Dear Colleague,

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—the $787 billion stimulus bill—was enacted on Feb. 17 (Public Law 111-5). There are a number of provisions that will have a significant impact on independent community pharmacy, in addition to the ones that affect us all as citizens and taxpayers.

Now and in the coming weeks, we'll be drilling down into the law's fine print, analyzing any proposed regulations needed to implement various sections, and combing the FY '10 budget released yesterday for potential benefits and landmines. We'll roll out this valuable information in a number of ways, but only to NCPA members.

If you know someone who isn't a member, urge them to join NCPA now. Our Web site contains a wealth of information on legislation and regulation freely available to anyone, but the members-only section is much more detailed and is going to grow even more robust. I personally believe that the NCPA Digest, sponsored by Cardinal Health, and the searchable archive of America's Pharmacist articles back to 2005 alone are worth the price of membership, and they are only a couple of our many member-only benefits.

Since we are in tax season, I thought I'd alert you to some of the changes in tax law contained in the Act:

• Increases temporarily for 2009 the Section 179 expense deduction from $128,000 to $250,000 and offers a 50% depreciation allowing for half the cost of capital expense.
  
• Expands from two years to five years the ability of firms to carry back operating losses for companies with $15 million or less in gross operating revenues (Section 172 of the IRS Code).
  
• Modifies work opportunity tax credit (Section 51 of the IRS Code).
  
• Temporarily reduces the recognition period for S corporation built-in gains tax (Section 1374 of the IRS Code).
  

Be sure to share these with your accountant, and don't forget about the small business provisions in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-185) (it was "only" $150 billion).

Other major areas of interest to community pharmacy in this year's bill cover enhanced funding for state Medicaid programs, a temporary subsidy for COBRA beneficiaries, health information technology and quality, and new patient privacy protections.

As I said, there'll be more to come from NCPA on these and other issues critical to community pharmacy in the weeks and months ahead.

Regards,