WHAT S NEW IN CHECKPOINT This document covers the most recent Checkpoint enhancements as of March 12, 2018. Checkpoint News You can rely on Checkpoint to keep you abreast of developments that affect your clients, company, or practice. As a Checkpoint subscriber, you can choose to have updates delivered daily to your email inbox, and you can also access them directly through the News tab in Checkpoint. You can customize your email or display preferences at any time by clicking the Options link at the top of Checkpoint and selecting News / News E-mail/Display (in the left pane). We have renamed the Federal Taxes Weekly Alert Newsletter, State & Local Taxes Weekly Newsletter, Estate Planners Alert Newsletter, Pension & Benefits Week Newsletter, and Payroll Guide Newsletter to Federal Tax Update, State & Local Tax Update, Estate Planning Update, Pension & Benefits Update, and Payroll Update respectively to more clearly distinguish how Checkpoint reports and analyzes developments from other sources that focus mainly on reporting events. Checkpoint Updates often include Practice Alerts and other aids to help you grasp and apply developments, as well as practical insight in the form of Recommendations, Illustrations, Cautions, and Observations. Depending on your subscription and how you access these resources, you may experience label and other changes in various locations in Checkpoint (such as when searching, browsing the table of contents or News tab, or reading email updates). You can search the news to help recall specific developments, or during research. Searching Federal Tax Updates, for example, retrieves relevant results from the new Federal Tax Update as well as the Federal Taxes Weekly Alert Newsletter archives. The ihelp pop-up message has been modified to indicate that the Federal Tax Update has replaced the Federal Taxes Weekly Alert Newsletter. This experience also applies to the Estate Planning, Payroll, Pension & Benefits, and State & Local Tax Updates. 2018 Thomson Reuters/Tax & Accounting. All rights reserved.
Selecting Federal Tax Updates will search the new Federal Tax Update as well as the Federal Taxes Weekly Alert Newsletter archive. Browsing News in the Table of Contents - The Table of Contents for the Federal Tax Update (replacing the Federal Taxes Weekly Alert Newsletter) is organized by year, month and week (with Monday marking the beginning of a week). Articles and WG&L Journal Insights continue to be categorized separately and display in reverse chronological order by date. Briefs (e.g. summaries of new cases and letter rulings) continue to sort in ascending Code Section order. The article date is the date that the item first appeared on Checkpoint (as opposed to the full weekly newsletter issue date). The Estate Planning and Pension & Benefits Updates follow the same structure as Federal. 2
The Federal Tax Update expanded to show articles displayed in reverse chronological order and Briefs in ascending Code Section order. The Table of Contents for the State & Local Tax Update (replacing the State & Local Taxes Weekly Newsletter) is organized by year, month and week (with Monday s date marking the beginning of a week). Articles continue to display in reverse chronological order by date within a given week. Each article includes the date that the article first appeared on Checkpoint (as opposed to the previous practice of using the weekly newsletter issue date). State briefs (e.g. summaries of official releases from State departments of revenue and other agencies) appearing under Tax News Arranged by State continue to be categorized by State and tax type, and include the date that the Brief first appeared on Checkpoint. Displaying State briefs in tax type folders makes locating relevant updates faster by eliminating the need to scroll through tax types that are not relevant to you for a state. 3
The State & Local Tax Update expanded to show articles displayed in reverse chronological order and Briefs categorized by state and tax type. The Payroll Update follows the same structure as the Federal Tax Update (for Articles) and the State & Local Tax Update (for Briefs). 4
The Payroll Update expanded to show articles displayed in reverse chronological order and Briefs categorized by State. You can continue to access previous issues of the Federal Taxes Weekly Alert, State & Local Taxes Weekly, Estate Planners Alert, Pension & Benefits Week, and Payroll Guide newsletters through the table of contents. There are no changes to archived news content. 5
The Federal Taxes Weekly Alert Newsletter archive appears directly below the new Federal Tax Update in the table of contents. The same layout applies to Estate Planning, State & Local Tax, Pension & Benefits, and Payroll. The News tab continues to show updates for the current day, plus the ten previous business days. With the 18.03 release, only the current day will show initially for those sources affected by the changes (e.g. the Checkpoint Daily Updates) and will build toward a rolling 10-day archive. Weekly Updates are now issued on Fridays and appear in the News tab (instead of the Table of Contents). Each new Weekly Update replaces the previous week s Update. Weekly Updates contain all news items published from Monday through Friday. The Payroll and Estate Planning Updates (previously issued twice monthly and monthly, respectively) now follow the same weekly publication schedule as the Federal Tax, State & Local Tax, and Pension & Benefits Updates. To access the Weekly Updates for the most recently completed week, hover your mouse over the News menu and click the link to Checkpoint Weekly Updates. Unique to the Weekly Updates, you can click the Show full article text button (a new function button at the top of the screen denoted by three horizontal lines) to instantly reveal the full text of all articles. You can print, export, or email the partial view (article headlines and summaries only) or complete view (full text of all articles). You can limit your view to display updates for only certain practice areas by going to Options / News/e-mail Display / Checkpoint Updates and changing your Display selections. 6
The Payroll Weekly Update showing only article headlines and summaries (with links to full text). The Payroll Weekly Update expanded to show the full text of all articles. Clicking the toggle again will restore the summary view. 7
Daily and Weekly email updates include article headlines and summaries with links to the full texts on Checkpoint. Weekly Update emails also include an attachment containing the full text of all published news items for the week. The daily email that previously combined federal, state and local, estate planning, pension and benefits, and payroll developments will retain its current organization, styling and navigation. Weekly Updates will continue to be sent as separate emails (on Fridays and as shown in the example of Pension & Benefits below). Organization and styling is refreshed to match the Daily Update email. The full text of all articles contained in the Weekly Update can be accessed via the attachment included with the email. 8
Weekly Update emails include an attachment containing the full text of all included articles. Many Estate Planning subscription packages include access to one or more of the following archived titles: WG&L s Practical Estate Planning in 2011 and 2012, WG&L s Practical Estate Planning Under Circular 230, and/or WG&L s Waiting Out EGTRRA s Sunset Period: Practical Planning While Congress Debates Estate Tax Repeal. As these titles mainly address prior estate tax law and are therefore not being updated, they have been relocated from the top of the Estate Planning Library Table of Contents to the WG&L Estate Planning Treatises folder. This will make it easier for you to identify, browse or search other content in the Estate Planning Library that addresses current law. 9
Practical Estate Planning in 2011 and 2012, Practical Estate Planning Under Circular 230, and Waiting Out EGTRRA s Sunset Period: Practical Planning While Congress Debates Estate Tax Repeal have been relocated to the WG&L Estate Planning Treatises folder. New Interactive Decision Tool Determining Whether a Property Exchange Qualifies for Sec. 1031 Like-kind Treatment (Effective for Exchanges Completed After December 31, 2017) The recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (P.L. 115-97) generally limits tax-free exchanges to exchanges of real property that is not held primarily for sale (real property limitation). To help you assess the impact of this change on actual or potential transactions, we have released a new Interactive Decision Tool Determining Whether a Property Exchange Qualifies for Sec. 1031 Like-kind Treatment (Effective for Exchanges Completed After December 31, 2017). This tool uses an interview-guided approach to assist you in determining if a property exchange qualifies for like-kind treatment under IRC Section 1031 as amended by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It saves you time by presenting only the information relevant to your specific situation in the proper sequence, while generating a memo for certain scenarios to help you communicate outcomes and recommendations. It also helps you identify potential gain recognition traps. 10
You can use this New Interactive Decision Tool to determine if both properties transferred and received were held for productive use in a trade or business or for investment, whether an exchange has occurred, whether properties are like-kind, identify properties that are specifically excluded from IRC Sec. 1031 treatment, identify situations where gain recognition may occur and the effects of debt assumption, and identify the requirements for deferred exchanges. For exchanges completed before January 1, 2018, use the version of the tool titled Determining Whether a Property Exchange Qualifies for Sec. 1031 Like-kind Treatment (Effective for Exchanges Completed Before January 1, 2018). Both tools can be accessed from the Table of Contents (under Federal Library / Federal Editorial Materials / Interactive Decision Tools / Gain or Loss on Disposition of Property), or by clicking the Interactive Decision Tools link in the Tools tab and expanding the Tax / Gain or Loss on Disposition of Property folder. Table of Contents 11
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Global Export Premier Library on Checkpoint The Global Export Premier Library on Checkpoint is a resource for the trade professional seeking a comprehensive tool for search and discovery of global export control documents for Dual Use (ECN), Munitions List, and other country-specific non-wassenaar export control documents. English and native country languages available. Coverage for 40 countries, including U.S., EU, Japan, India, Canada. Also includes searchable HS/ECN concordances for US and EU. Global Content 13
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US Lists Currently Available 16
HTSUS-ECCN Concordance 17
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