The Department of the Treasury is steadily making progress on writing guidance for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and have announced a tentative release schedule: June/July for the passthrough deduction, late summer/early fall for the new limitations on interest expense, and December for the big international provisions (e.g. GILTI and BEAT).

 

In the meantime, the Committee on Ways and Means is contemplating a second round of tax cuts, or Tax Reform 2.0 as they like to call it. They are aiming to make permanent the new individual provisions as well as full expensing for businesses.

After months of trading punches Director Mick Mulvaney of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin released a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that creates a new framework for writing, reviewing, and implementing tax regulations.  In short, the MOA requires OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to review major tax regulations—just as it does major rulemakings from any other executive branch agency.  This is a fundamental change from a 1983 agreement, under which Treasury had hitherto operated, that exempted most tax regulations from review.

On Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee marked up and unanimously reported 12 bills to reform the IRS. The bipartisan packaged was sponsored by Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) and Ranking Member John Lewis (D-GA) and is designed to modernize the IRS and improve customer service. The package requires the IRS to send Congress by September 30, 2020 a comprehensive written plan for reorganizing the agency, including priorities laid out by lawmakers.

The IRS ruled that taxpayers who prepaid their 2018 property taxes may still be able to deduct the entire amount from their 2017 federal taxes without regard to the $10,000 limit imposed by the Tax Cut and Jobs Act.

As you know, both corporate and individual tax rates were reduced in last year’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Lower tax rates make tax-exempt vehicles like municipal bonds less attractive to both corporate and individual investors; with lower tax rates, they have less incentive to look for tax-exempt investments. Reduced demand for municipal bonds and other tax-exempt investment vehicles like private activity bonds (PABs) means that cities will have to increase the interest rates on new bond issues in order to attract investors.