Government Funding
With just a week left before funding for the federal government is scheduled to lapse, Congress is once again in a standoff over how to proceed. House leadership had floated the concept of a “laddered” approach to appropriations, whereby a series of separate shutdown deadlines would be established for different agencies. Some would be funded through December 7, others through January 19, 1024. But that plan lacks support and it appears that the Senate’s approach of passing a Continuing Resolution (CR) until mid-December will prevail.
While the upper chamber’s plan would keep the federal government’s lights on past next Friday, it still sets up a pre-holiday, pre year end showdown over spending. It seems to play out like this every year, but the good news is that these year-end funding deals typically provide a platform to move important policy proposals. Likely to ride on this first CR is an extension (possibly yearlong) of the Farm Bill, which expired September 30. On that second funding show down, we expect that package to provide the vehicle for tax legislation discussed below.
Tax Package
A key member of the House Ways & Means Committee reported on Tuesday that Republicans are looking to move $35 to $40 billion of business tax relief in an end of year tax bill in which Senate Democrats are looking to pair with an expansion of the Child Tax Credit in that same price tag range. The business tax extenders would be those for which ABMA has been advocating— extension of the 100 percent bonus depreciation benefit also known as full expensing, extension of the research and development tax credit that expired in 2022 and restoration of the EBITDA standard for calculating interest expense deductibility.
We continue to meet with Members and staff on and off the tax writing committees to urge expeditious action on these critical tax extensions.
Corporate Transparency Act
The small to medium sized business community is once again reaching out to Congress to delay implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act, a little-known federal anti-corruption and anti-fraud law enacted in 2021 that takes effect in a little over a month and a half. ABMA has signed on to a previous letter to House and Senate leadership asking for an implementation delay but given the compliance date is just weeks away the pressure is building. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) sent this letter to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (the implementing and enforcing federal entity at the Department of Treasury) on October 30 outlining its serious concerns with FinCen sticking with the statutory deadline for compliance. The issue is that it is an obscure statute and compliance obligations—which are all reporting requirements—have not been well socialized.
