Several key telecom trade associations united before Congress...

USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA, NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, the Telecommunications Industry Association and PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association told Congress they support efforts to comprehensively update the corporate tax code, but “we believe that the business certainty needed for sustained domestic job growth during the nation’s economic recovery requires renewal for 2014 of the bonus depreciation provision,” which expired Dec. 31. Any overhaul of the tax code would -- “it appears increasingly possible” -- not potentially take effect until Jan. 1, 2015, they said. Until a tax overhaul is effective, “extending bonus depreciation is essential to maintaining the nation’s economic momentum,” they said (http://bit.ly/1djGIgh). “In order to plan with certainty, companies must know as soon as possible what the tax rules for capital investment and job creation in America will be in 2014.” The bonus depreciation provision allowed businesses making domestic investments to “receive substantial tax benefits,” according to USTelecom’s press release. That benefit, as part of the 2012 act, amounts to 50-percent bonus depreciation for such investment. Some observers have argued the provision should stay expired. “Bonus depreciation is costly, particularly if policymakers make it permanent,” Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/KVZtvn). “While a one-year extension would cost about $5 billion, the ten-year cost of a permanent extension would be about $280 billion.” He said the provision was intended as temporary, dating back to the economic recession of 2008, and criticized it for “low bang for the buck."