Boeing continues damage control

Boeing scratched a planned Tuesday conference call with airlines to reassure them about the safety of the 737 MAX, and will replace it with a series of regional meetings and conference calls with airlines.

The planned meetings are intended to allow Boeing engineering and maintenance staff to answer technical questions from airline counterparts about the new automated flight-control system introduced on the MAX that may be implicated in the fatal Oct. 29 crash of Lion Air flight JT610.

Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg sent an email to employees Monday expressing confidence in the safety of the MAX and disputing some media reports related to the MAX’s new automated flight-control system — called MCAS, for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System.

That system was introduced because the MAX’s new engines, which are larger, heavier and tilted more forward and higher on the wing, make the plane less stable in a potential stall situation than the previous 737 model. MCAS is designed to kick in without pilot action if a sensor on the fuselage indicates the plane’s nose is too high and threatening a potential stall.

The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee indicated the Lion Air flight computer received false angle of attack data on the fatal flight, which may have led MCAS to repeatedly force the nose of the plane down uncommanded by the pilots, according to a service bulletin Boeing sent out to airlines soon after the Lion Air crash. The 737 pilot manuals don’t mention MCAS, and some pilot unions expressed concern last week that they were not made aware of it before the Lion Air crash.

IRS says no back taxes on gifts

The Internal Revenue Service proposed a potential benefit for wealthy taxpayers, saying individuals who give gifts to heirs under a generous and temporary provision of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul won’t later owe taxes on them.

Last year’s tax law doubled the value of assets that can be transferred to heirs without triggering federal estate or gift taxes over a lifetime to almost $11.2 million for an individual and $22.4 million for a married couple. The thresholds rise slightly in 2019 and potentially more later, before expiring in 2025, when they revert back to half of their current levels. Amounts over exemption levels are taxed at 40 percent.

Estate planning professionals worried the tax agency might attempt to collect taxes on gifts made under the doubled exemptions. The IRS said Tuesday it won’t seek retroactive taxes. Individual gifts will be limited by an annual exclusion, which is $15,000 this year. The agency will hold a hearing on the proposed rule on March 13, 2019.