Florida: Conformity Legislation Decouples from Certain Federal Provisions

Legislation was recently approved by the Florida legislature (House Bill 7059) that would update the state’s conformity to the Internal Revenue Code. Specifically, the bill would generally adopt the Code as of January 1, 2021 applicable retroactive to January 1, 2021. However, certain provisions of the CARES Act and the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) are not adopted for Florida corporate income tax purposes. In addition, because Florida previously allowed net operating losses (NOLs) to be carried forward only, the CARES Act provisions allowing NOLs to be carried back will not apply for Florida corporate income tax purposes. The bill decouples from the CARES Act and CAA provisions that temporarily (1) increases the amount of interest that can be deducted under IRC section 163(j) and (2) allows 100 percent of business meals provided by restaurants to be deducted. House Bill 7059 also decouples from provisions of the CARES Act that revised the depreciable life of qualified improvement property from 39 to 15 years. Lastly, the bill decouples from temporary federal provisions that extended the ability for certain film productions to expense costs up to $15 million per year in the year incurred, through December 31, 2025. Please stay tuned to TWIST for future conformity updates.