Colleagues,

Latest reports indicate that the House-Senate conferees are close to a final compromise bill.  Senate sources say that the House provisions that target the PTC and ITC will not be in the final bill because Republican leadership fears that several senators from renewable energy states would vote against the final bill.  President Trump is scheduled to lunch with the conferees today and will comment on the tax reform bill later this afternoon.

As for the senate bill, staff from several senate offices are drafting language to correct the bill’s BEAT (Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax) provisions.  As originally drafted, those provisions impose a minimum tax on companies’ foreign transactions. The corrective language, however, will not be available until Friday.

The final bill will be released on Friday on the House Ways and Means web site.  The bill will be scheduled for a vote in the House on Monday.  The Senate will vote on Tuesday. This schedule does not provide enough time for us to comment on the final bill.

It seems that senate staff are doing all they can to propose corrective language to the BEAT provisions, but they’re constrained by the domino effect that any change will have on the entire tax reform bill.  If there’s a glimmer of hope in this process, it’s that staff say a correction bill would be introduced early next year if the actual impact of the BEAT provisions is as severe as predicted.

We’ll send along another update as soon as the final bill is released.

Larry

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