Rahul Sharma's AP Govt Blog 2.6

When the House of Representatives passed its long-awaited tax overhaul this month, General Electric Co. had a potentially big problem: One part of the bill could cost the conglomerate more than $1 billion in new taxes if it becomes law. GE lobbyists scrambled and won an alternative in the Senate’s version of the tax bill preserving the company’s ability to use those losses when calculating its tax liability. Foreign airlines want a provision included in the Senate bill that would require foreign airlines to pay taxes on income earned on U.S. flights in some cases. Delta Air Lines is lobbying to keep the new tax in the final bill, arguing that it could raise $200 million over a decade.
After the bill was debated and voted on in the Senate, the Senate bill passed the committee, and it included language that explicitly permits companies to use their qualified deficits to offset overseas profits. The Senate version also included language that would prevent companies from holding on to those losses to offset against the corporate income tax in future years.
The House version of this tax bill will raise borrowing costs and increase the tax burden on families in high-tax states. The Build Coalition, a group of associations from the telecommunications, manufacturing and agriculture industries that formed to protect the corporate interest provision, warned that Republicans would be acting counter to their promise to spur business investment by following through on the proposal. The plan would slash the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. The progressive Not One Penny campaign fights to make sure the tax overhaul is not a boon for the rich. Liberal organizations such as MoveOn, Tax March, and the Working Families Party, has already spent more than $1 million advertising in congressional districts across the country to urge lawmakers from both parties to oppose tax cuts for the rich, and it expects to become more active. Since congressional districts are local to certain areas, I think they are using Grass-Roots.

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