A Washington attorney has charged that the Treasury Department’s proposed guidelines would help American firms circumvent provisions of the 1976 Tax Reform Act aimed against the Arab boycott of Israel rather than inform citizens how to comply with the law. The provisions, contained in an amendment authored by Sent Abraham Ribicoff (D. Conn.), deny certain tax benefits to American firms that participate in the boycott.
But according to Paul Berger of the firm of Arnold and Porter. “The guidelines would appear to countenance the chief methods now being used to effectuate the boycott.” Beyond that, he said in a letter stating his views. “the guidelines appear to be purposefully structured to guide taxpayers on how to formulate their agreements in the future so that they may continue to participate in the boycott without losing their tax benefits.”
Berger, co-chairman of the Governing Council of the American Jewish Congress and that organization’s representative on the executive committee of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, was assigned by the NJCRAC’s Israel Task Force recently to submit recommendations to the Treasury Department for its guidelines to enforce the Ribicoff amendment.
CHARGES PARALLEL RIBICOFF’S
His charges paralleled those made by Ribicoff in a letter last week to Secretary of the Treasury William Simon. Ribicoff said the guidelines were doing little more than “providing information on how American companies can participate in the boycott and at the same time continue to take tax benefits.”
Berger said that “in general, and at best, the guidelines require significant clarification in order to avoid the conclusion that Treasury has sought by administrative interpretation to obliterate legislative intent.” It was pointed out that the Treasury still must formulate regulations and submit them for public reaction and hearings which will require considerable time. The net effect of the current proposed guidelines will be to postpone the effective date of the Ribicoff amendment.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
