Tax Legislation Outlook for 2015
December 29, 2014 11:57 AM
2015 will bring a new Congress, with Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate and two new chairmen of the tax-writing committees. Image: Bloomberg News
Incoming House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has expressed an interest in doing corporate tax reform as a first step. Image: Bloomberg News
Micah Green, chair of the financial services and tax policy practice group at Squire Patton Boggs, said that bonds whose proceeds benefit private activity and banks' ability to buy tax-exempt bonds "could come under the scope of corporate and business tax reform."
Michael Decker, SIFMA managing director and co-head of municipal securities, said that there's a risk that Congress could curtail the muni exemption in any tax initiative. "That's a risk we take seriously," he said.
Most experts believe that the 2016 presidential election will complicate tax-reform efforts. Since the presidential campaigns will ramp up in the fall, Congress will have a hard time moving legislation on serious policy issues after 2015, or even earlier, after the summer.
In 2014, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., released a comprehensive tax reform proposal that would impose a 10% surtax on municipal bond interest for high earners and eliminate the tax-exemption for new private-activity bonds. Camp did not receive support for his proposal from his colleagues. Image: Bloomberg News
