The IRS is writing a proposal for the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, known as CAMT. The plan will spell out how the tax will be calculated, after Congress directed the agency to make that decision.

The law requires companies to pay tax at a rate of at least 15% of their financial-statement income if they aren’t already doing so. The agency said in June it would provide a waiver for penalties for underpayments of the tax, after companies struggled to calculate their liability.

Taxpayers are waiting on more details.

Junk fees

Agency attorneys have cited years-old laws to justify the effort to eliminate junk fees, Biden’s term for hidden charges,rather than waiting for Congress to pass bills targeting specific costs.

Bank overdraft fees would drop to as low as $3 under a January proposal from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Agency attorneys invoked a 1978 law to protect the rights of customers that transfer money electronically. The banking industry responded with a 21-page letter arguing that Congress didn’t give the agency permission to force the sector to cut fees.

In Friday’s Supreme Court decision, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch echoed similar language, writing that the Biden administration can’t write rules without express permission from Congress.

Opponents of regulatory action will have an easier time overturning rules not specifically mandated in law, forcing agencies to slow down and be more cautious in formulating policy, left-leaning administrative law attorneys said.

“It’s creating a green light for any aggrieved corporation to bring a suit to get rid of an inconvenient regulation,” said K. Sabeel Rahman, a professor at Cornell Law School and also a former leader of Biden’s OIRA.

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(With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Caleb Harshberger.)

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