How Will States Tax Global Income?
Ever since Federal Tax Law was changed by the Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) the states have been struggling to catch up.
This is true in many ways, but one way is in how they tax global income. The TCJA
created the title Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI). This is
applied to the act of taking income from things like patents or trademarks and
sending it to a foreign corporation controlled by the original US based
business. This foreign corporation would be in a low tax country and allow for
more profits to be shielded from taxation. How have states adjusted to this
form of tax avoidance?
While
this strategy has been around for a long time, the GILTI category under Section
951A has been the best effort so far at discouraging that kind of behavior
from businesses. With that said, most states have done very little to follow up
with their own guidance. That might be because they have very little in the way
of international commerce within their borders. However, California has one of
the biggest economies in the world and it does not tax GILTI at all. New
York state taxes a small amount, whereas New York City can potentially tax a
large percentage. Now there is a lot of uncertainty around a potentially large
source of income. That will change in the next few months as different groups
will lobby to get their best ideas put in place. If you are based in the United
States and do business in other countries, there will be new rules for you soon.
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