AIRINC (Associates for International Research, Inc.)

The results of the 2020 federal and state elections are likely to have a significant tax impact on individual taxation across the United States. The presidential and legislative races are still being decided, and federal tax law changes require a lengthy legislative process. However, this year’s election cycle includes some important state ballot measures impacting individual taxpayers:

Massachusetts, like many other states across the United States, has declared a state of emergency in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. Typical components include mandatory social distancing, travel restrictions, and many other precautions. Concurrently, many Massachusetts businesses have adopted remote working arrangements as a measure to adhere to these precautions, and provide employee flexibility and safety.

When the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union on January 31, 2020, it entered a transitional period that is set to end on December 31, 2020. The original agreement allowed for a one-time extension of the transitional period by up to one to two years.

Below is a selection of government tax responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. These highlights are part of AIRINC's recent Data Points publication and are only a few of the many global changes that we are tracking on a daily basis.

Massachusetts, like many other states across the United States, has declared a state of emergency in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. Typical components include mandatory social distancing, travel restrictions, and many other precautions. Concurrently, many Massachusetts businesses have adopted remote working arrangements as a measure to adhere to these precautions, and provide employee flexibility and safety.

COVID-19's impact continues to spread and we are following it closely. We know that this is impacting you, your assignees, and your business, and that you're likely finding more questions than answers. 

COVID-19 Tax Responses: OECD Guidance  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Center for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA) has drafted guidance regarding tax implications of travel restrictions and remote working as a result of COVID-19. The OECD provided three scenarios under consideration, and their recommendation and analysis

AIRINC is closely tracking COVID-19's impact on Global Mobility. The world is rapidly changing in response to this far-reaching event. To help, we have launched two landing pages to help guide your Mobility decisions and keep abreast of the latest news and research:

Around the world, many individuals have been working from home for weeks or months. Virtually overnight, entire workforces became “remote.” In our 2020 Mobility Outlook survey (conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic announcement), we saw that 64% of companies were seeing an increase in remote work requests (global and domestic). Most of those companies handle requests on a case-by-case basis and only 7 percent have a policy to address remote work. We anticipate remote work requests may increase after shelter-in-place orders subside and we interviewed AIRINC’s tax directors, Pat Jurgens and Jeremy Piccoli, to shed light on tax and other regulatory issues to consider when evaluating the company’s stance on remote work.

This update is intended to focus solely on the responses that governments have made with regards to individual income taxation as of April 23, 2020. This post is an update of my original article published on March 31, 2020 and the ensuing update posted on April 14, 2020. Numerous notes and locations have been added to this expanded version.