The Washington Wire Archive - The S Corporation Association

Volcker Report Released. On a Friday. In August.

The headline says it all. The long-awaited Volcker Tax Reform Commission report was released last Friday and was immediately put on a shelf someplace in the basement of the Ways and Means Committee. According to the Commission members:

The Board was asked to consider various options for achieving these goals but was asked to exclude options that would raise taxes for families with incomes less than $250,000 a year. We interpreted this mandate not to mean that every option we considered must avoid a tax increase on such families, but rather that the options taken together should be revenue neutral …

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admin2019-02-04T15:47:04+00:00September 1, 2010|

Tax Policy on the Table for September

Members of Congress are back home and set to return mid-September for a final three week session before the November elections. Add in two or three weeks of possible “lame duck” session, and that’s the extent of time available to tax writers to address the numerous items on their honey-do list:

Preventing the 2011 tax hikes (including AMT);
Adopting the small business tax bill;
Extending the extenders that expired last year;
Extending the extenders that will expire this year; and
Something on the estate tax.

Given that these issues have been before Congress the entire year, it’s difficult to conceive how Congress would suddenly jump into …

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admin2019-02-04T15:47:04+00:00August 19, 2010|

Small Business & Extender Tax Bill Update 2.0

After reappearing briefly last week, the latest version of the tax extenders package (Baucus IV) has now disappeared. The plan was for the latest version to garner sufficient support and then be attached to the small business tax bill, but the small business bill was pulled, ending the chances of the extender package getting adopted before the August break.

That means all those tax provisions that expired at the end of last year, including the R&E tax credit and the state sales tax deduction, will have to wait until September at the earliest before getting another shot. That’s too bad, as …

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admin2019-02-04T15:47:04+00:00August 3, 2010|

Small Business & Extender Tax Bill Update

If you watched the Senate floor yesterday, you might be under the impression that nothing was happening. The Senate spent most of the day in a Quorum Call (Senate code for nothing happening), and when a member did take the floor, often it was to speak about something other than small business taxes.

Ah, but still waters run deep, don’t they. Behind the scenes, two efforts were taking place. First, Leaders Reid and McConnell were continuing their back-and-forth over whether Reid would allow any amendments to the underlying small business tax bill and, if he did, what those amendments would be. …

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admin2019-02-04T15:47:04+00:00July 29, 2010|

Senate Back on Small Business Bill

The Senate restarted debate on the small business bill last night. Majority Leader Reid called the bill back up and filed cloture on a new version. Among other changes, the bill now includes an agricultural disaster relief funding provision, and the small business lending provision which received 60 votes last week.

The good news for the business community is that the core of business-friendly tax provisions remains intact, including the bonus depreciation and the shorter, five-year holding period for built-in gains.

The holdup in recent weeks has been a demand by Minority Leader McConnell that Senator Reid allow several Republican amendments to …

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admin2019-02-04T15:47:04+00:00July 28, 2010|