Senate Finance Committee Republicans say the “retail glitch” was a mistake. In a letter to Treasury and the IRS, the panel’s GOP members said they never intended for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to require a longer depreciation period for capital improvements by retailers and restaurants. They said the intent of the new law was to allow the same 15-year write-offs as for similar capital equipment in other businesses. The letter also includes other expressions of congressional intent.
Analysis: The TCJA increased complexity of the tax code. The tax code contained 216 tax expenditures before enactment of the TCJA. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s new study shows that the TCJA introduced seven more, making that element of code more complex despite a GOP promise to simplify it. The 2017 law did make tax filing easier for many taxpayers who now take the increased standard deduction.
California’s marijuana tax revenue falls short of expectations. The state expected the legal pot market—which opened in January—to raise $185 million in excise tax revenue by now. Bbut so far it’s raised only $82 million. The state’s top cannabis regulator suggests that the revenue shortfall was caused by the unwillingness of many consumers to move from the illegal market to the regulated one.
If Tesla goes private, shareholders better save up for a big tax bill. CNBC explains how a $10,000 investment in Tesla when the firm went public eight years ago could result in at least a $33,800 capital gains tax bill today, should the company go private. Tesla’s size would prevent shareholders from employing strategies that could protect them from a big bill.
President Trump to The Wall Street Journal: Tariffs will save the US steel industry. Trump says that his steel tariffs may make the metal “a little more expensive” right now, but prices l will drop, and competition will be “internal, like it used to be in the old days.” His optimism is unique. Because of other countries’ retaliatory import taxes, most economists consider tariffs an additional cause of the steel industry’s troubles.
If you’d like to tell us about a new research paper or have any comments about the Daily Deduction, TPC’s summary of the day’s tax news, write Renu Zaretsky at [email protected]. You can sign up here to receive the Daily Deduction as an email newsletter every weekday morning (Mondays only when Congress is in recess) at 8:00 am.
Posts and comments are solely the opinion of the author and not that of the Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute, or Brookings Institution.
Topics
Share this page
- © Urban Institute, Brookings Institution, and individual authors, 2022.