The numbers: The University of Michigan said the final reading of its consumer sentiment index in April was 97.2, down a touch from the 98.4 in reading in March. Economists polled by MarketWatch expected a 97.0 reading. What happened: After rising as the economy has recovered, sentiment is now stuck in a range. The sentiment index has averaged 97.2 during the Trump administration, identical to the April 2019 reading. In April, measures of current economic conditions and expectations fell...

Bloomberg Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday introduced legislation that would boost the estate tax on billionaires, the latest effort on the left to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The Vermont independent, who may seek the 2020 Democratic nomination for president as he did in 2016, proposed a bill that he says would only apply to the wealthiest 0.2% of Americans. It would establish taxes as high as 77% on an estate above $1 billion, which is a return to the top rate from 1941 to...

There are thousands of law-enforcement officials who receive confidential reports from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and could leak them to the media. But an investigation into how the media got hold of what are called suspicious-activity reports ended up right back where the filings originated. Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a 40-year-old senior adviser at FinCEN, was arrested Tuesday, according to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and...

Bank profits jumped by 25% in the second quarter, mostly because of the lower rates due to tax cuts, according to an analysis released Thursday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported a net income of $60.2 billion during the three months ended June 30 for the more than 5,500 banks whose deposits it guarantees. The profit rise from banks including Bank of America BAC, -0.61% , Citi C, -0.48% and JPMorgan Chase JPM, -0.31% would still have been 11.7% even if the effective tax rate were...

Steve The Federal Reserve on Friday announced it was forcing Wells Fargo to oust board members and limit its growth, responding to a wave of abuses at the San Francisco giant that include opening accounts for customers who didn’t request them. In the last major move of Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s reign at the central bank, the Fed said it won’t let Wells Fargo WFC, -2.20% add assets beyond the level of the end of 2017 until it improves governance and controls. Wells Fargo ended 2017 with $1.95...