GOP tax bill includes pharma friendly provisions

House Republicans Thursday released a tax reform bill that incentivizes the repatriation of foreign assets, lowers the corporate tax rate, and allows immediate expensing of capital investments. In addition to these provisions, which are favorable to biopharmaceutical companies, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (H.R. 1) also includes provisions that could hurt the industry, including elimination of the Orphan Drug tax credit and imposition of an excise tax on payments from U.S. corporations to foreign affiliates (see BioCentury Extra, Nov. 2 & Nov. 2).

The bill seeks to permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%. It includes a one-time tax rate of 12% for repatriated cash, and a 5% tax rate for repatriation of non-cash assets. Companies will have up to eight years to pay the one-time tax. ...