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NOW THAT’S GOOD PUBLICITY: All in all, it’s probably a pretty good day for Republicans when they can say both Walmart and Fiat Chrysler are helping workers because of their tax cut.

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Walmart, the nation’s largest employer, bumped up its minimum wage, boosted its parental leave benefits and offered one-time bonuses, with its chief executive, Doug McMillon, suggesting that the tax cut could still produce even more benefits for workers and customers. (Undercutting that announcement somewhat, Walmart also closed more than five dozen Sam’s Club stores on Thursday without any notice.)

Hours later, Fiat Chrysler announced that it would not only offer bonuses to around 60,000 workers in the U.S., but also shift production of pickup trucks to Michigan — from Mexico.

Still, the question remains — how long can the good news last, and how much of this public relation blitz stems from companies trying to curry favor with the Trump administration?

The recent announcements have sparked what our Ben White and Ian Kullgren called “a giddy sense of hope for President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.” And yet “economists have a warning: Enjoy it while it lasts. While the wage hikes and bonuses are undoubtedly positive, they may produce only a temporary economic boost that fades in later months. Gains could be undercut by rising deficits caused by slashing federal revenue by at least $1.5 trillion over ten years.”

As for Fiat Chrysler, Bloomberg notes that the auto industry is worried about how Trump might handle the North American Free Trade Agreement. “At least making Trump’s tax plan look like it’s rewarding workers very quickly should bode well with the administration,” said Dave Sullivan of AutoPacific.

MORE CHEERING FROM THE RIGHT: The Trump administration also announced Thursday that its plans for workers to start seeing the benefits of the tax cut by next month are on schedule, Pro Tax’s Brian Faler reports, after the government released the new, eagerly awaited withholding tables. The administration’s hope is that employers are using the new tables by Feb. 15, while it’s also developing a new W-4 withholding form for the next year.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also dismissed as “ridiculous” Democrats’ complaints that the administration was trying to pressure the IRS into artificially boosting paychecks. In all, the government believes that 90 percent of workers will see their checks go up because of the withholding rules. But payroll experts also say there’s a good chance that some taxpayers — especially those with a lot of allowances on their tax forms — could end up owing the IRS next year because of the new rules.

Plus, there’s this, via The Washington Post’s Damian Paletta: “Millions of Americans will need to use a new Internal Revenue Service online calculator to ensure their new paychecks are accurate, Trump administration officials said Thursday as they issued guidelines for implementing the recently passed tax law.

MORE MNUCHIN: The Treasury secretary thought the schemes being discussed in California, New Jersey and New York to bypass the new cap on the state and local deduction — like essentially counting local taxes as charitable contributions — are also pretty ridiculous, as our Aubree Eliza Weaver reported. And yet, Mnuchin also stopped far short of saying the administration would block those kinds of efforts, even as he urged blue states to instead concentrate on cutting spending. “Let me just say again from a Treasury standpoint and IRS, I don’t want to speculate on what people will do,” he said.

The progressive skepticism on the SALT run-arounds: The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has a new paper that says it’s understandable why states would try to make sure residents don’t face a tax hike under what it believes to be a horribly flawed law. But ITEP adds that most taxpayers facing the new cap would still get a tax cut under the GOP plan. “A deeper examination of some policies that state lawmakers are proposing to ‘work around’ the federal tax bill reveals that not only would states compound adequacy and equity problems the federal law created in the first place, they would also make it more difficult to raise revenue at the state level to fund critical priorities.”

The case for such a maneuver, via a quartet of law professors writing at Slate: "State and local governments fund education, police and fire protection, health care, and a range of other critical public services. Those who rely on such services should not have to bear the brunt of an ill-considered federal tax law. One of the few positive consequences of an otherwise atrocious bill may be to spark creative approaches to state and local public finance that would yield civic benefits as well as federal tax savings."

AND WITH THAT, it’s almost time for that holiday weekend.

It’s also 49 years since the New York Jets won Super Bowl III, in quite an upset over the Baltimore Colts. It’s not gone so well since then, as more than a couple people to whom your author is related to by marriage can tell you.

Enjoy that extra day off, but also tell us what's happening out there.

Email:bbecker@politico.com, teckert@politico.com, bfaler@politico.com, cwilhelm@politico.com, alorenzo@politico.com.

Twitter: @berniebecker3, @tobyeckert, @brian_faler, @colinwilhelm, @AaronELorenzo, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Tax.

ON THE ONE HAND…: Remember when Mnuchin kept saying that his department had an analysis supporting his stance that the $1.5 trillion tax cut would pay for itself? And remember how a Treasury watchdog was going to look into why that analysis never saw the light of day?

As it turns out, the inquiry — first reported on by The New York Times and later obtained by Morning Tax — found no proof that department higher-ups ignored the work of career tax staff for political reasons. A Treasury inspector general staffer found that it wasn’t clear whether the department’s involvement in this legislative process “has been any more or less ‘political’ than it has been in past years,” and the tax staff themselves said they got more of a sense that Republicans on Capitol Hill didn’t much care about getting their input. That said, the top career Treasury tax staffer also said that the Joint Committee on Taxation’s finding that the tax bill would end up costing about $1 trillion over a decade seemed reasonable. Democrats like Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts didn’t seem convinced that politics hadn’t permeated the process. “Republicans and this administration never had any intention of allowing the truth about their deficit-exploding corporate handout to come out,” Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement.

AS PREDICTED…: The nonprofit sector repeatedly said the new GOP tax law would take a bite out of charitable giving, because fewer people would itemize their taxes. And at the very least, the federal government will be handing out less in tax breaks for donations, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The center now projects that about 16 million people will claim a deduction for their charitable giving, and the government will offer about $42 billion in subsidies for those donations. That would be down from 37 million people claiming the charitable deduction to the tune of $63 billion under the previous tax regime. “Overall, the TCJA will reduce the marginal tax benefit of giving to charity by more than one-quarter in 2018, raising the after-tax cost of donating by about 7 percent,” Howard Gleckman wrote.

Top earners are more likely to keep itemizing, which the center’s Len Burman noted on Twitter could have an impact on which charities get help. “This could transform the nonprofit sector: rich people (who will still itemize) tend to support universities and arts organizations while lower- and middle-income people donate to religious and social welfare institutions.” (Not to go overboard with the Treasury secretary, but Mnuchin pooh-poohed the idea that the tax bill could put a crimp on charitable donations. “I would say quite the opposite — that we've raised the limits that rich people can give to charity to encourage charitable donations.”)

INTERNATIONAL UPDATE

WHOA: Tunisians protesting recent tax hikes and price increases torched a national security office, Reuters reports, after which the government sent in troops.

Those tax increases cover a wide range of items, as The New York Times noted this week — gas, using the internet, hotels, and fruits and vegetables. The unrest has also raised concerns about the future of the only somewhat stable democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring. Prime Minister Youssef Chahed has said the tax hikes will put the economy on more stable footing, after Tunisia accepted almost $3 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund in 2016. “People have to understand that the situation is extraordinary and their country is having difficulties, but we believe that 2018 will be the last difficult year for the Tunisians,” Chahed said.

STATE NEWS

CHRISTIE’S FINAL ACT? Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, down to his final days in office, signed a measure Thursday that would offer Amazon $5 billion in tax breaks to bring its second headquarters to Newark. NJ.com: The $5 billion proposed subsidy, while meaningless unless Amazon chooses New Jersey for its second headquarters, would become the state's largest ever incentive if it does.

QUICK LINKS

Apple has to fork over an extra 137 million pounds to the U.K.

Tesla and GM aren’t thrilled with the GOP tax law, even though it kept the electric vehicle credit.

Reuters examines the gaming potential for the tax law’s onetime repatriation rates.

Luxembourg’s top court overturned conviction of LuxLeaks whistleblower.

Barclays chief executive to Prime Minister Theresa May: Cut taxes after Brexit.

Singapore could be preparing for a tax increase.

PwC barred from auditing firms listed in India.

DID YOU KNOW?

The ruins of Carthage, the capital of the empire that had a longtime rivalry with Rome, are in Tunisia.