On December 2, 2017, the Senate passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a sweeping tax reform bill that seeks to reduce tax rates for corporations and individuals following a strategy outlined in our previous Alert. A similar tax bill was passed by the House of Representatives on November 16, 2017. The White House and Congressional leadership plan to have a unified tax reform bill ready for the president to sign into law before the Christmas holiday. 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

Lisa Nason, Tax Advisor

Both the House and Senate have passed their versions of President Trump’s tax bill, and there are many similarities, including the limiting of itemized deductions to mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and property taxes (up to $10,000), and the doubling of the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemptions from $5.6 million to $112 million in 2018. These versions also differ in a number of ways. These differences will have to be resolved through a legislative conference committee. Some differences should be easy to reconcile, but resolving others is expected to take time and effort. Read More

I have been focused this past week on understanding the impact and implementation of the House Ways & Means and Senate Finance Committee proposals on U.S. businesses foreign source income.  Two proposals that interest me are the ones aimed at transfer pricing, being (1) the minimum deemed distribution of a foreign subsidiary’s earnings above a statutorily defined return on tangible capital and (2) the 20% excise tax on payment to foreign related corporations.

Read More

Annette Nellen

On June 14, 2017, I had the privilege to testify on behalf of the AICPA before the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship. The title of the hearing – Tax Reform: Removing Barriers to Small Business Growth. A goal of the hearing was for this committee to help the Senate Finance Committee know that they want to be sure tax reform helps small businesses and that such businesses are not forgotten in efforts to reduce the corporate tax rate. Read More

SFC Blank Slate Project 2013 - Senator Cantwell's SuggestionsAs noted in my 9/9/13 post, I’m going to summarize and analyze proposals senators offered to the Senate Finance Committee, and that the senator made public. In no particular order, the first set of suggestions I’m commenting on are from Senator Cantwell (D-WA) (7/26/13 letter). Senator Cantwell is a member of the Senate Finance Committee.

 

 

Read More