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Amy Zelcer is a special tax counsel in the Tax Department. Amy works on U.S. federal corporate, partnership, and international tax matters, including domestic and cross-border financings, capital markets transactions, mergers and acquisitions, investments and restructurings.

Amy also maintains an active pro bono practice, representing not-for-profit/tax-exempt clients on a variety of matters, such as applying for and maintaining exemption from federal income tax and minimizing unrelated business taxable income.

From Proskauer’s Not For Profit / Exempt Organization Blog, a discussion of recent IRS guidance and New York State legislative relief on Internal Revenue Code 512(a)(7), added by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”)…

Inclusion of Qualified Transportation Fringe Benefits in UBTI: Guidance, Relief, and Rumors of Possible Repeal

This post outlines at a high-level certain provisions under the recently enacted 2017 tax legislation (Pub. L. 115-97, the “Tax Act”) that may affect M&A Transactions.  Some of these rules are very complex, particularly in cross-border transactions, and this post describes them in general terms without all of their fine details.  The discussion of foreign corporations below is in the context of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. groups.

Multiple Lower Effective Corporate Tax Rates

There are now multiple effective corporate tax rates and the much-despised corporate alternative minimum tax has been repealed.  Because all of them are substantially below 35 percent, they may contribute to an increase in asset prices.  In addition, tax benefits now may be less valuable to corporate purchasers than to non-corporate buyers.

Base Corporate Income Tax Rate21 percent tax rate (effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017).  No sunset provision.

Certain Foreign Source Income Earned from the U.S (“FDII”).—Intended to attract cross-border business back to the U.S., a tax rate lower than 21 percent is now imposed on certain excess returns earned by a U.S. corporation on the sale, license or lease of property or the provision of services to an unrelated foreign party for foreign use or consumption.  (Additional rules apply when the transaction is with a related party.)  In broad terms, the lower rate applies to the foreign source income from these transactions in excess of 10 percent of the corporation’s allocable depreciable tangible property basis.

On Friday, December 22, 2017, President Trump signed into law H.R. 1, the $1.5 trillion tax reform law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Reform Act”). This alert describes provisions of the Tax Reform Act that we expect will have the most significant impact and immediate effect on the sports industry. Unless otherwise noted, all proposals described below will be effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017.

Over the last several days, there have been significant developments relating to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the pending tax reform legislation in Congress.[1]  On Thursday, a detailed summary of the Senate Finance Committee’s proposal was released (the “Senate Markup”),[2] and the House Ways and Means Committee voted (in a 24-16, party-line vote) to advance their bill for consideration by the full House of Representatives (the “House Bill”).[3]  This post describes provisions of the Senate Markup and House Bill that would have the most significant impact on the sports industry, including important differences between the two proposals.  Unless otherwise noted, all proposals described below would be effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017.