PRESIDENT TRUMP SIGNS CARES ACT

On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which provides relief to taxpayers affected by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The CARES Act is the third round of federal government aid related to COVID-19 TaxConnections provides you the 880 page Cares Act as published by the Tax Foundation.

Any reference to this Act shall be treated as referring only to the provisions of that division:
A—KEEPING WORKERS PAID AND EMPLOYED,HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ENHANCEMENTS, AND ECONOMIC STABILIZATION, TITLE I—KEEPING AMERICAN WORKERS PAID AND EMPLOYED ACT
Sec. 4001. Short title.
Sec. 4002. Definitions.
Sec. 4003. Emergency relief and taxpayer protections.
Sec. 4004. Limitation on certain employee compensation.
Sec. 4005. Continuation of certain air service.
Sec. 4006. Coordination with Secretary of Transportation.
Sec. 4007. Suspension of certain aviation excise taxes.
Sec. 4008. Debt guarantee authority.
Sec. 4009. Temporary Government in the Sunshine Act relief.
Sec. 4010. Temporary hiring flexibility.
Sec. 4011. Temporary lending limit waiver.
Sec. 4012. Temporary relief for community banks.
Sec. 4013. Temporary relief from troubled debt restructurings.
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Congress, Tax Cuts And Jobs Act, tax reform

(This post directly follows the previous post which now focuses on discussion and debate of the new tax bill.)

Mr. LARSON of Connecticut: Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for a unanimous consent request.(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. JACKSON LEE: Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record The Washington Post op-ed, “The Republican tax plan’s five worst dangers,” by Secretary Rubin, dated November 15, 2017

[From the Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2017]

The Republican Tax Plan’s Five Worst Dangers

(By Robert Rubin) Read More

Congress, Tax Cuts And Jobs Act, tax reform

(This post directly follows the previous post which now focuses on discussion and debate of the new tax bill.)

Mr. BRADY of Texas: Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LARSON of Connecticut: Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), the voice of Houston.

Ms. JACKSON LEE: Mr. Speaker, this is not the American Dream tax plan. This is the American nightmare, a tax scam of the worst proportion. Read More

Congress, Tax Cuts And Jobs Act

(This post directly follows the previous post which now focuses on discussion and debate of the new tax bill.)

Mr. LARSON of Connecticut: Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from New York an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. CROWLEY: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of hardworking Americans throughout this country, I say, vote “no” on H.R. 1, vote “no” on H.R. 1 percent.

Mr. BRADY of Texas: Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Estes).

Mr. ESTES of Kansas: Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Brady for his efforts to get this tax reform bill done.

Our outdated and uncompetitive Tax Code has led to slow economic growth over the past decade in America. Today, we are taking an important step to fix that. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will reform the Tax Code and help foster economic growth. Read More

Monika Miles, Online Sales Tax, Congress, Online Sales Simplicity and Small Business Relief Act

As we wrote a couple of weeks ago, the online sales tax debate is far from over. Although the Supreme Court ruled that states can impose an internet sales tax, Congress can still legislate on the issue. And it looks like it will. Representatives introduced a bill designed to guide sales tax collection requirements for businesses selling across state lines.

About the Online Sales Tax Bill

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Congress, Tax Cuts And Jobs Act

(This post directly follows the previous post which now focuses on discussion and debate of the new tax bill.)

Mr. BRADY of Texas: Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry), our chief deputy whip.

Mr. McHENRY: Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee for his hard work and effort, his staff’s effort, and his committee members’ effort to put this great bill on the floor today.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a vitally important bill. This will help all Americans’ lives for the better. The name fits for this bill as well. It truly is a tax cut for American working families, and it creates good-paying jobs. Read More

Erica Stark, Tax Advisor

Small business taxation, corporate tax rates, and changes to popular deductions are just some of the many complex changes to the Tax Code being debated in Congress. At the time this article was posted, the Senate is expected to approve, along party-lines, a sweeping overhaul of the Tax Code written by Senate Republicans. The House has already approved its tax bill, also along party-lines. If the Senate passes a tax bill, House and Senate conferees will seek to resolve differences between the two bills. Conferees will likely aim to reach an agreement quickly to send a bill to the White House before year-end. Read More

The Paradise Papers documents include nearly 7 million loan agreements, financial statements, emails, trust deeds and other paperwork over nearly 50 years from inside Appleby, a prestigious offshore law firm with offices in Bermuda and beyond.

The leaked documents include files from the smaller, family-owned trust company, Asiaciti, and from company registries in 19 secrecy jurisdictions.

Political leaders, wealthy individuals, and businesses’ legal documents, emails, loan agreements, communications, financial statements, and tax strategies – are now all exposed.

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Bernell Ward, Tax Advisor

As Congress begins debating tax reform, you might be interested in an overview of the GOP’s proposed changes so you’ll have an understanding of what the proposals actually entail as you follow the debate and won’t have to rely on politically motivated analysis by the various media sources.

It is important to understand that the GOP’s tax reform proposal is actually only an overall framework of the tax legislation that will be formulated later by congressional committees. So it only provides the “big picture,” with details to be added later. However, the devil is always in the details, and you frequently have to read between the lines and listen to and read comments by Washington insiders to glean additional detail.

Based upon that, the following are the provisions of the proposed tax reform that will apply to individual taxpayers and small businesses.

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William Byrnes, Tax Advisor

A congressional staffer was charged with filing a false security clearance form, announced Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu for the District of Columbia and Assistant Director in Charge Andrew Vale of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

He was previously sentenced to prison for willfully failing to file an individual income tax return.

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Annette Nellen

For the past few years, the focus of federal tax reform has been on reducing the corporate statutory rate from 35% down to 25% (H.R. 1 (113rd Congress, Camp)), 20% (House Republican blueprint of June 2016) or 15% (Trump 1-pager). The rationale for a corporate rate cut is that ever since we last reduced the top corporate rate from 46% to 34% with the Tax Reform Act of 1986, other industrialized countries did the same (in 1993 the rate was increased to 35%). You can see from this OECD data that most countries have a lower rate, although France is at 34.43%. Read More

On June 20, 2017, Speaker Paul Ryan spoke to the National Association of Manufacturers about tax reform. He has a 1 minute YouTube video of highlights here. The tag line is “Tax reform is happening. Not next year or next Congress. It is happening now, in 2017.”

Per his email message of 7/5, “We’re not talking about some rinky-dink, watered-down version of reform where the status quo basically remains as is. No, instead, imagine transformational tax reform that closes decades of loopholes, shakes up the IRS, and actually encourages businesses to stay and grow here in America.” Read More