On the recordDecember 9, 2019
Mr. President, I rise today to say how pleased I am to join with the Senator from New Hampshire in introducing S. 2942, a bill to revise the tax treatment of certain contributions to the capital of corporations. S. 2942 corrects a provision in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that disqualified government grants to corporations from treatment as tax- free contributions to capital. The provision resulted in the imposition of income tax on all such grants. At the same time, a companion provision in the act imposed income tax on ``contributions in aid of construction,'' CIAC, to regulated water utilities, reversing a longstanding rule of prior law that shielded regulated water utilities from tax on such payments. The term CIAC refers to payments--from either governmental sources or other sources that are used by a utility to expand its physical plant. Our bill corrects the TCJA, first, by restoring the tax exemption for CIAC received by water utilities. That change will ensure that Alaskans, along with all water utility customers around the country, who make payments to a water utility to help the utility expand its service territory or otherwise improve its physical plant will not thereby saddle the utility with a tax charge that could translate into an increase in rates for water service or that, alternatively, could be passed back to the payer of the CIAC.…
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