New 2011 NPES Tax Calculator for 100% Expensing
The new 2011 NPES Tax Calculator helps you compare potential tax savings under different capital investment options, and highlights the huge boost capital investment has been given in 2011 as a result of The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, the most aggressive capital investment tax policy in recent memory.
The enhanced and extended investment incentives in the new law reflect tax policy long advocated by NPES that will be very helpful to printers who have a business need for capital purchases. The following are key provisions of the new tax law which:
• Extends current law IRC Section 168(k) 50 percent bonus depreciation (enacted in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009 and extended in The Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010) for two more years for equipment placed-in-service before January 1, 2013.
* In addition to 50% bonus depreciation, the new law provides 100% expensing for qualifying new plant and equipment acquired and placed-in-service after September 8, 2010 and before January 1, 2012.
* Qualifying property continues to include depreciable tangible personal property purchased for use in the active conduct of a trade or business including printing, publishing and converting equipment, as well as off-the-shelf computer software.
• Extends enhanced IRC Section 179 expensing (currently set at $500,000/year with a phase-out starting at $2 million/ year for tax years beginning in 2010 and 2011) through tax years beginning in 2012, but at a somewhat lower level of $125,000/year with a $500,000 phase-out.
• Those amounts will revert to $25,000 and $200,000 respectively in 2013.
• Unlike bonus depreciation, expensing applies to both new and used qualifying property, and is subject to annual dollar, investment and taxable income limits.
• Provides once again a refundable corporate AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) credit provision similar to but not quite as generous (does not apply to old R&E credits) as the one employed in 2008 and 2009, but omitted in the 2010 stimulus act.
• Specifically, corporations will be able to utilize their AMT credits in lieu of bonus depreciation on property placed in service in 2011 and 2012.
• This election will allow a taxpayer to “monetize” its AMT credits generated before 2006, and will equal the lesser of 20 % of the additional first-year bonus depreciation foregone, or 6 percent of the AMT credits generated before 2006 that were available for the first taxable year ending after March 31, 2008.
• However, in no event will the credits be allowed to exceed $30 million, and straight-line depreciation must be used for such property. There are also special rules for corporations that are part of controlled groups or partnerships.
To access NPES’s new Tax Calculator, visit www.npes.org/tax_calculator.asp. It is important to note that the effect of federal tax law varies from state to state.
NPES cautions that its tax calculator and this article are solely informational and do not constitute legal, financial, investment or other advice from NPES. Readers are advised to seek professional counsel from their own financial, accounting and legal advisors to apply these new incentives and other tax laws to their particular circumstances.
For more information contact NPES Government Affairs Director Mark J. Nuzzaco at phone: 703/264-7235 or e-mail: mnuzzaco@npes.org.
Source: NPES.