The publisher of Better Homes & Gardens and Martha Stewart Living asked the court to order a refund in a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Des Moines, where the company is headquartered. The lawsuit says Meredith historically has claimed a deduction on income derived from production of its magazines and books. Last year the IRS disallowed the deduction and ordered payment of additional taxes for 2006 through 2012 saying Meredith didn't maintain ownership of the publications while they were running through the contract printers' presses. Meredith says that's a misinterpretation of the law. Click Read More below for additional information.

Quarter-to-date service performance data for July 1 through Sept. 17 included: *First-Class Mail: Delivered 88.3 percent of First-Class Mail on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 0.8 percentage point from the third quarter. *Marketing Mail: Delivered 92.5 percent of Marketing Mail on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 1.5 percentage points from the third quarter. *Periodicals: Delivered 82.2 percent of Periodicals on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 3 percentage points from the third quarter. Service performance in recent weeks has been affected in markets impacted by Hurricane Ida and ongoing employee availability challenges posed by COVID-19. Delivering for America, the Postal Service’s 10-year plan for financial sustainability and service excellence, seeks to meet or exceed its goal of 95 percent on-time service performance for all mail and shipping product delivery based on standards as all elements of the plan are implemented. The Postal Service continued preparations for the higher delivery demands of the 2021 holiday peak season this week. Ongoing efforts have included a national drive to hire delivery and plant personnel that is expected to result in an additional 40,000 seasonal hires by year-end, the leasing of 7.5 million square feet of additional space across more than 40 multiyear annexes where we are experiencing year-round space constraints due to parcel growth, and the installation of new processing equipment to accommodate higher volumes reflecting customers’ delivery needs. Since April, the Postal Service has installed 65 of 112 new package sorting machines, reflecting the Delivering for America plan’s $40 billion of planned investment over ten years. Additionally, more than 50 package systems capable of sorting large packages are expected to be deployed prior to December. 4.5 million additional packages can be sorted each day utilizing newly deployed package sortation equipment.

The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) issued its Annual Compliance Determination (ACD), a mandated assessment of the U.S. Postal Service’s compliance with pricing and service performance requirements in fiscal year 2017 (FY 2017). While the Commission acknowledges some areas of improvement, it identifies several compliance issues related to workshare discounts, noncompensatory Market Dominant products, Competitive products, service performance, and continued cost and service problems with flat-shaped mail (flats). Workshare Discounts: The Commission identified 42 workshare discounts with compliance issues. Out of the 42, 20 of the discounts did not comply with section 3622(e). No action by the Commission was required for 7 of the 20 workshare discounts because price changes aligned the discounts with avoided costs or the Postal Service eliminated the discount. Thirteen workshare discounts remained out of compliance prompting the Commission to direct the Postal Service to either align workshare discounts with avoided costs in the next Market Dominant price adjustment or specify an applicable statutory exception. Click Read More below for additional information.