The IRS has issued a new revenue procedure, Rev. Proc. 2023-15, providing a safe harbor method of accounting for natural gas transmission and distribution property repairs, maintenance, replacements, and improvements. This new method allows taxpayers to classify these costs as either capital or deductible expenditures, providing clear and bright-line rules to reduce the burden of compliance.

Moving data, applications and platforms to the cloud creates substantial business benefits as companies reduce capital expense outlays while maintaining a more flexible IT environment. Though the advantages are numerous, companies pursuing cloud computing solutions need to consider the financial reporting implications as well as broader tax and IT considerations that result from recent guidance on accounting standards effective in 2020 for public business entities.