This presentation will focus on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was enacted in the United States in July 2025. The legislation has far-reaching effects for both individuals and businesses. For individuals, the Act introduces targeted new deductions and makes permanent many of the provisions enacted on a temporary basis in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which generally have the effect of narrowing available deductions, reducing individual tax rates, and increasing certain tax credits. For businesses, the Act has many significant provisions that affect domestic taxation. These include permanently extending the ability to immediately deduct 100% of the cost of certain depreciable property, relaxing the limitation on deduction of business interest, and restoring the ability to fully deduct domestic research or experimental expenditures. From an international perspective, the Act has several important changes, including adjusting the rate of tax for the U.S. Base-Erosion and Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT), modifying the U.S. regime for taxing Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI), and altering certain aspects of the U.S. regime for controlled foreign corporations (CFCs). The presentation will critically evaluate the legislation and discuss its domestic and international implications.

This seminar is jointly co-organized by the CCTL Tax Law and Policy Forum and International Fiscal Association – HK Branch.

About the Speaker:

Bruce A. McGovern is a member of the faculty at South Texas College of Law Houston, where he also serves as Director of the school’s Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic. Previously, he served for many years as the school’s Vice President and Associate Dean for Academic Administration. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and his law degree from Fordham University School of Law. After law school, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge Thomas Meskill on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. He then practiced law with the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. He subsequently earned an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he taught as a visiting faculty member before joining the faculty at South Texas College of Law Houston.

Professor McGovern teaches and writes in the areas of business organizations and taxation. He is a co-author of the treatise Federal Income Taxation of Individuals (Thomson Reuters 2025) (with Boris I. Bittker, Martin J. McMahon, Jr., and Lawrence A. Zelenak) and a co-author of the casebook Agency, Partnerships, and Limited Liability Companies (Carolina Academic Press 2013) (with Gary S. Rosin and Michael L. Closen). His courses include Federal Income Taxation, U.S. Taxation of International Transactions, and Partnership and Subchapter S Taxation. He frequently speaks on recent developments in federal income taxation. Professor McGovern is a member of the Council of the State Bar of Texas Tax Section, a former Chair of the Houston Bar Association Section of Taxation, and a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.

Register here to attend the Joint Seminar on or before 15 October 2025, 12:30pm (Hong Kong Time).