WOOING THE NEW WAYS AND MEANS BOSS: Lobbyists working for the U.S. Virgin Islands are hosting new House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) there this week as they push to preserve the territory’s unique tax treatment in the U.S., Benjamin Guggenheim writes in Morning Tax. — Smith held a fundraiser last night in St. Thomas, and is set to participate in a roundtable discussion, cocktail reception and dinner in St. Croix tonight. “According to an introductory memo from the planning committee responsible for organizing the event, the organizers wish to secure Smith’s support for the U.S. territory’s unique revenue and tax needs, with a focus on promoting U.S. and international investment in the islands as an alternative to offshore jurisdictions that companies might otherwise consider for their business operations,” Benjamin writes. — Among the trip’s organizers are Kevin Callwood and Steve Gordon, who work on behalf of the territory at the lobbying firm Total Spectrum. The firm reported $50,000 in lobbying revenues for the Virgin Islands during the first quarter of 2023 and a total of $170,000 in 2022, according to disclosures. — “Other members of the planning committee include Ari Storch, a partner at the lobbying firm Madison Group, and Marjorie Rawls Roberts, a lawyer in the territory who, according to her biography, advises on opportunity zones and helps foreign-owned companies operating in the U.S. Virgin Islands claim territory-facilitated tax breaks.” EUROPEAN AUTO GIANT LOBBIES UP: Global auto companies have been forced to get involved in Washington politics in recent years because of geopolitical changes in the last few years, said Patrick Koller, CEO of the global auto parts company Forvia, told James Bikales and Tanya this week during his first visit ever to Washington. — The company has existing lobbying operations in China and Europe, but is only beginning to hire its first lobbyists in the U.S., Koller said, noting that tensions between the U.S. and China grew during the Trump administration, as well as tensions with Europe. — Those tensions accelerated during the pandemic and everybody started talking about “sovereignty” because “we discovered how dependent we were on some other regions,” he said, and now, regions are trying to “invest in our strengths and try to reduce our too-high dependencies.” — In addition to adding lobbyists in the U.S., Forvia plans to join some of the U.S. trade associations that lobby on automotive issues — though he acknowledged that the interests of auto parts suppliers overlap in some places with other parts of the auto industry, but not always. — He said that business contracts trump the law in the U.S., “and when you're in an industry where your customers are powerful, it's difficult,” he said. “We have to find ways to deal with this in order to reduce the dominant position of OEMs.” FLYING IN: AdvaMed is bringing executives from its members in the medical tech industry to Washington this week to meet with Hill staff and officials from the Biden administration. The trade group will advocate for regulatory reforms for diagnostics, transitional coverage for emerging technologies and policies to reinforce the supply chain. EMMER HUDDLES WITH DEFENSE LOBBYISTS: “A top House GOP lawmaker is asking defense industry executives and lobbyists to help leadership sell rank-and-file Republicans the Pentagon policy bill,” five people with knowledge of a recent meeting tell our Lee Hudson, Connor O’Brien and Joe Gould. — “On June 15, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) called a meeting with a large contingent of defense industry executives and lobbyists, as he seeks to corral Republican votes for the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. Five people who attended the briefing were granted anonymity to freely discuss the closed-door meeting.” — The meeting’s premise was “to go over procedural items such as the new process lawmakers will use to submit amendments and electronic voting, two lobbyists who attended the meeting said. Attendees included executives from large defense contractors Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, and lobbyists who represent multiple companies.” — But Emmer “also used the briefing to tamp down hopes of a supplemental, echoing what Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said publicly” but which the defense industry has been wishing for due to defense spending caps agreed to as part of the bipartisan deal to raise the debt limit.
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