Utah is already looking forward to an $80 million windfall from the federal tax overhaul, but there are a lot of other details to work out.
John Valentine, chairman of the Utah Tax Commission, briefed state lawmakers on Wednesday on some lingering issues related to Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by President Trump last December.
One has to do with U.S. companies returning money they had stashed overseas to avoid U.S. taxes. Corporations repatriating that money are expected to pay the federal government 15 percent on that income over eight years. States can also tax this money, but there’s a catch.
Valentine said the IRS’s new reporting requirements means Utah will need to make changes to its code to make sure it can collect this cash.
“Corporations are the ones that not being able to report it properly by virtue of the way the IRS is putting together reporting, so we believe we need to have a clarification there," Valentine told lawmakers on the Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee.
He said lawmakers may need to hammer out some of these details this summer to make sure they’re in compliance. The governor’s office confirmed they are in discussions about a special session.
Valentine said he expects it will take two years to fully implement all the changes from the federal tax law.
Utah’s tax code conforms to the federal tax code on what’s called a rolling basis. That means as changes are made to the Internal Revenue Code, Utah adopts those as well.
