Two days before Christmas, President Obama signed into law The Regulated Investment Company Modernization Act of 2010, which updates and simplifies several mutual fund tax rules.
After the bill was signed into law on Dec. 23, Paul Schott Stevens, president of the Investment Company Institute (ICI), said in a statement that the Act will "make funds more efficient and reduce the need for investors to file amended tax returns related to their investments." The Act, Stevens continued, also "streamlines and updates technical tax rules, allowing fund companies to focus on innovating and serving shareholders."
The Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, released the following summary of the Act after its passage:
Title I – Capital Loss Carryovers of Regulated Investment Companies
Section 101 -
Sets forth a special rule allowing unlimited carryovers of the net capital losses of regulated investment companies (RICs).
Title II – Modification of Gross Income and Asset Tests of Regulated Investment Companies
Section 201 -
Exempts RICs from loss of tax-preferred status and additional tax for failure to satisfy the gross income and assets tests if such failure is due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect and is de minimis.
Title III – Modification of Rules Related to Dividends and Other Distributions
Section 301 -
– Revises the definitions of "capital gain dividend" and "exempt-interest dividend" for purposes of the taxation of RICs and their shareholders to require such dividends to be reported to shareholders in written statements. Sets forth a special rule for the allocation of the excess reported amounts of such dividends.
Section 302 -
Excludes net capital losses of RICs from earnings and profits. Prohibits an RIC's earnings and profits from being reduced by any amount which is not allowable as a deduction in computing taxable income, except with respect to such a net capital loss.
Section 303 -
Allows an RIC, in the case of a qualified fund of funds, to pay exempt-interest dividends and allow its shareholders the foreign tax credit without regard to certain investment requirements in state and local bonds and foreign securities.
Section 304 -
Modifies rules for dividends paid by RICs after the close of a taxable year (spillover dividends).
Section 305 -
Revises the method for allocating RIC earnings and profits to require such earnings and profits to be allocated first to distributions made prior to December 31 of a calendar year.
Section 306 -