Tax and Regulatory Issues

WASHINGTON, DC -- In rare bipartisan agreement, Congress on Friday approved a massive budget deal that will increase federal spending in Connecticut, providing big boosts for the state’s defense industry and health care programs and even helping schools educate displaced students from Puerto Rico. ...A new measure was added to the extenders package that would help Westport’s Newman’s Own Foundation, which gives 100 percent of the profits made from the Newman’s Own food business to charity, but would have been hit with a 200 percent tax this year unless it divested or got the exception.

NORWALK, CT -- Newman’s Own Foundation has reached the milestone of $500 million in donations since 1982, when the late actor Paul Newman began selling salad dressing and devoting profits to charities. But the foundation is inching closer to a self-proclaimed April deadline at which point it has indicated it could begin the process of soliciting buyers for the operating company that has been the engine that generates its funds. That would happen if Congress does not create an exemption for huge excise taxes it faces under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.