Plant Candy Collective opens Gunbarrel store
Plant Candy Collective, a tropical houseplant and coffee retailer that has operated in downtown Chattanooga as a popup business for the past couple of years, celebrated the grand opening of a storefront location at 2265 Gunbarrel Road, suite 105, on Monday.
Onteaya Tate, a former manager and co-founder of the nonprofit Together Cafe owned by the Redemption to the Nations church on Orchard Knob Avenue, said she fell in love with tropical houseplants while trying to decorate the coffee cafe. She started the Plant Candy Collective in 2019.
The new 1,300-square-foot Plant Candy Collective, which will open to the public Jan. 20, will feature a variety of tropical plants and accessories along with coffee and other plant-based drinks.
Fed vice chair resigns term early
Richard Clarida, the Federal Reserve's vice chair, announced Monday he would resign from his position two weeks earlier than planned. Although he did not give a reason, he has faced renewed scrutiny about trades he made in 2020 as the central bank was poised to rescue financial markets.
"With my statutory term as governor due to expire on Jan. 31, 2022, I am writing to inform you that it is my intention to resign from the board on Jan. 14, 2022," Clarida wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden that the Fed released Monday.
The New York Times reported last week that Clarida had corrected his 2020 financial disclosures in late December. Ethics experts said one of his trades raised questions: He sold a stock fund Feb. 24 before repurchasing it Feb. 27, just before Fed chair Jerome Powell announced Feb. 28 that the Fed stood ready to help markets and the economy.
His initial disclosures noted only the purchase of the stock fund, which the Fed explained as a portfolio rebalancing. The rapid move out of and back into stocks called that explanation into question, some experts said, and the repurchase could have put Clarida in a position to benefit as the Fed reassured markets.
Neither the Fed nor Clarida provided an explanation of what happened with the trade, although the Fed's ethics office noted in the updated filing that it still appeared to be in compliance with conflict-of-interest laws.
Tax season begins two weeks early
This year's tax filing season will begin Jan. 24, 17 days earlier than last year.
The Internal Revenue Service warned Monday that a resurgence of COVID-19 infections on top of less funding from Congress than the Biden administration had requested could make this filing season particularly challenging.
IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig urged Americans to file electronically this year to avoid delays and to get their refunds by direct deposit.
Last year, more than 90% of returns were filed electronically, according to the IRS, and nearly 77% of the 163.7 million tax returns processed by the IRS got refunds, which averaged $2,549 per return.
- Compiled by Dave Flessner