The federal stimulus bill (the CARES Act), HR 748, which was signed into law by President Trump on March 27, includes certain corporate income tax provisions designed to provide relief to corporate taxpayers. One such provision–the net operating loss (NOL) provision that allows taxpayers to carryback NOLs to prior years–could have unintended consequences at the state level. For some taxpayers, the carryback of NOLs to 2018 and 2019 could reduce the deductions allowed pursuant to IRC § 250 applicable to global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) and foreign derived intangible income (FDII) generated in those years. While this will obviously have federal income tax consequences it will also have consequences in states that tax GILTI and allow the deductions in IRC § 250. This blog post focuses on the consequences of the NOL rules to the New Jersey Corporation Business Tax (CBT), but the issue could arise in other states, including, for example, Nebraska and Iowa.

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