FOR EACH TAX, AN OPPORTUNITY
The trend in the US and UK against using tax policy to influence
capital expenditure decisions will almost inevitably prove detrimental
to tax-motivated leasing. Yet eddies running contrary to the main
current have created opportunities.
Within the US, tax benefit transfer leases were allowed to continue
for certain equipment if the equipment orders had been placed by a
certain date. This was also true for the modified tax benefit transfer,
called the "finance lease'. Outside the US, the opportunities
lie in the exploitation of tax benefits in countries which do not
restrict these benefits to domestically-operated equipment.
When Congress put an end to tax benefit transfers, mass transit
equipment was exempted until 1988, mainly as a result of pressure from
the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority. Chicago and Atlanta have
been among the other beneficiaries. Tax benefit transfers on
Metropolitan Transfer Authority equipment have been...
