To the rescue, states

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Quick Fix

— A Phase Four coronavirus package looks more and more likely to reinforce what the government just did in phase three — perhaps good news for states asking for more assistance.

— Did you know Royal Caribbean is incorporated in Liberia? Cruise lines’ longtime tax strategies have made life difficult for them these days.

— That didn’t take long: TurboTax has already launched a free tool to help people receiving coronavirus recovery payments get their bank information to the IRS.

WELCOME TO week four of the new normal, where among all the eyebrow-raising stories about the virus these days, this still stuck out — and hopefully for not being too normal. A 30-year old Russian soccer player for a Spanish team thumbed his nose at a lockdown to go home on a private jet to see his 18-year old fiance, who also happens to be Boris Yeltsin’s granddaughter.

Speaking of sustaining ourselves: Today is the 90th birthday for the Twinkie, first created by an Illinois baker named James Dewar. (On a surely unrelated note, today is also National Twinkie Day.)

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Driving the Day

DON’T FORGET ABOUT US: It might not be the most frontline issue at the moment, but experts have been warning for awhile now that state budgets are about to go into shock because of drops in tax collections — largely because the coronavirus has driven states, like the federal government, to delay their filing deadlines.

Democrats bemoaned that they couldn’t get more aid to state and local governments into phase three, but they’re already making it a top priority for the next virus relief measure — and they don’t want to wait very long, either. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she hoped to get phase four legislation on the floor this month, while Republicans are sounding more on board with another crack at coronavirus assistance, as our Heather Caygle and Burgess Everett reported.

Such an approach likely means that ideas like loosening the cap on state and local tax deductions, making write-offs for business meals and entertainment more generous and even a big infrastructure package would at least be put off for another day. (Or maybe not: The Trump administration is still considering pushing for a payroll tax reduction and a capital gains cut as part of a fourth phase, as The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reported.)

In any event, the timing would be pretty clutch for states. The Federation of Tax Administrators has noted that states historically plan to bring in a lot of revenue in April — somewhere between $36 billion and $50 billion between all the states these last two years — usually relying on that money to issue tax refunds or fund Medicaid.

And as Lucy Dadayan of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center noted in a new paper, states were already expecting less robust growth in income tax collections this fiscal year, even before the virus took hold. States had expected a rebound for fiscal 2021, but now face so many unknowns — from the depth of the problems their economies are facing to the kinds of responses they’ll eventually have to adopt.

ANCHORS AWEIGH: Leaving cruise lines out of the industries that could get phase three bailout money was a bipartisan decision — as was the chiding of Carnival, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean for being incorporated offshore and avoiding U.S. taxes.

So while the industry says it adds close to $12 billion to the U.S. economy, there’s the sense that cruise lines brought their exclusion on themselves, as our Anthony Adragna and Tanya Snyder report. President Donald Trump has been among those who sound open to offering financial support to the cruise industry, but the president has also said that he would like to see the cruise companies incorporate here in the U.S. (Carnival, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean are all headquartered in Miami.)

But there seems to be a fat chance of that happening. The corporate tax expert Robert Willens told NBC News that it’d basically be a bad financial trade for the companies to come ashore in order to get bailout money. “If they did that, they would win the battle but lose the war because they would be forced to give up their tax exemption. I assure you that is sacrosanct; they’re not giving up their tax exemption,” Willens said.

HOW TO GET YOUR MONEY: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised an online tool to help those people for whom the IRS doesn’t already have direct deposit information, and CNBC reports that Intuit’s TurboTax ended up partnering with the tax collector on a registration product.

It’s a free product, including a questionnaire that helps users figure out if they’re eligible for a deposit ($1,200 for qualifying individuals, $2,400 for married couples and $500 for each eligible dependent). Plus, there’s the ability to give your banking information — which by all indications is likely a faster way to get your money than waiting on a paper check.

Probably needs to be said: Intuit is offering this tool after a slew of ProPublica reports found that the company tried to guide people eligible for the IRS Free File program toward its paid filing products.

Around the World

IT’S ON YOU: Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, recently granted the right to rule by decree in wake of the coronavirus, will be leaning on banks and big retailers to help battle the outbreak, Bloomberg reports. A higher tax on lenders and a revived tax on retail are parts of the government’s plan to bring the size of the economy back to just short of $4 billion (1.35 trillion forint). (Also in there: Less government aid to political parties.) Financial institutions had been pushing to cut the tax on banks, because of a freeze on further loan payments. But Gergely Gulyas, a senior official in the Orban government, didn’t offer any details about how Hungary would raise an extra 55 billion forint (about $160,000) from banks. Orban’s government will lay out further steps on the economy on Tuesday.

Around the Nation

WHEN EXTRA TIME MAYBE ISN’T HELPFUL: “You can’t really negotiate on Zoom.” So said Lou Ann Linehan, the chairwoman of the Nebraska legislature’s revenue committee, as the state continues to struggle to find an agreement on updating its property tax structure. Nebraska’s legislative session is currently on a pause, with plans to come back for a three-week sprint at some point. But the time away hasn’t allowed supporters of property tax cuts to bridge the gaps necessary to strike a deal, The Associated Press reports, with public schools and their advocates still quite skeptical of what the legislature is trying to do. Lawmakers like Linehan say they’re not hearing any constructive alternatives from school systems. But school officials say they remain concerned that the legislature wants to curb the taxing authority of school districts. And under the surface of the coming talks: No one is quite sure what Nebraska’s revenue situation will look like when lawmakers gather again.

Quick Links

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California’s property tax deadline looks likely to remain on Friday.