Congress is back to work after its month-long August recess, and upcoming November elections are now a big focus. Currently, there is talk about movement on priority legislation like corporate inversions, where a US company acquires a foreign company and moves its HQ and domicile to that foreign country. There have been suggestions that Congress will address the tax inversion issue this year, separate from broad-based tax reform.
If movement continues this way, the question is whether Congress will deal with inversions as a standalone issue, or whether they will try to pay for it by passing “tax reform lite” and will cherry pick some proposals that they think are either bipartisan or non-controversial. Section 1031 could be one of these easy targets as there are both Democratic and Republican proposals to eliminate or limit Section 1031, making it essentially bipartisan.
With this battle far from over, IPX1031®’s ongoing mission to educate and clarify facts continues. On July 29, 2014, Suzanne Goldstein Baker, EVP and General Counsel for IPX1031®, was pleased to participate in a “1031 Exchange Flash Call” presented by the global real estate services company, CBRE (click here to listen to Suzanne’s portion or here to view slides).
The Flash Call webinar was attended by about 400 real estate investors, brokers and others in the industry. It involved an hour long discussion about the mechanics, benefits, uses and tax ramifications of Section 1031 Exchanges as well as the importance of Section 1031 Exchanges to the real estate marketplace.
Suzanne and Ryan McCormick, VP and Counsel at The Real Estate Roundtable, the respected consortium of the nation’s top real estate firms and major national real estate trade associations that addresses key national policy issues relating to real estate and the economy, co-presented a 1031 “Legislative Perspective.” Suzanne and Ryan reviewed the three pending tax reform proposals that would limit or eliminate Section 1031, the drivers behind these proposals, and the efforts being made by IPX1031®, the Federation of Exchange Accommodators, The Real Estate Roundtable, and others in the real estate industry to educate policymakers to the powerful economic stimulus benefits of Section 1031, and how 1031 Exchanges contribute to the velocity of the real estate sector of the economy. Listen to Suzanne and Ryan’s remarks and view the Legislative Perspective here.
CBRE’s panelists included Chris Ludeman, Global President, Spencer Levy, Executive Managing Director, Bernie Haddigan, Senior Managing Director and Malcolm McComb, Vice Chairman, all with CBRE’s Capital Markets unit. Also participating were R. Byron Carlock, Jr. and Adam Feuerstein, partners with PricewaterHouse’s Real Estate Practice unit.
