News Briefings - DC Highlights
1/2/2009 -- Pension and technical corrections bills signed into law
On Dec. 23, the President signed into law H.R. 7327, the "Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act" (the Pension Act, P.L. 110-458) and S. 3712, which makes a technical correction to the effective date for collective bargaining agreements in mental health parity Act (P.L. 110-460). The Pension Act includes many important tax changes, including eased funding requirements for employer-sponsored pension plans, a waiver of the need to make qualified plan and IRA required minimum distributions for 2009, and a host of much-needed technical corrections to the Pension Protection Act of 2006, including a technical modification of great interest for nonspouse beneficiaries of qualified plan participants and IRA owners. P.L. 110-460 amends § 512(e)(2)(B) of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Healthy Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-343, subtitle B of title V of Division C) by changing "January 1, 2009" to "January 1, 2010" in the special effective date for collective bargaining agreements. Thus, for group health plans maintained under collective bargaining agreements ratified before Oct. 3, 2008, the mental health parity provisions in Act § 512 won't apply to plan years beginning before the later of: (A) the date on which the last of the collective bargaining agreements relating to the plan terminates (determined without regard to any extension thereof agreed to after Oct. 3, 2008), or (B) Jan. 1, 2010.
1/2/2009 -- Enhanced data on sources of income are now available
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has published a supplement to its December 2007 report on the distribution of federal taxes and household income. (Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979 to 2005: Supplement with Additional Data on Sources of Income and High Income Households) As described by CBO, the supplement provides data on federal taxes and household income for additional income groups as well as information about the sources of household income. "The data presented in this report show aggregate income and federal taxes, by source, for various income groupings, including a finer disaggregation in the highest income percentile, CBO said. The information was requested by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The supplement can be found at http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/98xx/doc9884/12-23-EffectiveTaxRates_Letter.pdf.
1/2/2009 -- IRS changes 2008 Instructions for Schedule D (Form 1120S)
Copies of the 2008 Instructions for Schedule D (Form 1120S), Capital Gains
and Losses and Built-In Gains, downloaded before Dec. 24 must be
corrected, according to IRS. On page 1, the agency added the following
"What's New" item--"For tax years ending after March 31,
2008, an S corporation can elect to claim additional research
and minimum tax credits against the built-in gains tax in lieu of claiming any
additional first-year special depreciation allowance for eligible property.
See the instructions for line 20 on page 4." On page
4, IRS added instructions for line 20. The corrected version
of the instructions is located at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1120ssd.pdf.
