The American Institute of Architects has been one of the many vocal opponents to the House and Senate tax plans, which would gut historic tax credits and harm architecture firms, especially those smaller in size. However, after a concerted effort to lobby Congress, the AIA is newly "encouraged" by some last minute amendments made to the tax reform legislation contained in the House-Senate Conference Agreement announced late Friday night.
In particular, the latest revisions have resolved some of the issues surrounding the Historic Tax Credit. While the House's version would have eliminated it entirely, the Senate's plan would've simply diluted its impact by spreading the credit over five years time. Now in its reconciled form, the tax plan keeps the HTC and improves on the Senate bill's language by adding some flexibility for architects wishing to utilize the 20 percent credit.
The other highly welcomed revision is that the tax plan now allows a 20 percent deduction for businesses organized as “pass-through” entities like S-corps, sole proprietorships and Limited Liability Partnerships, subject to income limitations. The Senate bill would have greatly restricted this deduction for “service” businesses like doctors, lawyers, architects and financial services firms. The final conference package now contains specific language stating that architecture and engineering firms are not subject to the limiting provision that applies to other service businesses.
"This is a massive, complex piece of legislation that will affect each and every architect and architecture firm differently, depending on how they do business" said AIA 2018 President Carl Elefante, FAIA. "The AIA lobbied hard and successfully to improve this bill, and to ensure that architects continue to be major job creators in the American economy. Gaining tax relief for architects who organize as pass through companies - which includes the majority of U.S. architecture firms - is a significant improvement over earlier drafts. So is preserving at least in part the Historic Tax Credit, which was totally abolished by the original House tax reform bill."
"We owe a deep debt of gratitude to our members for their efforts in reaching out to their elected representatives to make our views known and to make this legislation better for architects and the country. It's clear that the conferees listened to our members, who showed the power of our profession to effect change even when the obstacles to change are huge" Elefante added.
The amount of waffling that has occurred in the AIA is frustrating. It's like a they're trying to tack a larger ship like it's a small sailboat.
"We'll work with you."
"Well..."
"Whoa, that's not good"
"Wait- we see signs of hope. Things (architects) are Looking Up."
Regardless of the current bill (although it's impacts will be significant), this is a tell about the lack of sincere investment by the national organization to do serious homework about candidates before the election. This was discussed in a number of previous threads, including the RIBA responses to party manifestos.
The AIA needs to stop telling other people how architects might feel about political events along while telling architects how the should feel about the same events. Instead- the organization should be listening, describing opportunities and threats, and creating opportunities for Architects beyond just saying "yes" to the people they like.
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The AIA "lobbied hard" I mean I know that the leadership is mostly men, but seriously, there's nothing hard inside that group.
All the negative misinformation about the tax bill is infuriating. As I currently understand the bill, I will decrease my taxes by about $7,000 next year. Far more people will pay lower taxes under this bill than they do now. The increase in the standard deduction and child tax credit is good for working families. Far fewer people will need to itemize taxes, meaning less money spent on tax services and accountants. The majority of people paying higher taxes will be the upper middle class in high tax states that bought expensive houses - I'm personally not very sympathetic. This is a very good bill for the vast majority of Americans.
Yes, the Republicans are rolling the dice that a reduction of the corporate rate will lead to expanded economic growth (it's already worked on the stock market), but that's the vision this country voted for when Trump and the Rs were elected to office.
Finally! A sane, informed response to a Trump-related post on Archinect. Thank you!
that's your individual take, now can you tell me how are we going to deal with the deficit this bill is creating?
Increased revenue from business returning to the US that was previously done overseas due to the 35% tax rate being slashed...And all the money that has been sitting in banks waiting for the stagnation to end will now be in play for investment back into the US.
Reduce spending
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19...
Do your own taxes and see how you will benefit. At the end of the day that is all that will matter for individual Americans.
the bill is great for you because your income is pretty high. but as i understand it, journalists and policy organizations are assessing the bill more broadly on how it will _unevenly_ impact the whole spectrum of american citizens - hence, the criticism.
How should the bill further help low income families that are already paying little, if any taxes? Of course the percentage benefit is going to be very small when you are paying nothing.
How? Is that a real question?
This Ayn Rand, Rugged Individualism is so fucking 1940's I just can't believe there's one person on this planet, aside from Herr Schumacher, that actually believes it anymore. What's even more galling is this narrative that there's not one bit cronyism, or corporate welfare in this bill. We fucking bailed, BAILED, out these choad monsters after the criminal bullshit they got away with, and now, now they get the icing, when before they got just day old cake.
Fucking pole smoking asspuppets.
How is that not a real question? I'd be interested to read your response.
In an economy growing responsibly, this corporate hand job is wholly unneccessary. It doesn't give poor, working class people jobs. It takes away any incentive to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and get an education. Infrastructure, actual hands on labor, skilled and unskilled, is what we need, and it's the only thing - aside from Burger Rey - that corporations can't outsource, or use immigrant labor.
The amount of waffling that has occurred in the AIA is frustrating. It's like a they're trying to tack a larger ship like it's a small sailboat.
"We'll work with you."
"Well..."
"Whoa, that's not good"
"Wait- we see signs of hope. Things (architects) are Looking Up."
Regardless of the current bill (although it's impacts will be significant), this is a tell about the lack of sincere investment by the national organization to do serious homework about candidates before the election. This was discussed in a number of previous threads, including the RIBA responses to party manifestos.
The AIA needs to stop telling other people how architects might feel about political events along while telling architects how the should feel about the same events. Instead- the organization should be listening, describing opportunities and threats, and creating opportunities for Architects beyond just saying "yes" to the people they like.
The inclusion of the 20% pass through deduction will in and of itself save my business $7,000 in taxes next year. If the AIA is at all responsible for its inclusion in the final bill, I thank them.
So will you join AIA now, won? Or are you a member already?
No, I'm not a member, but I support what they are trying to do for the profession. Personally, my work has strayed from doing straight architecture, and it was never really my scene anyway. Perhaps if I ever go back to architecture, I would consider joining it.
How should the bill further help low income families that are already paying little, if any taxes? Of course the percentage benefit is going to be very small when you are paying nothing.
It's not just about taxes, it's about eliminating social programs. Rich people don't need them and don't want to pay for them. The social contract and any idea of noblesse oblige is anathema to them.
The plan is simple: give a bunch of tax breaks to people who don't need them then point at the broken budget and say "we can't afford Medicare, Medicaid, and social security". Just wait and see - they'll gut those program faster than a sushi chef slices up tuna.
Of course the whole economic system is a sham, but that's besides the point.
And stop perpetuating the myth that the poor pay nothing. Everyone who works pays FICA, sales taxes, and a multitude of fees (license, registration, marriage, etc.). They also effectively pay the mortgages for the properties they rent. In fact the entire system could be described as "rent extraction", where poor people own nothing and pay for everything all the time.
The tax bill in front of Congress only addresses federal income taxes of which 44% of Americans pay nothing. That's not a "myth"; that's a fact. What more should the tax bill do for people paying nothing?
I too share some of your concerns about the Rs making changes to Medicare (SS cannot be touched under legislative rules), like raising the opt-in age, but quite frankly in a Senate split 51-49, there is no chance in hell the Rs will have the votes to pass what would be a very controversial bill on Medicare. So I stopped worrying.
won, you're being duplicitous;
great, tax cuts for the VAST majority of Americans - [vast majority of americans are workers, not business owners]
cut spending to pay for it - [medicare and social security are not to be touched]
how, pray tell, do you deal with this $1,500,000,000,000 hole, without cutting entitlements?
These tax cuts will not produce jobs. People are going to be thrown off their healthcare. Not one, not one tax cut in the history of the United States has ever benefited a poor person, or middle income person; ever.
Social security has its own revenue stream, so little to be concerned about there. Medicare is paid out of general funds, so it is threatened by budget cuts. I personally would cut every other federal department first, including defense, before touching Medicare, but the Rs will not do that. So the deficit will go up.
Will the cuts produce jobs or increase wages? I would call historical evidence inconclusive. (And please don't bore me with links to articles you've googled showing the failure of trickle down economics; I've read them.)
Personally, I will take some of the money from the tax cut and invest it back into the business (add an additional workstation at the office, potentially put some towards contract labor) and take some as profit. Is that successful supply side economics? You tell me.
I won't bore you. What I will question is this, we have had three major tax cuts since 1964, Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush. They existed, and aren't theoretical, they happened. Now, many would agree that Kennedy's tax cut, from something like 90% to some measure of 65% was necessary, I would agree. Reagan, okay, economy was crippled, so sure, but eventually even he had to raise the taxes later. Bush tax cuts, okay, early signs Great Recession, increase liquidity. However, all of those tax cuts had two things this one doesn't; economic necessity, and bipartisan involvement. This shit on a shingle is unnecessary, and goes to line the pockets of people that don't need it, unless of course you're afraid that the $22 million you're leaving your loved ones, really needs some serious protection, and if that's the case, buy more fire insurance, you're going to need it.
Bush classified an IRS report that showed the top 400 earners in the country paid 14% federal income tax.
I don’t disagree with anything you write, beta and Miles. The timing of these tax cuts is different than previous with unemployment hovering around 4%. However wage growth has been stagnant since the recession; economic growth has been positive, but fairly anemic. If over the next few years the economy grows at 3-4% and wages increase this tax cut will have been a
success. Time will tell.
Corporations first concern is always shareholders, and CEO bonuses, not workers, or wages. We have a declining, or I would suggest a stabilizing birth rate, and an increasingly aging population. I would find that the economic growth we've experienced is corollary of those demographic realities. I suggest the American people have that dreaded disease of unchecked nostalgia, and need to embrace the reality we've made for ourselves.
analysis:
Some of the provisions in the House bill that benefit the middle-class —
like lower tax rates and fewer brackets, an increased standard
deduction, and a $300 tax credit for each adult in a household — are
designed to expire or become less generous over time. Some of the
provisions that benefit the wealthy, such as the reduction and eventual
repeal of the estate tax, become more generous over time. The result is
that by 2027, the benefits of the House bill become increasingly
generous for the richest one percent compared to other income group
...
The House bill would reduce the statutory corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. But the effective tax rate paid by American corporations (the share of profits actually paid in taxes) is far less than 35 percent because of special breaks and loopholes in the tax code.
A 2016 study produced by the Government Accountability Office found that the effective tax rate paid by large profitable American corporations from 2008 through 2012 was just 14 percent. It found that the share of these corporations paying no federal income tax at all was 19.5 percent in 2012 and 24.1 percent in 2011.[14]
A recent study from ITEP examines a particularly profitable group of corporations – the Fortune 500 corporations that were profitable each year from 2008 through 2015. Even among these super-profitable companies, there were several with effective tax rates that were close to zero or below zero for the eight-year period.[15]
In other words, there is little justification for reducing the statutory corporate income tax rate as the House bill would.
http://thehill.com/regulation/...
Compassionate conservatives ...
Thank god for the AIA swamp creatures, lol
I like the accomplishments here, but think it will be a net negative, like a WMD in the economy—usually very bad in the short to long run when prosperity and savings is limited to the 1%
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