Daily Deduction Breaks, Deals, and Amnesty
Renu Zaretsky
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The World Trade Organization says no to a state tax break for Boeing. The WTO ruled yesterday that one of Washington State’s many business subsidies for Boeing’s 777X airplane is prohibited. The 2013 law that extended the tax break to 2040 said the state could terminate the subsidy if it determines “that any final assembly or wing assembly … has been sited outside the state of Washington.” The WTO said that means the law expressly favors local production over imports, a preference that is prohibited. However, the WTO also ruled that six other state subsidies challenged by the European Union are legal. The decision is likely to have little effect on Boeing’s bottom line. 

The OECD likes Trump’s talk of tax cuts and infrastructure spending. In a new report, the group says that the big tax cuts and significant infrastructure spending could boost the US economy in 2017 and especially in 2018. However, the OECD warned that any stimulus could be offset by a protectionist trade policy.

Were your deals too good to be true on Cyber Monday? Probably, if you didn’t pay sales tax on your online shopping. TPC’s Richard Auxier reminds consumers that even if their state doesn’t require online retailers to collect sales tax on purchases, buyers still owe an equivalent use tax.  

About that Australian backpacker tax… Lawmakers have reached a compromise. Workers on holiday visas will pay a 15 percent tax on all income earned in Australia. The government had originally proposed a tax rate of 32.5 percent from the first dollar of income.

India plans a tax amnesty program, of sorts. The nation’s finance minister, Arun Jaitley, released a plan designed to bring in billions of dollars worth of undeclared income into India’s economy. Tax dodgers can declare his or her income and pay 50 percent of it in taxes and purchases. He or she would also have to deposit 25 percent of the declared income into a non-interest bearing deposit account for four years.

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