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In a letter today addressed to all members of Congress, the National Restaurant Association called on legislators to extend the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) program and a 15-year depreciation allowance for certain kinds of assets important to the restaurant industry.
The letter, signed by Scott DeFife, Executive Vice President, Policy and Government Affairs, begins with the following statement.On behalf of the National Restaurant Association, I am writing to strongly urge Congress to prospectively and retroactively extend tax provisions that expired at the end of 2011. Two particular provisions of significance to the restaurant industry are: 15-year depreciation for restaurants and the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC). We urge consideration of these measures as part of the discussions on extending through 2012 the payroll-tax reduction that expires at the end of this month.
Read the entire letter here.
Stay tuned. There is more to come about the ongoing House-Senate conference currently seeking an agreement on extending the 2011 payroll-tax cut. It’s not just the National Restaurant Association that is urging legislators to address WOTC and other tax extenders with this bill.PUBLISHED IN
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A proposal by Utah State Representative Brian King, D-Salt Lake City cleared committee on Thursday after the presentation of testimony by various groups. The proposed tax credit program would offer a $1,000 state tax credit to businesses that hire individuals living in homeless shelters or supportive housing. Read about it in Thursday’s Salt Lake City News Blog post by Eric Peterson.
According to Representative King,“It’s basically going out and assisting both homeless individuals and the business community in the state of Utah to get individuals transitioned from being homeless to a more permanent setting– a home, a rental unit, something where they can really get their feet under them and move forward with their lives.”
Royce Van Tassell of the Utah Taxpayers Association spoke against the bill during the committee hearing.
“It’s not clear to the Taxpayer Association that social welfare is best conducted through the tax code,” Van Tassell said. “The fact is there is a $1,000 credit for each person and that money came from someplace and it will be paid for by somebody else.”
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Parallel to the House-Senate conference on extending the payroll tax cut, the Senate Committee on Finance is holding a special hearing on Tuesday to examine the 50 or more tax extenders that expired in December. The hearing is titled: Extenders and Tax Reform: Seeking Long-Term Solutions.
According to a Monday article in Accounting Today,At Tuesday’s hearing, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., ranking Republican member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the witnesses will discuss how best to approach tax extenders in order to create certainty and allow businesses to invest confidently and create jobs.
Witnesses scheduled to testify include Rutgers University economics department chair Rosanne Altshuler, George Mason University senior research fellow Jason J. Fichtner, University of Texas law professor Calvin H. Johnson, and U.S Chamber of Commerce chief tax counsel Caroline L. Harris.
Many of these details can be had on the hearing’s page on Senate Committee on Finance’s website. Click here.
Submit a Statement for the Record (We all should do this now)
You and your organization or business can submit a statement to the committee to get your views into the record. It’s a simple process but there are a few details of protocol that must be observed. The following is copied directly from the Senate website (emphasis added by underlining).
Any individual or organization wanting to present their views for inclusion in the hearing record should submit a typewritten, single-spaced statement, not exceeding 10 pages in length. Title and date of the hearing, and the full name and address of the individual or organization must appear on the first page of the statement. Statements must be received no later than two weeks following the conclusion of the hearing.
Statements should be mailed (not faxed) to:
Senate Committee on Finance
Attn. Editorial and Document Section
Rm. SD-219
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200bPUBLISHED IN
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