Weekly Legislative Update
November 8, 2021

TIA Signs onto Letter Sharing Concerns with Proposed Changes to the Grantor Trust and Valuation Rules

Dear Chairman Neal and Ranking Member Brady:

The undersigned organizations, representing millions of individually-and family owned businesses, strongly urge you to reject the proposed changes to the grantor trust and valuation rules in H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act.

Individually- and family-owned businesses are the cornerstone of the American economy. They represent nearly all businesses, they employ the vast majority of private sector workers, and they are the building block upon which innumerable communities across this country are built. Many individual and family business owners, including family businesses with ownership shares held in trust, will be directly harmed by the tax increases resulting from these proposals.

The changes related to the taxation of grantor trusts would eliminate the usefulness of the grantor trust for normal and legitimate business (non-tax) purposes, such as facilitating the transfer of business ownership between generations and protecting assets from liability or creditor claims of a trust beneficiary.

Worse, these new rules would unfairly punish taxpayers who relied on decades-old laws and Internal Revenue Service guidance to establish estate plans to transfer family businesses to future generations, threatening the viability of thousands of family businesses across the country. In some cases, these plans have been in place for decades, and it is simply unfair for Congress to step in and retroactively change them now, just when they are to be called upon to help with the transfer of a family business from one generation to the next.

In a similar vein, the changes related to the valuation of interests in entities holding so-called “passive assets” (including real estate) are unnecessarily overbroad. They undermine the settled principle that property is valued for transfer tax purposes at its “fair market value” by imposing tax based on a value greater than fair market value when non-controlling or non-marketable interests are transferred.

The changes broadly apply to all interests in any entity holding “passive assets,” whether or not the interest owner can actually access a proportionate share of those assets, whether or not the amount paid by the interest owner to acquire the interest was significantly less than a proportionate share of the assets of the entity, and whether or not the transferor or transferee have any control over the entity. As such, the changes unfairly impose transfer taxes on “phantom assets” and “phantom value” that an owner of the interest often has no ability to access. If enacted as drafted, family farms, ranches, and operating businesses across the country would be harmed.

In sum, we strongly believe that the proposed changes to the grantor trust and valuation rules are overbroad and produce unfair and unreasonable results, and we urge Congress to reject them.

Sincerely,

Tire Industry Association and other trade associations

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TIA Exploring Defect Issue: Hyundai and Kia

From: Joanna Johnson, AOCA (Automotive Oil Change Association) Policy Advisor

Regarding all of the following listed Hyundai and Kia models, have any TIA members experienced a customer’s dealership claiming an engine seizure was caused by the oil drain plug falling out mid-interval i.e., 1,000 – 8,000 miles post-aftermarket service?

AOCA is in the process of developing a NHTSA defect petition and related MMWA complaint to the FTC. Please report confidentially to TIA or AOCA by VIN, city/state, mileage between service and allegation of plug-out, and the result of any aftermarket inspection of the alleged plug-out engine.

We cannot use any case that does not provide a complete VIN. Consumer complaints to NHTSA and aftermarket professionals’ experience with inspecting these alleged plug-out engines thus far indicates some of the cases are actually rod punctures.

BACKGROUND: Hyundai and Kia have issued an extensive patchwork of recalls and/or TSBs for all the listed models—Theta, Nu & Gamma engines alike—on the subjects of excessive oil consumption and/or rod bearing problems that can ultimately cause engine seizure, including after a rod punctures the engine block. The discovery of this nearly make-wide defect and the automakers’ attempts to manage it came from studying a bizarre recent trend of mid-interval plug-out claims made by Hyundai and Kia dealerships nationwide in situations where specification parts and torque pressure had been used and could be verified. There may also be another defect associated with the factory oil drain pan assembly being made of cheap stamped steel and painted so that the factory gasket and plug are painted together onto the pan, thereby camouflaging the gasket and creating a risk of double-gasketing. The factory gasket appears to be plastic and must be pried off.

KIA VEHICLES

HYUNDAI VEHICLES

Please contact: rlittlefield2@tireindustry.org if you have experienced this issue.

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