New York is the latest state to address certain state tax implications of the 2017 federal tax reform bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 30-day amendments to the Governor’s Budget Bill were released on February 15 and one piece of the amended Bill explicitly addresses the foreign-earnings, deemed federal repatriation provisions in the new section 965 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC).
Even before the release of the 30-day amendments, we expected the amount of foreign earnings deemed repatriated and brought into the federal income tax base under IRC § 965 would be considered “other exempt income” under the New York Tax Law and, thus, not subject to tax in New York as long as received from a unitary subsidiary. However, the Governor’s 30-day amendments make it clear that any amount included in the federal tax base under the repatriation transition provisions would be excludable from income, even if such amounts were received from a non-unitary subsidiary. This proposed exclusion for amounts deemed received from non-unitary subsidiaries is an expansion of New York’s usual policy. This expansion, however, would apply only with respect to the deemed repatriation of foreign earnings under IRC § 965.
The 30-day amendments also would make clear the federal deduction permitted under IRC § 965(c) (which facilitates a reduction of the effective federal tax rate on the deemed repatriated foreign earnings) would not be allowed in computing New York taxable income. We expected New York would make this proposed change because disallowing the § 965(c) deduction from New York taxable income would be consistent with excluding the deemed repatriation from taxable income.
Unlike other states, i.e., Connecticut, the Governor’s Bill does not address the amount of expenses attributable to the amount deemed repatriated under IRC § 965 and includable in the New York tax base. The Governor’s Bill would, however, provide that no penalties would be imposed for any failure to make sufficient estimated payments if the short-fall in payments is due to the increase in tax resulting from the inability to deduct such expenses from taxable income.
Please reach out to us with any questions about New York’s proposed treatment of the federal repatriation provisions or other questions about the potential law changes in New York.
