Committee on Private Companies Urges Law's Repeal.

• Position: Financial Executives Institute - Brief Article

FEI's Committee on Private Companies has sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Summers and several members of Congress, urging repeal of Public Law 106-107, the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. The letter says, in part:

"Businesses are bought and sold for the potential for future earnings and many transactions of private companies include provisions that tie the transaction price to future earnings as a means of improving the possibility that those earnings actually occur. The new change requires tax payments regardless of whether the transaction price is ever received.

"The U.S. economy, as a generally free and open marketplace, is dependent on the orderly sale and transfer of a company's assets and this legislation, H.R. 1180, has resulted in a major roadblock to an orderly transfer, especially as it relates to small privately owned businesses. These concerns are not theoretical. Sales of businesses already have been affected by the loss of the installment option.

"An experience of one of our...