Robert McDowell is the latest FCC member to back reinstatement of tax...
Robert McDowell is the latest FCC member to back reinstatement of tax breaks for companies selling radio and TV stations to certain small businesses. “A new and improved tax certificate program” would “help tremendously” entrepreneurs like members of the National…
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Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, he told NABOB’s conference Thursday. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told the conference Wednesday she supports bringing back the program, which, before Congress ended it in 1995 amid concerns about misuse, gave sellers of stations and cable systems tax benefits when the assets were bought by minorities (CD Sept 27 p2). “Providing broadcasters with a tax incentive to sell to small and disadvantaged businesses would increase the volume and frequency of such exchanges dramatically,” McDowell said. “We could accomplish these goals without the flawed loopholes of yore, thus restoring integrity and certainty to the program. The tax certificate bills sponsored during the last Congress didn’t move, but that is no reason to despair. Don’t give up the fight.” McDowell joked that he’s been giving speeches for several years backing a return of a tax certificate program, just as during that time he has been seeking completion of the FCC’s Adarand studies. The Supreme Court’s 1995 Adarand ruling limited government programs with race-based classifications. McDowell also repeated his desire that the commission should “largely, if not completely” end the ban on common ownership of a radio or TV station and a daily newspaper in the same market.