• Issues related to tax treaty treatment of REITs.

Duration: January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008

General Issues: Taxation/Internal Revenue Code

Spending: about $0 (But it's complicated. Here's why.)

It can be tricky to figure out how much an organization spent on a particular lobbying engagement. The law only requires lobbyists to report the amount they were paid for federal lobbying each quarter rounded to the nearest $10,000—and if it's less than $3,000 in a given quarter (or less than $13,000 for organizations with in-house lobbyists), they don't have to disclose it at all. Plus, some organizations include spending that doesn’t belong in the report—for instance, money spent lobbying state governments or other legal work.

Agencies lobbied since 2008: Treasury - Dept of, House of Representatives, U.S. Senate