“The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress will begin voting on Tuesday on the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax system in more than 30 years, with little standing in the way of the party’s first major legislative triumph under President Donald Trump,” David Morgan and Amanda Becker report for Reuters.
“The House of Representatives, which introduced initial tax legislation barely six weeks ago on Nov. 2, was scheduled to vote on Tuesday afternoon. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his chamber would vote on Tuesday evening,” Morgan and Becker report. “With strict party-line votes expected in both chambers, passage appeared all but certain.”
“Lingering doubts about fate of the tax bill all but vanished on Monday after two of the last Senate Republican holdouts, Susan Collins and Mike Lee, agreed to support the legislation,” Morgan and Becker report. “The House, where Republicans hold a 239-193 voting majority, was likely to see a smattering of ‘no’ votes from Republican fiscal hawks and lawmakers from the high-tax states of New York, New Jersey and California who oppose a provision that would scale back a popular deduction for state and local taxes. Vice President Mike Pence took the precaution of rescheduling a trip to Egypt and Israel for January so he would be on hand this week in case his tie-breaking voting power is needed to ensure Senate passage of the bill. The legislation also would repeal a federal fine imposed on Americans under Obamacare for not obtaining health insurance coverage, a change that could undermine the 2010 healthcare law formally known as the Affordable Care Act.”
Read more in the full article here.
“Middle-income households will get $61 billion in tax cuts in 2019 under the Republican tax plan poised for passage this week, according to an analysis released late Monday by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation,” Siobhan Hughes and Shayndi Raice report for The Wall Street Journal. “That amounts to 23% of the tax cuts that go directly to individuals.”
“The calculations are based on JCT estimates of cuts going to households that earn $20,000 to $100,000 a year in wages, dividends and benefits. Those households account for about half of all U.S. tax filers, with nearly a quarter making more and a quarter making less,” Hughes and Raice report. “America’s most-affluent households, those earning $500,000 or more a year, which account for 1% of filers, would also get $61 billion in cuts in the first year, according to the JCT analysis.”
Hughes and Raice report, “Much of the rest would go to businesses in the form of corporate tax cuts, according to the JCT analysis.”
Read more in the full article here.
“While these numbers are based on the Senate’s plan of a 20% corporate rate [it’s since been set to 21%], the eventual profit amount Apple could reap is huge,” Johnson writes. “‘Overall, companies like Apple will be happy with [the bill]. They are a getting a territorial system and a lower rate. It’s a good deal,’ Villanova University tax professor Richard Harvey told the Times.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The importance of the U.S. finally moving to a territorial system cannot be overstated.
As we’ve been saying for many years now, and hopefully for not much longer, the U.S. corporate tax rate is obviously way too high and anachronistic.
Under the current U.S. corporate tax system, it would be very expensive to repatriate that cash. Unfortunately, the tax code has not kept up with the digital age. The tax system handicaps American corporations in relation to our foreign competitors who don’t have such constraints on the free flow of capital… Apple has always believed in the simple, not the complex. You can see it in our products and the way we conduct ourselves. It is in this spirit that we recommend a dramatic simplification of the corporate tax code. This reform should be revenue neutral, eliminate all corporate tax expenditures, lower corporate income tax rates and implement a reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows the free flow of capital back to the U.S. We make this recommendation with our eyes wide open, realizing this would likely increase Apple’s U.S. taxes. But we strongly believe such comprehensive reform would be fair to all taxpayers, would keep America globally competitive and would promote U.S. economic growth. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, May 21, 2013
SEE ALSO:
GOP tax cut plan sets 15.5% repatriation rate on offshore cash; 8% if invested in plants and equipment – December 16, 2017
GOP eyes taking bigger bite from Apple, others holding cash overseas to seal President Trump’s tax cuts – December 15, 2017
Apple could be biggest beneficiary of Republican tax reform plans, saving at least $47 billion – December 6, 2017
Dow soars 203 points higher to record as Wall Street cheers U.S. Senate passage of major tax bill – December 4, 2017
Oracle joins Apple in support of President Trump’s tax repatriation plan – November 7, 2017
President Trump’s tax cuts could be YUGE for Apple – September 28, 2017
GOP tax plan calls for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent – September 27, 2017
Goldman Sachs sees $1 trillion in U.S. tax cuts coming – September 20, 2017
Apple will eventually bring billions of dollars back to the U.S. under President Trump’s tax reform plan – July 21, 2017
President Trump’s tax reform plan includes deep cuts in corporate taxes – April 26, 2017
Apple could be primed for profit explosion under President Trump’s big tax cut – April 26, 2017
