Overview
House Budget Committee Passes Budget Resolution: Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, M.D. (R-GA) issued a statement after the committee passed the fiscal year 2016 budget resolution that said in part: “The House Budget Committee has taken a strong step forward in addressing the nation’s fiscal and economic challenges. The committee’s approval of our balanced budget proposal follows months of honest discussion and debate by our members in consultation with our colleagues in the House to put forth a package of positive solutions. Every member and their staff is to be commended for their hard work and dedication to this important endeavor.”
Switzerland, EU Agree on Automatic Exchange of Tax Information: Switzerland and the EU today initialed an agreement introducing a global standard for the automatic exchange of information in tax matters. Switzerland and the 28 member states of the EU plan to collect tax information beginning in 2017, and exchange it beginning in 2018. The agreement incorporates the OECD’s global automatic exchange of information standard. This agreement will replace Switzerland’s taxation of savings agreement with the EU that has been in force since 2005.
The parties expect that the agreement will be formally signed in the coming weeks. In Switzerland it will be submitted to Parliament for approval and will be subject to an optional referendum. The agreement’s entry into force in 2017 is conditional on completion of the approval processes in Switzerland and the EU.
Switzerland is currently in negotiations with the United States to enter into an automatic exchange of information agreement.
Miscellaneous Guidance:
Notice 2014-5 provides temporary nondiscrimination relief for certain “closed” defined benefit pension plans (i.e., defined benefit plans that provide ongoing accruals but that have been amended to limit those accruals to some or all of the employees who participated in the plan on a specified date).