ABC President and CEO Mike Bellaman hit the airwaves last week one day after congressional and administration leaders released a highly anticipated tax reform framework. “Our 21,000 members are applauding,” ABC CEO Mike Bellaman said in a live interview with Fox Business’s early-morning FBN:am show on Thursday, Sept. 28. “This helps our big companies, our small companies as well as our workers.”
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President Trump kicked off his push for tax reform with a speech at a manufacturing facility in Springfield, Mo., making the case that a "pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-worker, and a pro-American" tax code is the key to revitalizing Main Street businesses, bringing back jobs and keeping the United States competitive in the global economy. The event, attended by local small business leaders including more than a dozen members of ABC’s Heart of America Chapter, marked the opening salvo in the White House’s effort to sell a highly anticipated tax bill that sits atop the GOP’s fall legislative agenda.
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In anticipation of congressional action on tax reform this fall, ABC sent out a survey Aug. 15 asking members to weigh in on their top priorities in a tax reform bill. Members are encouraged to respond to the quick survey through the ABC Action Center, where your responses will be used to shape ABC's message as it pushes for tax reform on Capitol Hill.
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ABC joined 42 other national and state organizations in signing onto a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin asking the department to address the confusing and conflicting definitions of “seasonal worker” and “seasonal employee” that are included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its implementing regulations.
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The Internal Revenue Service last week identified the proposed Section 2704 regulations concerning the valuation of family businesses among eight unduly burdensome or complex rules that would be marked for rescission or modification. According to the notice, “these proposed regulations would create an additional category of restrictions that also would be disregarded in assessing the fair market value of an interest.” The notice also noted concerns from public commenters including the increased financial burden to family businesses and the difficulty in making accurate valuations.
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In the waning days of the Obama administration, the Treasury Department released proposed regulations under Section 2704 that could have a profound impact on the valuation and therefore taxation of family businesses. The regulations as written would institute back-door “family attribution,” a standard that has been rejected by the courts for decades, and that would jeopardize traditional discounts for minority ownership stakes, inflating tax bases by as much as 40 percent. As the regulations were not finalized by the time President Obama left office, there is no effective date, but the rule remains pending.
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The White House rolled out its tax proposal, which aides have billed as “the biggest individual and business tax cut in American history” on April 26. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and National Economic Council Chair Gary Cohn laid out President Trump’s principles for reform from behind the podium, and a one-page document was distributed to the press.
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On Feb. 16, President Trump announced R. Alexander Acosta as his nominee for Secretary of Labor. Acosta is currently the dean of the Florida International University College of Law and previously served as an assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division and as a member of the National Labor Relations Board. His nomination followed Andy Puzder’s withdrawal from the confirmation process.
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On Feb. 9, President Trump signed three executive orders,
including: 1) directing the administration’s new Attorney General to develop a strategy to more effectively prosecute people who engage in crimes against law enforcement officers, 2) establishing a task force to reduce crime in communities across the nation, and 3) refocusing federal resources on disrupting transnational criminal organizations.
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The U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate have reached a deal on both the Omnibus spending package and extending certain expired tax provisions commonly referred to as “extenders.”
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