Monthly LRA Update: January 2025

TAX DEVELOPMENTS

Ken Kies Nominated to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury

On January 22 Ken Kies was formally nominated to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. According to press reports, Mr. Kies is expected to focus on tax policy.

Mr. Kies has been a tax policy lobbyist, including work with Finseca. He also served as Chief of Staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation from 1995-1998.

President Trump’s Remarks to the World Economic Forum

On January 23 President Trump spoke via videoconference to the World Economic Forum. Among other remarks, below is an excerpt on Trump’s tax policy objectives.

To further unleash our economy, our majorities in the House and Senate — which we also took, along with the presidency — are going to pass the largest tax cut in American history, including massive tax cuts for workers and family and big tax cuts for domestic producers and manufacturers. And we’re working with the Democrats on getting an extension of the original Trump tax cuts, as you probably know by just reading any paper.

My message to every business in the world is very simple: Come make your product in America, and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on Earth. We’re bringing them down very substantially, even from the original Trump tax cuts. But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a tariff — differing amounts, but a tariff — which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars into our Treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt.

Also, here was Trump’s response to a question from Brian Moynihan (CEO of Bank of America).

You know, Brian, we’re at 21 percent. It was at 40 percent, and I got it down to 21 percent — the corporate tax. And it was — actually, if you look at state and city, it was, in many cases, much higher than 40 percent. I got it down to 21 percent. And now we’re going to bring it down from 21 to 15 percent if — this is a big “if” — if you make your product in the U.S.

So, we’re going to have the lowest — just about the lowest rate. It will be — the 21 is on the low side worldwide; the 15 is about as low as it gets, and by far the lowest of a large country — a large, you know, rich, powerful country — by far, not even a contest.

So, we’re going to bring it down to 15 percent if you make your product in the USA. So, that’s going to create a — a tremendous buzz.

We will continue to monitor the new Administration’s tax policy initiatives.

ACCOUNTING DEVELOPMENTS

FASB Exposure Draft – Codification

On January 22 FASB released an exposure draft for a Proposed Accounting Standards Update – Codification Improvements. The exposure draft identified 34 proposed updates to the Codification. We reviewed the list of items and do not believe any have applicability to BOLI or COLI accounting standards.

FASB welcomes comments on the exposure draft through April 22, 2025.