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Time to Pause the CTA

The Main Street business community came out in force today calling on Congress to enact the Protect Small Business and Prevent Illicit Financial Activity Act (S. 3625). The legislation, championed by Senator Tim Scott (R-NC), would delay by one year the onerous Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) filing requirements and accompanying jail time and penalties. A similar bill sponsored by Representatives Zach Nunn (R-IA) and Joyce Beatty (D-OH) passed the House late last year 420-1.

The letter, signed by more than 120 trade associations, points out that such a delay would allow the ongoing legal battle to play out, be

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2024-03-19T14:48:46+00:00March 19, 2024|

More than a Dime’s Worth of Difference

Two events took place this week which demonstrate just how remarkably divergent the potential paths of tax policy are next year.

First, the Senate Finance Committee held a rare hearing Tuesday on the challenges faced by American manufacturers. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) took the opportunity to highlight the importance of 199A to his manufacturers in Montana and how Congress needs to act to make it permanent.

As Daines noted:

The foundation of businesses in Montana are passthrough businesses. They make up 95 percent of all businesses and employ a majority of workers

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2024-03-14T17:29:24+00:00March 14, 2024|

Talking Taxes in a Truck Episode 36: The CTA Compliance Wrinkle No One’s Talking About

The Corporate Transparency Act is now in effect, imposing complex reporting requirements on every small business in the country, and many large ones too. But what if the person best equipped to assist those businesses with compliance – your local CPA –wasn’t allowed to do so?

To explore this dynamic, we talked to Jim Hamill, Director of Tax Practice at the Albuquerque-based accounting firm Reynolds, Hix, and Company and an Associate Professor of Accounting at Texas A&M Commerce. Jim explains how the CTA puts tax professionals in a bind and forces them to choose between helping their clients and possibly engaging

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2024-03-08T18:36:23+00:00March 9, 2024|

CTA’s Prospects, Post-NSBA v. Yellen

Friday’s District Court decision declaring the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) unconstitutional is garnering lots of attention. As the Wall Street Journal editorial board noted, “The judgment is a legal bullet dodged for millions of small businesses that would be smacked this year by the new reporting requirements.”

The ruling is a massive victory for the Main Street business community, no doubt, but its real-world implications remain to be determined. The ruling is not a nationwide injunction but instead applies narrowly to the suit’s plaintiffs, the members of the National Small Business Association (NSBA). As presiding Judge Liles Burke’s judgement

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2024-03-07T17:32:35+00:00March 7, 2024|

Talking Taxes in a Truck Episode 35: Tax Foundation’s Scott Hodge on the Outsized Role that Taxes Play in Our Daily Lives

Our latest guest is Scott Hodge, who is president emeritus at the Tax Foundation and author of the excellent new book Taxocracy: What You Don’t Know About Taxes and How They Rule Your Daily Life. Through the lens of history’s most ill-conceived taxes – like the “chicken tax” and 17th century “window tax” – Scott explains how tax policy shapes virtually every aspect of our lives and drives human behavior. He and Brian then discuss more recent policies, including the SALT cap and proposed wealth tax, the ongoing (and often misguided) debate over book versus tax accounting, and the pivotal

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2024-03-02T02:06:23+00:00March 2, 2024|