Tariffs and Taxes
Businesses and investors are being hit with a lot of mixed signals when it comes to tariff and tax policy. Just as one initiative is announced, it can be countermanded the next day and redoubled the day afterward. From a tax policy perspective, the negotiations of a possible extension of the 2016 TCJA adjustments are ongoing. Monitoring the intersection between political horse trading and common sense is the best we can do at this point and to take the good conditions as we have them.
Attached is a good cheat sheet and resource for the latest updates from the Tax Foundation. (Interestingly, the Tax Foundation estimates that the IEEPA and Section 232 tariffs will reduce US GDP by 0.4 percent and hours worked by 309,000 full-time equivalent jobs, before accounting for foreign retaliation.)
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tariffs-trade-war/
h/t Jared Walscak
When is a Family Loan not a Loan? Tariffs and Taxes
Intra-family loans are a powerful, flexible and underused estate and wealth planning tool.
They are a good way of providing liquidity to the next generation while teach lessons about the importance of repayment. However, you have to dot the i's and cross the t's in case of future scrutiny. This case sets out what happens when you have a good fact pattern.
(h/t Robert Keebler)
The Corporate Transparency Act is functionally dead.
On March 21, 2025 FinCEN issued an interim rule to dramatically narrow the scope of the Corporate Transparency Act. Specifically, under the interim rule:
1. The definition of “reporting company” was amended so only entities formed under the law of a foreign country who register to do business in the U.S. will be reporting companies; and
2. An additional exception was created, so a corporation, LLC, or other entity created by filing a document with a secretary of state or equivalent is excluded from the definition of “reporting company”.
(h/t Stephen Liss)