
ATTENTION ADP MEMBERS:
Your assistance is needed once again in the fight against potentially threatening legislation that could impact our industry. The Senate Finance Committee is considering drafting a similar proposal (see page 8) to the House Ways and Means Committee’s tax reform bill requiring 50% of advertising costs be amortized over 5 years.
Once drafted, it will be virtually impossible to remove language on the restriction of advertising deductibility if both the House and Senate bills contain similar proposals. As such, it important that you contact your Senators to oppose this proposal by Senator Baucus (D-Montana), the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
Any advertising deductibility changes would be very damaging to our industry and would result in increases to our own advertising costs and increase the cost of our services to our advertisers. In addition, this could also reduce our competitiveness against other non-traditional advertising.
We are asking that you first write a letter to both the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee.
The Honorable Max Baucus, Chairman
The Honorable Orrin Hatch, Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Secondly, please write a letter to your own Senators. A list of Senators can be found at www.senate.gov. In the upper right-hand corner of the website is a “Find Your Senators” button to locate your Senators by zip code.
Thanks to all of you who wrote your Congressional Representative opposing the tax reform proposal. If you have not yet contacted your Representative in Congress, we still recommend you do so per our prior email regarding Rep. Dave Camp’s (R-MI) similar tax reform proposal.
We are providing sample letters for your company and your employees. Any customized changes indicating your local interest would be more personal and therefore more effective. You can refer to the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA), fact sheet for some talking points to include in your letter. I recommend that you email or fax these letters to your Senators to ensure the timely receipt of them.
This potential legislation would adversely affect the Yellow Pages. As an industry, it is critical that we speak out against any restrictions on the deductibility of advertising costs as a business expense. It is imperative that you act toda