Monthly Archives: April 2017

According to Reuters US President Donald Trump has revealed that he will make a major tax reform announcement this Wednesday, 26 April 2017.

We previously posted on March 24, 2017 Breaking News - Possibly No Tax Reform This Year! where we discussed that Donald Trump has proposed tax reforms that would:

• significantly reduce marginal tax rates for both individuals and businesses,
• increase standard deduction amounts to nearly four times current levels,
• limit or repeal some tax expenditures,
• repeal the individual and corporate alternative minimum taxes and the estate and gift taxes, and
• tax the profits of foreign subsidiaries of US companies in the year they are earned.  

So Where Does That Leave Tax Advisers?

 

____________________________________________

 

 

Fast-forward and now it appears that

Tax Reform Is 'Impossible' This Year."

 

Now according to Law360 Businesses that entered 2017 with a high degree of optimism for the prospects of tax reform are now feeling increasingly uncertain following President Donald Trump's latest decision to once again put tax reform on hold while going back to reworking health care policies.

All the talk of tax reform without any substantive action from the president, or even so much as an outline from the White House for tax policy proposals, has tempered the sanguine disposition that businesses had at the start of the year, experts say.

"There is a window in which tax reform can be taken up and that window will close once we get into the election season next year for midterm. I would expect that they have to get something done by the early part of next year or everything might start to get derailed," David Blair, an attorney and chair of Crowell & Moring LLP's tax group, said.
 

Months after Trump promised a phenomenal tax plan, the White House's direction on tax reform is wholly unclear, with mixed messages coming from administration officials. Trump himself has wavered on the centerpiece, and the most controversial part, of the House Republicans' blueprint for tax reform, to not tax exports, while disallowing deductions for import expenses. The proposal is commonly known as the Border Adjusted Tax. Trump has said that he simply does not like the word "adjustment" and equates it to America losing in the trade game.

He has also indicated that he prefers a straightforward tariff on imports at the border to a policy change embedded in the tax code.

Trump's comments have experts scratching their heads trying to figure out if the president merely has a branding issue with the BAT or if he has more substantial policy arguments against the BAT which would meet his goal to incentivize domestic manufacturing.

Trump could very well ultimately come out with a recalibrated version of the BAT proposal. Tax cuts and a plan to encourage businesses to repatriate their offshore earnings are among the other tax policy proposals he has remained firm on. However, the specifics of how he would achieve these goals are still unknown.

 

Have a Tax Problem?

 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A.

 

 for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact US at 

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).

 

 

Sources:

Law360

We had previously posted on August 10, 2016, Cayman Islands FATCA Reporting of American Depositors is TODAY - Don't Wait Until it is TOO Late to Come Clean! where we discussed that August 10, 2016 was the deadline for Cayman Islands financial institutions to complete their notification and reporting of American Clients' accounts to the Cayman Tax Information Authority, under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
 

Do You Have Undeclared Income From 

a Grand Cayman Island Account, Entity or 

a Grand Cayman Island Mutual Fund?
 

 

 

Want to Know if the OVDP Program
is Right for You?

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A.  

 

for a FREE Tax Consultation

at: www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243

According to Law360, a software and hospitality executive accused of not withholding federal taxes must face criminal charges after the U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to consider his challenge of a Sixth Circuit decision holding that those charges are not precluded by a civil suit court order forcing him to work without pay.

Rankin had been made to serve as an unpaid corporate president until a state appellate court overturned that order in 2012 as unconstitutionally amounting to involuntary servitude under the 13th Amendment.

Three years later, Rankin found himself facing federal criminal charges for allegedly failing to account for Medicare and withholding taxes.

Rankin's argument was that the order to continue as president of the corporation was ultimately overturned as involuntary servitude, the six months that had been served under that order should bar further criminal prosecution.

However, when the federal criminal charges followed, Rankin unsuccessfully argued that they amounted to a case of constitutionally prohibited double jeopardy.

The Sixth Circuit panel unanimously ruled that the criminal charges should not be thrown out because they are “completely different” from the civil case and now the U.S. Supreme Court refused on April 24, 2017 to consider his challenge of a Sixth Circuit decision.