The Senate’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a pro-growth, pro-family proposal that will reduce taxes on Americans at every income level and dramatically simplify the 70,000+ page tax code. It will also provide a much-needed overhaul to the outdated tax code so that businesses large and small will again be able to compete against foreign competitors and create jobs across the country.
The Senate Finance Committee this week is moving through a comprehensive regular order process that has included years of Committee hearings and Member input. Following the completion of this process later this week, the Senate should swiftly take up and pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will Reduce Taxes for Americans of Every Income Level
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provides tax reduction for Americans of every income level. The Senate bill doubles the standard deduction to $12,000, or $24,000 for a family. About 70% of filers – or 105 million individuals and families currently take the standard deduction, and these families would see strong tax reduction.
The plan also reduces almost every tax bracket, resulting in tax cuts across the board. Under this plan, a family of four earning $73,000 would see a tax reduction of 40% or $1,500 per year.
The Middle Class would be the biggest winners under the Senate tax bill. Under this plan, those earning between $50,000 and $70,000 would receive a tax reduction of 7.1% in 2019, and earners making between $20,000 and $30,000 would see their taxes fall by 10.4%.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is Pro-Family
The Senate tax bill doubles the child tax credit to $2,000 per child. Expanding the child tax credit will help millions of Americans across every state. According to the most recent IRS data, more than 22 million Americans used the child tax credit in 2015. These families will see strong tax reduction, and will also see simplification from the consolidation of other pro-family tax preferences into the expanded child tax credit.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Dramatically Simplifies the Tax Code
Today, the tax code is absurdly complex. Since 1985 the tax code has doubled, and it has increased six fold since 1955. Today, the code totals 2.4 million words. This complexity costs Americans millions of hours and billions of dollars in lost productivity.
According to the Tax Foundation, Americans will spend more than 8.9 million hours complying with the tax code, costing $409 billion. 2.6 billion hours will be spent complying with individual income taxes, costing $98 billion each year. Similarly, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation estimates that taxpayers spend 1.8 billion hours on 1040 forms a year, costing $262 billion every year.
The many reforms in the Senate tax bill, including the doubling of the standard deduction and the repeal of many deductions and credits will drastically simplify the code and reduce the compliance burden on American families.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Reduces Taxes on Businesses Large and Small
The Senate tax bill proposes a globally competitive 20 percent corporate rate that will allow American businesses to compete against foreign competitors. The U.S. currently has the highest marginal corporate income tax rate in the developed. At 35 percent (plus an average state rate of 4 percent), the U.S. corporate rate is nearly 15 points higher than the typical developed country which has a rate around 25 percent. Since 2000, 32 of the 35 developed countries have reduced their corporate rates. Only the U.S. and Chile have higher corporate tax rates.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act also proposes drastic tax reduction for businesses organized as pass-through entities (LLCs, sole-proprietors, partnerships etc.) The bill creates a 17.4 percent deduction on pass-through income resulting in tax relief for millions of small businesses across the country.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Repeals the Individual Mandate
The Senate’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repeals Obamacare’s individual mandate, resulting in strong tax relief for millions of middle class families. The annual tax is currently $695 for an individual, and $2,085 for a family of four, or 2.5% of your household income, whichever is higher.
According to IRS data compiled by the office of Senator Steve Daines, 6.6 million households paid the individual mandate in 2015. 79 percent of those households have a yearly income of less than $50,000, while 37 percent of those households have a yearly income of less than $25,000.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Will Create Higher Wages and More Jobs
Over the past decade, the economy has struggled at just two percent GDP growth as the country has experienced the worst recovery in the modern era. The Congressional Budget Office projects that under current policies, two percent growth will continue into the next decade. Because of this lackluster recovery, families have lost an average of $8,600 in annual income, according to Joint Economic Committee.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will reverse this alarming trend, result in higher wages and new or better jobs for Americans across the country. According to a recent White House study, a 20 percent corporate tax rate would increase average household income by at least $4,000 a year.
The Tax Foundation estimates that the bill will grow the overall economy by 3.7% in the long term. The tax reductions will grow wages by 2.9% over the long term, delivering much needed relief to Americans blighted by wage stagnation over the past eight years. In the long run, the plan increases after-tax income of all taxpayers by 4.4% and will create approximately 1 million jobs.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Moves toward a Globally Competitive Territorial System of Taxation
The tax reform plan replaces the outdated worldwide system of taxation with a territorial system of taxation. Currently, the U.S. tax code subjects American businesses to two layers of taxation – once when the income is earned overseas, and again when it is brought back to the U.S. to be reinvested in jobs and wages.
This creates a disadvantage for American companies, especially as the U.S. is one of six countries in the developed world that still uses a worldwide system of taxation. Today, 95 percent of consumers live outside the U.S. and a total of 41 million jobs are tied to business operations overseas, so this outdated system results in lost jobs and lower wages.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Will Encourage More Investment in the U.S.
The Senate tax bill implements immediate, 100 percent full business expensing for the next five years, and expands Section 179 small business expensing. This will encourage businesses to make more investment in the U.S. economy and will dramatically simplify the tax code.
Under current law, businesses must deduct, or “depreciate” the cost of new investments over multiple years depending on the asset they purchase, as dictated by arbitrary IRS rules. Moving to full expensing ends this distortion and treats all investment equally.
According to research by the Tax Foundation, implementing full business expensing increases GDP by five percent after a decade and increases wages by 4 percent, creating more than one million jobs.