Daily Deduction Proposals and Police Searches
Renu Zaretsky
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Brady amends his lame-duck tax bill to help nonprofits. House Ways & Means Committee chair Kevin Brady added an amendment yesterday that would repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s 21 percent tax on nonprofit’s that provide benefits such as employee transit passes and parking spaces. Even if the full bill passes, most provisions are unlikely to make it through the Senate. At a Tax Policy Center program yesterday, former top Hill tax staffers and former senator John Breaux suggested that, beyond a few narrow provisions, most of Brady’s bill would die a quiet death—at least for this year.  

Treasury’s proposed GILTI regs may dull the TCJA’s shiny new tax cuts for multinationals. The 300-page proposal from Treasury would require some multinational corporations  to pay higher effective tax rates than they expected under the TCJA. The proposed regulations would govern  interactions between existing foreign credits and the TCJA’s Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income tax (GILTI).

Alabama basks in the glow of more state income tax revenue. Last fiscal year, Alabama experienced more growth in tax revenue than at any time since the Great Recession. Total revenues were $6.75 billion in fiscal year 2018. Tax dollars that support the state’s Education Trust Fund—largely income and sales tax revenues—grew by $428 million, or 6.8 percent over 2017. 

Federal agents raid Chicago City Hall office of Donald Trump’s former tax attorney. The agents searched Alderman Ed Burke’s office yesterday. In his practice, Burke worked for Trump for 12 years, often to reduce property taxes  that Trump was assessed on Trump Tower and other properties in the city. 

German law enforcement searches Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. German officials suspect bank employees helped clients establish offshore companies in tax havens to launder hundreds of millions of euros. The investigation comes in the wake of Panama Papers revelations.

French tax authorities went to Disney in Paris. It happened last October but Bloomberg reports on details of an investigation into improper revenue shifting. A French subsidiary of Disney may have been overcharged for intellectual property royalties by another Disney unit in the United Kingdom.

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