In a recent Bloomberg Tax article by Siri Bulusu entitled “IRS Fixes to Foreign Tax Credit Rules Could Boost New Virus Perk,” Robert M. Russell discussed how benefits, such as a net operating loss carry back provision, restored in response to the COVID-19 crisis could affect and interact with prior deductions and perks.
Excerpts from the article are below:
Practitioners told the IRS in comment letters and at an IRS hearing that foreign tax credit rules—which include the method for calculating deductions—should be framed in a way that allow NOLs to be tied to the income it is offsetting, regardless of whether it is before or after the 2017 tax law. But because the 2017 tax law shifted all foreign income and corresponding deductions to be calculated in the same year, that could make the IRS reluctant to overhaul the system to fix a taxpayer-specific problem.
“You’re always going to have difficulties in the transition from the past tax system to the one we have now,” said Robert Russell, a partner at Kostelanetz & Fink LLP in Washington. “And through no one’s fault, you get this idiosyncratic problem where Treasury now needs to make a policy call.”
