Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (“Federal Tax Reform”), Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) section 168(k) provides 100% immediate expensing for qualified property placed into service after September 27, 2017 and before January 1, 2023. Pennsylvania, like many states, currently decouples from IRC section 168(k). In most states, decoupling from the immediate expensing provisions in IRC section 168(k) will merely result in a timing difference as most states allow some alternate form of state-level depreciation. However, the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (“Department”), in a departure from its prior interpretation of Pennsylvania law, recently announced its view that taxpayers are not entitled to a state-level depreciation deduction for property that is fully expensed under IRC section 168(k). A bill has recently been proposed to legislatively reverse the Department’s interpretation and allow a state-level depreciation deduction for property that is fully expensed under IRC section 168(k).
On January 12, 2017, significant unclaimed property legislation, SB13, was introduced in the Delaware General Assembly. If enacted, which appears likely, SB13 would make numerous changes to the state’s much-maligned procedures for enforcing its abandoned and unclaimed property laws. Legislation has been widely expected in the wake of last summer’s summary judgment decision against Delaware in Temple-Inland Inc. v. Cook, 1:14-cv-00654 (D. Del. filed May 21, 2014). In Temple-Inland a federal district court invalidated many of the unclaimed property audit practices authorized by Delaware and implemented by the state’s contract auditors (See our prior coverage Federal District Court Holds Delaware’s Unclaimed Property Enforcement Practices “Shock the Conscience” and Delaware Unclaimed Property Litigation Update). The parties agreed to dismiss the Temple-Inland case before the court could consider remedies to the substantive due process violations it found, and thus, the state was left with the opportunity to pass legislation likely in an effort to preserve the stream of unclaimed property receipts that have become one of Delaware’s largest sources of revenue. Among other changes, the proposed legislation addresses some of the federal district court’s concerns, and provides a path to the state’s voluntary disclosure agreement (“VDA”) program for companies already under audit. Descriptions of some of the more significant provisions of SB13 follow. Unless otherwise specified, the provisions below would be effective upon enactment of the legislation.