Practice Management

Tax Reform Up For Grabs

By Brian J. Ritchey

With the tax cuts enabled during the Bush administration coming to an end soon, lobbyists and tax attorneys are lining up to offer their opinions on how the tax code should be reformed.

According to an article in the National Law Journal (Firms Gear Up For Critical Tax Polcy Changes), "[a]bout $4 trillion worth of tax revenue provisions are expiring, the most in the history of the U.S. tax system":

"The next president has some ticking time bombs to address," said Jim Miller, a tax attorney who last month moved to Winston & Strawn's Washington office from Hunton & Williams. "There's now the greatest potential for tax reform certainly since 1986".

How is this important to you?  Consider this:

"Tax issues will be the key driver for political and economic activity for the next half-dozen years," Mike T. McNamara (a Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal partner) said. "All of our clients are trying to look at how tax policy will drive or hinder their business plans."

It isn't just your clients who need to watch the tax policy.  Your firm needs to pay close attention to how tax policy is addressed so that you may draft your own business plan that take the new policies into consideration.

Alan J. Auerbach, Jason Furman, and William G. Gale wrote an essay on possible approaches to tax policy titled Facing the Music: The Fiscal Outlook at the End of the Bush Administration.

The tax foundation has a summary of each of the Presidential Candidates' tax plans that can be accessed by clicking here.

If you want to talk about "perfect storms", consider the effects on your business of expiring tax cuts and a struggling economy.  How tax policy is approached in the coming year(s) will be telling on how well our economy rebounds from this (at least so far) minor contraction.

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Full post as published by More Partner Income on May 29, 2008 (boomark / email).