AGC will send Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) a letter commenting on the “Cost Recovery and Accounting Tax Reform Discussion Draft,” released on Nov. 21, 2013. The staff discussion draft addresses a number of areas of concern for construction companies, including depreciation of tangible assets, accounting rules, business expensing and specific deductions such as Section 179D.

Neither congressional tax-writing committee has a clear path for advancing the recently expired package of 55 tax provisions, and few lawmakers are willing to publicly advocate for anything less than a comprehensive and highly improbable rewrite of the tax code.

On Wednesday, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) released a two-and-a-half minute video produced by the committee to highlight the complexity, confusion and cost associated with the current tax code for families and job creators. In December, Chairman Camp was tasked by Republican leadership to acquire the votes required to pass reform in the House before advancing his tax policy agenda. Chairman Camp is now spending the first months of 2014 educating and lobbying members of his own conference on the merits of reform.

The casualty list for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives continues to grow each week.  In the past four days, four members of the House announced they would not seek re-election with more announcements likely in the coming weeks and months.

The first phase of the special election to replace the late Rep. Bill Young (R) was held on Tuesday in Pinellas County on the western Tampa Bay peninsula.  Though the Democratic race was a non-event because former state CFO and 2010 gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink was unopposed, the Republican side featured a three-way race.

Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee continue to work on an omnibus spending bill that will fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2014, but it is almost certain the bill will not be considered by either chamber this week.

AGC and several other trade groups from the construction, agriculture, mining, and manufacturing sectors met with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) responsible for regulatory analysis, oversight, and coordinating inter-agency review. The group expressed serious concerns with the policy, science and economics of the upcoming rulemaking on Clean Water Act jurisdiction.

Before the holiday season, you or someone in your company may have received a fax from David Ashinoff, director of AGC PAC & Political Advocacy, with the subject “AGC of America Compliance Needed.”  While many faxes we receive nowadays tend to be scams or spam, please know this fax was neither.  AGC PAC kicked off a year-end prior authorization effort by sending a form via fax to AGC primary contacts at member companies that did not have a prior authorization on file or that had one expiring on Dec. 31, 2013.

As of Dec. 26, 2013, a new clause will be added to all new direct-federal solicitations requiring prime contractors to make accelerated payments to small business subcontractors upon receiving an accelerated payment from the federal government. Prime contractors are required to flow down flow down the clause in subcontracts with other small businesses.

Only Dredging and Land Subdivision NAICS Codes Change As part of its ongoing comprehensive size standards review, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) published a final rule on construction industry size standards for small businesses on Dec. 23 of last year. The final rule increases only two of the 32 size standards for Construction North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes: