Litigation

No tax break? AAJ's priorities with the waning Congress

By Carter Wood

The American Association for Justice, the trial lawyers' lobby, has posted its public priorities for Congress' short September session at his homepage, www.justice.org. (Pdf'ed for posterity here.)

Congress Is Back: We're Running Out of Time
With only four weeks to go until the end of the session there is a short window to promote issues that strengthen the civil justice and jury system. Get involved!

Help provide strong remedies to victims of the BP oil disaster under the Death on the High Seas Act.

Hold foreign manufacturers accountable for the safety of their products in the U.S. legal system.

The November election is close at hand and the forces of Tort Reform are gaining momentum. They are powerful and well funded. AAJ PAC supports candidates on both sides of the aisle and ranks as one of the top contributors to House and Senate candidates every election cycle.

We're puzzled by the capitalization of "Tort Reform," and it's crass to boast of your fundraising prowess on a non-PAC website, but so be it.

Missing from the public list of priorities is the $1.6 billion tax break for contingency fee litigation, legislation (S. 437 and H.R. 2519) that stalled in Congress.

If the current Congress is so tough, imagine trying to push this special-interest tax break through once the balance of political power shifts with the November elections. These political realities explain the AAJ's attempt to get a tax guidance or interpretation from the U.S. Treasury, a quiet appeal that fortunately made it into the public eye.

Today, 76 business trade associations, medical groups, legal reform groups and others sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner explaining their opposition to the tax break. (My employers at the National Association of Manufacturers were among the signers.) The Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform has the news release and letter. This letter argues primarily on the basis of tax law and the economic impact of the requested treatment: "[Such] change in policy would damage the economic recovery, not just as a result of losing billions in tax dollars, but also by fostering more questionable litigation."

Full post as published by Point of Law on September 15, 2010 (boomark / email).