International Provisions in GOP Tax Bill Face Senate Changes
Companies scored wins after the House passed a multi-trillion-dollar tax bill that largely preserved the current tax rates on foreign-earned income.
Republicans' 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act created a new international tax regime including a minimum tax on global intangible low-taxed income, or GILTI, a reduced tax rate on foreign-derived intangible income, or FDII, and a base erosion and anti-abuse tax, or BEAT.
Each of these tax rates will go up in 2026 without congressional action, but House lawmakers made slight changes that will result in minimal tax increases.
But the debate isn't over. The bill now heads to the Senate, where tax practitioners and companies expect impactful changes to the mammoth legislation, including the international provisions.
On this week's episode of Talking Tax, reporter Lauren Vella talks about the House provisions, what companies want to see in the Senate version of the tax bill, and how the legislation might impact US relations with other countries.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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19:41
A Budget Watchdog Veteran Warns GOP Tax Bill to Hike Deficit
House Republicans are moving quickly to get a massive tax-and-spending package across the finish line before week's end even as they negotiate with party factions over outstanding concerns.
Some Republicans are demanding deeper cuts to social programs like Medicaid to curb deficits as part of the deal and to reduce the package's cost to extend the 2017 tax overhaul. And yet the bill increases the debt limit by $4 trillion and adds billions in spending. Cut out of the process, Democrats oppose the proposal, and even some Republicans have objected to its size and scope.
Regardless of where lawmakers fall on the political spectrum, they all seem to agree on one data source: What the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has to say about the package and what it will do to the national deficit, which now stands at over $36 trillion.
On this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporter Chris Cioffi talks with Maya MacGuineas, longtime president of the nonprofit public policy group, and digs into why the growing debt can be problematic for future economic growth.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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19:42
IRS Staff Downsizing Offers New Look at Private Sector Tax Work
With the massive wave of federal government layoffs, tens of thousands of workers from the IRS and other agencies are likely looking for new jobs, potentially in the private sector for the first time.
Caroline Ciraolo, a partner at Kostelanetz and founder of the firm's office in Washington, D.C., has started an initiative that connects former federal tax professionals with law firms and other private employers. She knows what it's like to make the transition: Ciraolo was the No. 2 official in the Department of Justice Tax Division from 2015 to 2017 before returning to the private sector.
In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax Editor at Large Rebecca Baker sat down with Ciraolo to discuss shifting out of government work, and how the "love of the practice area" is a key transferable skill.
"That passion for unpacking complicated transactions and complicated facts and circumstances, identifying the issues—those skills are equal on both sides," she said.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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15:45
IRS Workforce Cuts, Leadership Departures Ripple Across Agency
The IRS right now isn't the same agency it was at the start of this year.
That's because about 20% of IRS workers have signaled they want to leave or have been fired. The ripple effects of this exodus could go far, not just for the IRS itself, but for businesses and individual taxpayers trying to file their returns.
Roughly half of the 30 people at the top of the IRS organizational chart have left, many because of Trump administration decisions that stretch boundaries of the law. Those departures in particular erode an important layer of defense to the IRS's most important missions: taxpayer data security and a fair tax system, former and current agency officials said.
Most recently, two executives brought on to help the IRS build up its enforcement and reporting of digital assets left and were replaced by longtime IRS official Trish Turner.
The leadership departures, combined with the broader cuts across different levels of the agency, make it harder for the IRS to collect revenue for the government and provide help to taxpayers. The IRS plans to lean more heavily on technology to make up for the lost workers.
In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporters Erin Slowey and Erin Schilling discuss who's replacing executives who have left, the impacts of the high turnover, and what happens when workers who want to leave can't.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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14:19
Why GOP Lawmakers Are Targeting the US Audit Board
House Republicans are pushing a plan to dismantle the US audit board and send its watchdog duties to the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a federal budget-cutting process. It's not the first GOP attempt to rein in the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, but this time it comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration's sweeping drive to cut regulations and downsize government.
Congress set up the board in the early 2000s to restore investor trust following high-profile corporate accounting scandals at Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc.
The move to eliminate PCAOB threatens to derail independent oversight of auditors charged with vetting the financial reports of public companies worth trillions in stock value, according to Bloomberg Tax senior reporter Amanda Iacone.
On this episode of Talking Tax, Iacone speaks with Benjamin Freed, Bloomberg Tax team lead for state tax and financial accounting, about why the PCAOB is being targeted now, previous attempts to curb its influence, and what a potential disbanding could mean for audit firms.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
Talking Tax, from Bloomberg Tax, is a weekly discussion of the most pressing issues facing tax and accounting professionals. Each week the podcast features discussions with lawmakers, federal regulators, lawyers, and journalists. From the courts to Capitol Hill to the IRS, Talking Tax has it covered.
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