Trump tax plan

Reform’s effect on tax-exempts; hitting the marketing balance; Bozo of the year; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google moved 15.9 billion euros ($19.2 billion) to a Bermuda shell company in 2016, saving at least $3.7 billion in taxes that year, regulatory filings in the Netherlands show.

The name that Republican tax writers gave to a new, multibillion-dollar business levy implies that it targets foreign earnings from “intangible” intellectual property—hitting tech firms and drugmakers like Apple Inc. and Pfizer Inc.

The Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department will generally allow existing loans and other related-party transactions involving the overseas affiliates of multinational corporations to be taxed at the lower of two preferential rates, according to an official notice.

The Internal Revenue Service said it is working on developing withholding guidance to implement the tax reform bill signed into law on December 22.

President Trump boasted about his tax knowledge during an impromptu interview with The New York Times in which he claimed to know taxes “better than the greatest CPA.”

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the U.S. tax reform will cut profit this year by about $5 billion, mainly because of a tax targeting earnings held abroad.

A provision in the new tax law, intended to prevent American companies from shifting profits abroad to benefit from a lower overseas rate, might also hit the largest foreign banks with significant U.S. operations.

Local jurisdictions in high-tax states are grappling with changes from the tax reform act.

But many 2018 taxes have already been levied, experts say.