Critical infrastructure owners and operators would be able to deduct Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) membership costs from their federal tax dues under new legislation offered in the U.S. Senate – though publicly owned water utilities would not benefit for the incentive.
Sponsored by Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the “Cyber Information Sharing Tax Credit Act” (S. 2717) would offer critical infrastructure-related businesses a refundable tax credit in the amount equal to any costs associated with joining their sector’s Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC). ISACs have been established for each critical infrastructure sector and offer members risk mitigation, incident response, alert and information sharing services.
Sen. Gillibrand authored the legislation with the goal of promoting awareness and information sharing on cybersecurity threats. A statement from Gillibrand’s office explained the bill would give businesses “access to real-time alerts about ongoing cyber threats to their systems, or newly discovered vulnerabilities in their networks that hackers might exploit, along with technical advice on how to protect against these attacks and eliminate their vulnerabilities.”
According to Gillibrand’s office, S. 2717 would offer the refundable tax credit to any business that joins its relevant ISAC, and the credit could be used to offset “personnel participation costs, product and service costs directly related to sharing information with the ISAC, as well as other costs reasonably associated with participation.”
While encouraging critical infrastructure stakeholders to participate in their sector’s ISAC is a laudable goal, S. 2717’s use of refundable federal tax credits appears to limit the ability of water utilities to take advantage of the proposal to join WaterISAC. While private, tax-paying water utilities could benefit from the bill, publicly-owned water systems that pay no federal taxes do not appear eligible for any assistance through the bill in its current form.
Members of Sen. Gillibrand’s staff have told AMWA and other critical infrastructure stakeholders that the senator is open to expanding the bill to better assist public entities. AMWA plans to continue discussions with Sen. Gillibrand’s office on this issue.