House passes tax credit extender for American Samoa

congresswoman-aumua

House Republicans passed their version of tax reform, and with it, a key provision for American Samoa.

KHJ News Washington correspondent Matt Kaye has this report:

The GOP tax reform bill includes an extension of the American Samoa Economic Development Credit, though the Senate must still pass its own bill, and the two made identical and passed again before being sent to the president.

But Congresswoman Aumua Amata Radewagen ensured that American Samoa would have a fighting chance at the House-Senate negotiating table to extend the development credit.

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Aumua’s discussions with House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady resulted in a 6-year extension of the credit in the landmark bill just passed by the full US House.

The extension is retroactive to last January 1st, when the credit expired.

Congress has extended the credit yearly, as part of a group of tax provisions collectively known as the “tax extenders.”

But lawmakers failed to extend the provision last year, raising concern the remaining cannery in American Samoa would either drastically reduce operations or cease them entirely, and relocate outside the US.

The credit would reduce federal taxes on income earned by qualifying US firms in American Samoa, especially in the tuna industry.

A 2007 Labor Department report declared that “the loss of the economic development credit would be a damaging blow to the profits of the American Samoa canneries causing possible relocation.”

Congresswoman Radewagen argues extending the credit longer term, allows for more economic and planning certainty for American Samoa and its businesses.