“OB3”? “OB-cubed”? A pithy nickname for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is proving to be elusive.
As the tax world pores over Republicans’ tax cuts, one question keeps coming up: What are we calling this?
In a town that loves clever acronyms, tax pros are struggling to figure out how to talk about the new law, beginning with its name. The official title, at least before Democrats had it deleted from the legislation, is a mouthful: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And it’s a bit awkward with the word “act” following “bill.”
But there’s no consensus on what else to call it.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent likes “O Triple B.” Others are going with “OBBB” or “TOBBB” or “OBBBA” or “BBB.” “OB3″ has been getting some traction, which bugs Libin Zhang, a tax lawyer at Fried Frank.
“’OB3’ is a bit misleading because the 3 should come before the B, like ‘O3B’,” he says. Zhang likes “OB-cubed.”
It’s not just the title that has experts tongue tied.
The legislation has an alphabet soup of provisions that are also scrambling the tax lexicon, simultaneously adding new terms and acronyms while deleting others — including GILTI, perhaps the most well-known piece of jargon to emerge from Republicans’ original 2017 tax cuts.
The Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income tax is a special levy Republicans imposed on business profits parked in overseas tax havens, and the acronym left little doubt about the dim view lawmakers took of the tactics.