Tax Policy Update

March 17, 2015

Pardon Our Dust

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NUMBER OF THE WEEK: $156 Billion.The total of inbound cross-border acquisitions of U.S. firms since the U.S. Treasury announced its anti-inversion measures last fall. The latest figurereflects a $50 billion jump from last year’s total according to a news report from theFinancial Times. Some of the biggest foreign buyers are from lower-tax jurisdictions such as Canada and Ireland. The United States’ 35-percent corporatetax rate remains the highest among industrialized nations.

LEGISLATIVE LANDSCAPE

Enzi and Durbin Introduce Online Sales Tax Legislation. Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) have introduced an updated version of the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to collectonline sales tax from out-of-state businesses. Similar to the 2013 Senate-passed bill (S.743), the 2015 bill ( S.698) has garnered earlybipartisan support. Though full text of the bill is not yet available, the revised legislation may include a one-year delay in implementation and exemptionfor sales made during the fall/winter holidays for the first year.

It’s Budget Week! The House and Senate budget chairmen are unveiling and marking up their budget blueprints for fiscal year 2016 this week. There had been speculation aboutwhether the GOP would include instructions for using the controversial budget procedure known as reconciliation in their budget resolutions to movecomprehensive tax reform, but Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) recently dismissed such a move in public statements. Instead, it appears likelythat reconciliation instructions will be vague enough to allow Republican lawmakers flexibility to dismantle and perhaps replace Obamacare depending on theoutcome of King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court case challenging the legality of using Obamacare insurance tax credits for purchasing health coveragefrom the federal exchange.

We also expect the House and Senate budget resolutions to lack both specifics and revenue raisers (read: tax increases), the latter of which would goagainst the Republican ethos, despite the deep spending cuts that would be needed with no additional revenue to help balance the budget within 10 years(another Republican promise).

Just one problem: in order to use reconciliation down the road, the House and Senate must first agree on and pass budget resolutions. This will not be easygiven the increasing divisions among factions of Republican lawmakers. But a shot at dismantling Obamacare could be just the carrot needed to unifyRepublicans.

JCT Releases Estimates for the President’s FY 2016 Revenue Provisions. Speaking of the federal budget, the Joint Committee on Taxation has published its own estimates for the revenue provisions under President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2016. We read the report, so you don’t have to. Below is a comparison of the estimates provided by the Office of Management and Budget and ones provided by the JCT.

OMB and JCT Estimates of Major Revenue Provisions under the President’s FY 2016 Budget
(Deficit increases (+) or decreases (-) in billions of dollars)

 

OMB
(through 2025)

JCT
(through 2025)

General Business

Capital Gains Tax Reform

-208

-233

Permanent R&E Tax Credit

128

171

Repeal Carried Interest

-18

-16

Repeal LIFO Accounting Method for Federal Tax Purposes

-76

-105

International

Extend Look-Through Provision for Payments between Related CFCs

10

11

19% Min. Tax on Foreign Earnings

-206

-262

14% One-Time Repatriation Tax

-268

-217

Prevent Corporate Inversions

-13

-16

Extend Active Financing Income Exception from Subpart F

81

73

Expand Subpart F Income

-32

-32

Energy

Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund

-2

-1

Reduce Excise Tax on LNG

.06

.03

CO2 Investment/Sequestration Tax Credit

5

6

PTC Permanent Extension

32

36

Eliminate Expensing of Intangible Drilling Costs

-16

-14

Eliminate Use of Percentage Depletion with Oil/Gas Wells

-13

-17

Eliminate Use of the Domestic Production Manufacturing Deduction

-12

-12

Eliminate Exemption from the Corporate Tax for Fossil Fuel PTPs

-2

-1

Financial Services

Financial Fee

-112

-109

Derivative Contracts

-20

-17

Use of Average Basis Method

-4

-2

Simplify Arbitrage Investment Restrictions

0.3

0.5

Retirement

Facilitate Annuity Portability

Negligible

Negligible

60-day Rollover Period

Negligible

Negligible

Five-Year Distribution Rule

-6

-5

Cap on Tax-Favored Retirement Accounts

-26

-4

Others

Tobacco Tax

-95

-85

Qualified Public Infrastructure Bonds

5

5

TOP 10 REVENUE RAISERS
(based on JCT estimates in billions of dollars)

1. Cap on Value of Tax Expenditures

525

2. 19% Minimum Tax on Foreign Income

262

3. Increase Taxation of Capital Income

233

4. 14% One-Time Repatriation Tax

217

5. Restore the Estate, Gift, and GST Tax Law from 2009

138

6. Impose a Financial Fee

110

7. Repeal LIFO Method of Accounting for Inventori

MWCUPDATES