Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting US (formerly known as CCH) has released a new report examining the tax implications of the White House’s recently released budget blueprint for fiscal year 2016.
President Obama’s recently released $3.99 trillion spending plan includes a number of new tax incentives for families, education tax breaks for students, proposed tax increases for high-income earners and changes in tax rates for corporations. It also calls for new tax rules applying to corporate earnings beyond America’s borders and the creation of new retirement savings opportunities.
The key proposals are summarized new briefing,
Wolters Kluwer also noted that earlier this month, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to permanently extend six tax breaks that expired at the end of 2014 after they were renewed for two weeks as temporary extensions. The tax breaks, also known as extenders, are designed to support small businesses, S Corporations, the food industry and individuals, with four of the six related to tax breaks for charitable contributions. However, others in Congress feel the broader focus should be on a larger overhaul of the Tax Code and not on specific tax breaks.
On Thursday, the Ways and Means Committee also worked on a markup of several other tax extender bills, along with another bill aimed at strengthening 529 college savings plans.
"We're working on three bills today,” said Ways and Means Committee chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in his opening statement at the legislative markup session. “And the point of all three is to make people's lives easier. It's to give them more certainty about the future. All three deal with the tax code. There's the state and local sales-tax deduction, and there's the R&D credit. We'd make both of these permanent. That would let businesses and families plan for the future—without any fear of expirations or extensions or what have you. But I want to single out one bill for special attention. And that's the one offered by Congresswoman [Lynn] Jenkins. This bill would expand the use of 529 college savings plans. These are great tools families use to save for college. They reward people for investing in our kids' future. And they deserve our full support. Now, what this bill would do is bring the law up to date with reality. We'd let families use their plans to pay for equipment like computers and software. These things aren't nice-to-haves anymore; they're must-haves. And we'd give families more flexibility to deal with things like college refunds and account withdrawals. The point of all this, as I said, is to give people more control over the future.”
