04 December 2017 Senate passes tax reform bill with implications for employers In the early morning hours of December 2, 2017, the Senate narrowly passed its version of the tax reform bill, the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" (H.R.1), by a party-line vote of 51-49, with only one Republican withholding his vote. The House must now vote to move the tax reform bill into Conference Committee where the House and Senate can resolve their differences. If the House and Senate each pass the compromise measure agreed to in Conference Committee, the bill will move to President Trump for enactment. Congressional leaders hope to complete the process before the end of this month. From an employer's perspective, the version of H.R. 1 passed by the Senate is largely the same as that approved by the Senate Finance Committee last month with the following changes (see Tax Alert 2017-1913): — Conformity of contribution limits for employer-sponsored retirement plans. The provision that would have applieda single aggregate limit to contributions for an employee in a governmental Section 457(b) plan and elective deferrals for the same employee under a Section 401(k) plan or a Section 403(b) plan of the same employer was removed from the final Senate bill. — Employee achievement awards. Certain awards given to employees (such as cash, cash equivalents and gift cards) would betreated as non-tangible personal property for purposes of the business deduction for these awards. Attached to this Alert is an updated side-by-side of the House and Senate provisions of interest to employers with changes since our last update highlighted in yellow. Get an update on tax reform and other year-end considerations for employers in our December 5 webcast. You can register here. Document ID: 2017-2043 |
