FY24 spending bills update
An agreement on funding levels for the 12 annual spending bills that fund the government has been reached following extensive negotiations. Topline numbers have not been publicly disclosed.
Congressional appropriators can now determine the specific funding details for every program and department within each government agency. Congress’s self-imposed deadlines for passing all 12 bills are March 1 and March 8. If Congress makes these deadlines, the fiscal year will be halfway over, and federal agencies will be under pressure to get the FY24 money out the door in an expedited timeline.
Bipartisan tax legislation passes the House
Last week, the House passed the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act (H.R. 7024) – a $79 billion tax cut package. The legislation aims to improve the child tax credit for millions of lower-income families and enhance three tax breaks for businesses.
This deal involves exchanging $33 billion in child tax credit enhancements for three significant business provisions. One of these provisions includes reinstating expensing for domestic research and experimentation (R&E) costs, retroactive to 2022 and extended through 2025, while maintaining a 15-year amortization period for foreign R&E.
The bill is now headed to the Senate for a vote. The Office of Federal Affairs will continue to provide updates on the legislation, particularly related to Sec. 174 of the IRS Code and its impact on research and development.
USCIS publishes final rule on H-1B registration selection and naturalization fee adjustment
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published its final rule to “strengthen the integrity of and reduce the potential for fraud in the H-1B registration process.” The final rule goes into effect on March 4, 2024. It implements changes to move a beneficiary-centric selection process for H–1B registrations, which USCIS says “will reduce the potential for gaming the process to increase chances for selection and help ensure that each beneficiary has the same chance of being selected, regardless of how many registrations are submitted on their behalf.” The rule also codifies “start date flexibility for certain petitions” and adds additional “integrity measures related to the registration process.”
USCIS also published its final rule to adjust certain immigration and naturalization benefit request fees. This final rule is effective April 1, 2024. Any benefit request postmarked on or after this date must be accompanied by the fees established by this final rule.
USCIS will discuss the changes during a virtual public engagement session on February 22 at 2pm. Register for the engagement session here.