give them that authority? By March, thousands of IRS employees had already been fired – everyone from from auditors to customer service reps – as DOGE pushed a sweeping plan to eliminate nearly 20% of the workforce before the May 15 deadline. An atmosphere of despair has now taken hold within the walls of IRS offices. Does Gavin have that authority? Kliger was soon joined by Sam Corcos, a 36-year-old entrepreneur whose past achievements include designing diet apps. More than 110 taxpayer assistance offices are set to close, leaving vast swaths of the country without in-person help during the busiest tax season of the year. Staffers say he looked to terminate almost all IRS programs funded for the current fiscal year – programs specifically designed to modernize the tax filing process and improve customer service for millions of Americans. As the DOGE operatives dug in, the casualties began to mount. He just walked in like he owned the place as if decades of taxpayer trust, laws, and protections didn’t matter,’ a veteran IRS manager recalled.

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It’s now routine to see people crying in the office,’ said one union leader outside Washington. The average phone wait time, which had been brought down from 28 minutes in 2022 to just three minutes last year, will likely spiral back to pre-reform chaos. Melanie Krause, now acting head of the agency, has only three-and-a-half years of IRS experience under her belt. Elon Musk and his son son X follow President Trump and board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base on Friday in Maryland. You’ve got a lot of new blood getting fired, that’s supposed to be the future of the workforce,’ Olson said to CNN. Veteran tax experts are sounding the alarm about what they see as a deliberate gutting of the IRS, with profound consequences for the entire US government. In many cases, those long wait times ended with a courtesy disconnect,’ an IRS employee lamented. With processing returns and issuing refunds continuing on autopilot for now the real danger lies just beyond in the near future with crippling delays, skyrocketing customer service wait times, and a tax system more vulnerable to fraud and abuse. After Biden-appointed commissioner Danny Werfel resigned on Inauguration Day, without waiting for the end of his five-year term, chaos reigned. Then you’ve got the most skilled people, at the height of their institutional knowledge, leaving through retirement. The IRS leadership is itself in also in freefall. His acting successor retired mere weeks later, and Trump’s nominee, former GOP Congressman Billy Long, still awaits Senate confirmation. The IRS’s once-improving customer service stats are set to reverse as a result of the cut.