One significant economic factor missing from the whole GOP plan is "How will the consumer demand for goods and services change under this plan?"
Cutting taxes on businesses, repealing the estate tax and providing only modest temporary tax breaks to some consumers, all the while raising taxes on the more modestly paid consumers, will NOT increase economic demands.
Exactly whom do these GOP leaders think will purchase the goods and services that could result in higher GDP?
This plan will result in increased corporate profits, allowing greater dividends paid, and likely increasing M&A activity, but these do NOT increase GDP, nor the overall economic benefits to the US consumer-citizens.
Good luck to all those blue-collar workers who voted in this current GOP government. You are about to be skewered (again).
7
So under this plan, the rich will get richer, donate more money to the Republican Party to under gird more outrageous puppet candidates and you wonder why the middle class is shrinking.
2
I have worked at CPA firms long enough to know that neither Partnerships, C Corps, S Corps or Pass Throughs pay anything close to 35%. Loopholes, carry over losses (think DJT) and many other questionable tactics reduce in excess of $10 million in gross income in one year to a "net operating loss" severely reducing, if not eliminating, their share of the tax burden. The percentage of federal tax received annually from corporations is drastically reduced to the detriment of the individuals who can't even afford to save $500 in case of an emergency.
8
Senator Johnson would be one of the last Republican Senators I would depend upon to do the right thing for his constituents. He will fold as soon as he gets some crumbs for his request for even more cuts via pass through rates for small businesses. We need people to oppose this because it creates a huge deficit in order to reward the wealthiest people and punishes those that can afford it least.
It is being sold as a spur to an already booming economy. It won't result in higher paying jobs. If they really wanted to do that, they would have come up with a $1.5Trillion infrastructure plan instead. This tax cut will make that impossible
5
Republicans have decided to beggar all who are not owners and do away with all rights and regulations
Please someone enlighten me and tell me why as a salaried worker i should pay a higher rate than business owners and investors. How is that legitimate at every income level? Why should a salaried worker who earns $265K pay a higher federal tax rate than an accounting partner who earns $1M?
You are poking the bear. We vote and there are more of us than there are of you.
3
"I will not vote for this Chamber's tax bill, on high principle, unless an outstanding small manufacturing concern, Johnson Specialty Plastics, which happens to be located near my main Senate office in Wisconsin, is treated on an equal footing in this legislation with large, faceless, already rich corporate concerns. J.S.P. is the type of company which exemplifies, from its humble founding, the "can-do" entrepreneurial spirit of America. I can also state that J.S.P., a family run company, contributes so much to the greater community in which it operates, sponsoring a Little League baseball team, food donation drive, a Junior Achievement project, and other notable projects. Without equivocation, knowing its responsible owners, I firmly believe that every penny of tax savings accrued by J.S.P. would be redirected solely toward wage increases for its outstanding work force, not merely pocketed by the owners. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my remaining time."
1
Please, God, let these greedy people fail.
8
Most of us were alive when Obamacare got passed, and we know this is misleading:
"I don't see what the rush is here. Obamacare took five months of deliberations...'"
Obama recalled well the outcome of a President's too-personal involvement in a major health-care bill from when Hillary Clinton went "underground" for a year and returned with a 2,000-page bill that she plopped on Congress' desk in 1994 with a "Here, pass this."
Congress didn't, of course, and that incident sealed the mid-term electoral disaster for Democrats. (Though not much came of it, the 1994 election propelled Newt Gingrich to great prominence and left Bill Clinton to argue for the next two years that he was still "relevant." True, he won re-election in 1996, but most Americans voted for someone else – indeed, no Clinton has EVER received a majority).
Obama maintained a "hands-off" policy toward the health-care bill that wended its way slowly through Congress during his first year (2009). The Democrats always assumed they'd have the votes, and thus were in no rush. But when Scott Brown won the special election to replace the deceased Ted Kennedy, the Democrats realized they'd get the ACA through the Senate only through "reconciliation," a process that didn't permit substantive changes. So the then-current ACA bill was quickly put to a vote and was approved along party lines.
So, yes, the ACA went through 5 months of deliberations, but ultimately it was voted on before it was ready.
1
When Johnson voiced initial concerns last week about the Senate version of the bill, a number of progressive NYT commenters applauded his hesitation, ascribing it to concern for the little guy. Turns out the politician is just another believer in the Republican Voodoo Fable. That's the one that says stimulate greater business growth and their generous owners will pass it down to lowly workers' paychecks. He just wants to extend the largesse to those smaller businesses to whose owners he relates. Those are the same people with whom he rubs elbows at professional lunches and toasts over country-club dinners. Johnson is for those people, by those people, of those people. Just another case of self interest at work.
3
When the Founding Fathers envisioned a representative government and set out the framework, I doubt if in their worst nightmares possible for that time could they have envisioned what would come to pass as to be represented today. Sentimentality is sweet, but that’s all. Another day passes, another self-aggrandized hostage taker with a vote holds the whole nation for an even bigger ransom.
The House Bill reduces the top marginal rate for C corporations from 35% to 20% and shifts to a territorial approach versus worldwide taxation, bringing us into a competitive position with our trading partners.
It also reduces the top marginal rate on net income allocated to owners of pass through entities, including S corporations, partnerships and LLCs taxed as partnerships, single member disregarded entities and sole proprietorships - the vast majority of small businesses that create most new jobs - from 39.6% to 25%.
The combination of these two reforms will unleash businesses to grow and create new revenues to the government, hiring new employees and creating new wealth.
Sen. Johnson is jealously demanding the pass through entities get the same rate as C corporations. But he appears to be disregarding one salient fact. C corporations are double taxed. Unlike pass though entities, C corporation owners are also taxed at a top marginal rate of 39.6% when the after tax net profits are distributed to them.
What am I missing here? How are pass through owners not treated better? The double taxation of C corporations is a proxy for taxing them on a pass through basis, because of the difficulty of allocating net income when shares are sold many times during the year and not all corporations distribute dividends.
3
"What am I missing here? How are pass through owners not treated better? The double taxation of C corporations..."
I agree generally with your analysis, but "double taxation" is usually a bit overstated. Even if a corporation pays a dividend to its shareholders, most dividends are "qualified dividends," which means they're taxed at the lower rate applicable to long-term capital gains. So, yes, there is double taxation, but, in most cases, the "double tax" is not "corporate income tax rate plus ordinary-income personal rate," but instead is "corporate income tax rate plus long-term capital gains rate."
1
Tell me what I’m missing here.
The House Bill reduces the top marginal rate for C corporations from 35% to 20% and shifts to a territorial approach versus worldwide taxation, bringing us into a competitive position with our trading partners.
It also reduces the top marginal rate on net income allocated to owners of pass through entities, including S corporations, partnerships and LLCs taxed as partnerships, single member disregarded entities and sole proprietorships - the vast majority of small businesses that create most new jobs - from 39.6% to 25%.
The combination of these two reforms will unleash businesses to grow and create new revenues to the government, hiring new employees and creating new wealth.
Sen. Johnson is jealously demanding the pass through entities get the same rate as C corporations. But he appears to be disregarding one salient fact. C corporations are double taxed. Unlike pass though entities, C corporation owners are also taxed at a top marginal rate of 39.6% when the after tax net profits are distributed to them.
What am I missing here? How are pass through owners not treated better? The double taxation of C corporations is a proxy for taxing them on a pass through basis, because of the difficulty of allocating net income when shares are sold many times during the year and not all corporations distribute dividends.
It DOES matter whether people sincerely believe what they claim to believe, even if their beliefs are incorrect:
"The President lost the popular vote by 3 million with the Kremlin's help."
Many of us (most, I hope) prefer to let Robert Mueller come up with something to support this. So far, nada, and his indictments of Manafort and Gates on entirely unrelated matters, and of Papadopoulos, a low-level volunteer, aren't encouraging. If Manafort and/or Gates knows something, indicting them on something unrelated is an excellent way to jog their memories, but in the end they need to have something to tell Mueller. Frankly, I doubt they do.
As for Papadopoulos, let's get real here for just a moment. Take some time and actually read his statement. I have no idea whether Sessions doesn't remember much about him, but that wouldn't surprise me. What is clear is that the Trump campaign discouraged any meeting between Trump and Putin despite Papadopoulos' continual pressing for such a meeting, and there's never been any dispute that his pressed-for meeting never took place.
Maybe there's more than meets the eye in the Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos cases, and I acknowledge it's customary for prosecutors to start at the bottom of the food chain and work their way up. Nonetheless, these three indictments look to me like Mueller acknowledging pressure to "deliver," and him "delivering" what little he had to deliver.
1
As to the legitimacy of the President who will sign tax legislation personally befitting he and his family by billions of dollars:
You are right, My3Cents, the Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller who is investigating Russia's illegal involvement in the US election is not yet finished.
All we know is that Donald Trump's Campaign Manager was an unregistered foreign agent paid tens of millions to represent Kremlin interests, yet he "donated" his services for free to the Trump Campaign.
We have public records of Donald Trump's surrogate Roger Stone communicating with Guccifer 2.0, believed to be a front for Russian intelligence.
Every American intelligence service acknowledges the Russians hacked the DNC and hacked American voter polls for personal voter information.
We have public acknowledgement that Donald Trump Jr. spoke with WikiLeaks while they were releasing hacked DNC emails.
Michael Flynn resigned after 24 days as Donald Trump's pick for National Security Advisor when it turned out he accepted money from Russia and Turkey to influence US policy.
Even Putin acknowledged the troll farms purchasing propaganda on US social media in swing states supporting Trump and denigrating Clinton, and these same social media firms testified before Congress of the vast Russian purchases.
Trump Jr., Manafort, Flynn, Stone, Papadopoulos, Page, Kushner, the list encircling Trump's personal connection to the conspiracy to thwart US campaign election laws goes on, stay tuned.
1
There is a lot not to like about the tax bill. But I agree with Mr Johnson on the treatment of small businesses. It is not only time to level the playing field, it is time to tilt in in favor of small business. Small business creates jobs and competition and broad growth across the country is places large and small. Big business has enjoyed many benefits not available to other businesses for many years which stifles the growth of our economy. It benefits from a lower cost of capital,which underlies every decision a company must make. It benefits from access to government and lobbying forces affordable only to them. It benefits from not only the ability to do research at scale but greater access to government research. It benefits from from the access to tax planning that allows large companies to bring the “highest” tax rate in the world down to about 14%. It enjoys the access to major expensive marketing exposure not affordable to small business. In short it enjoys such an advantage that small businesses are almost an endangered species. The vast ability of large business to automate without considering the workers as other than an a expendable asset is hastening the way to another crisis facing our country. It is a shame that small business does not share the same opportunities as big business, but Congress is not disposed that way.
2
Johnson is simply a farther to the Right tax cut advocate.
His "me-too" position won't last long.
He'll cave and the GOP will pass its obscene gift to the rich at the expense of working people.
4
Just like Ron Johnson to ask for a tax break for himself, without even a word about helping out the people of Wisconsin.
5
Wisconsin surely has the two least competent Senators, at least with respect to economic and tax issues. Johnson wants all corporations to be taxed as pass-throughs? Imagine the reporting nightmare you would encounter if your investment in a few (or many) shares of a corporation such as one of those listed on the NYSE meant that you had to report your share of its taxable income on your individual income tax return. Instead of waiting until sometime in February to get a 1099 on your dividend income, you would be waiting months until the corporation reported your share of its taxable income. And I do mean months. Imagine the difficulty in estimating your taxable income. Further, calculating your tax basis in those shares would have to be increased annually by the income reported to you and then adjusted downward by any cash dividends you received. One could go on at length about how stupid this idea is…..
1
Senator Johnson was also against the healthcare bill, but then voted for it, so hard to say if this is just another way to get in front of the cameras or what.
My wager is that come time to vote his will be a loud YAY! Bigly.
4
Let's hope this bill, and any action that the insane infant in the White House wants, is not approved. The tax bill is designed first and foremost to enrich Trump, and then, if anything is left, other one percenters and the corporate executives of the companies bribing the Republicans in Congress ( and bribing is the correct word. Isn't it a crime for a politician to accept bribes?)
6
75% of the American public is against this deficit busting tax giveaway to billionaires and corporations.
The President lost the popular vote by 3 million with the Kremlin's help.
If the US Congress also votes against overwhelming public interest, the GOP-Kremlin pact to turn the US into a Russian mafia-style kleptocracy is well underway.
Happy Thanksgiving! Every American should call their representatives with their best thoughts for the holiday.
6
Tax dividends and capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income, and this ceases to be an issue. In fact, doing so would resolve a host of other issues.
4
The problem with that theory is the investment was already made with after tax income.
Yes DR, I understand your point. This is where it becomes difficult to discuss these matters in an Internet comment board. The devil is in the details.
I think if it was done in conjunction with a sharp reduction in the corporate tax rate, it would alleviate the issue you're referring to, at least with respect to dividends.
Frankly, I've advocated for years doing away with the corporate income tax (or at least make it something small, like in the 5-10% range), and treat dividends like regular income. Tax avoidance has become big business, which is kind of ridiculous, and counter-productive with respect to the well-being of the country. High corporate income taxes hurt everyone.
Yup. Senator Johnson is a huge fan of massive increases in the deficits, now. When he was running he was very circumspect, very concerned about balancing the budget. How sad that he succeeded in bamboozling Wisconsin voters.
8
Any tax cut that doesn’t include a spending cut is not a tax cut. It’s a tax shift.
This bill simply shifts tax revenue from one taxpayer to another.
US corporations are over taxed to to point that they refuse (rightfully so) to “on-shore” assets. One stated goal of this bill is to lower corporate rates so companies repatriate assets and use them for domestic capital expenditures including increases in head count and increased worker salaries. “It’s about the jobs!!!”
What corporations will do, many fear (rightfully so) is use their savings to buy back stock, acquire competitors and pay management more. Buying back stock, also known as financial engineering, improves shareholder value. That’s a good thing.
Buying competitors is done to “do more with less” - the code word is “synergies”. No company ever buys another company to add to their payroll. Acquisitions happen to reduce head count nearly every time. That’s a bad thing.
Financial engineering improves valuations. Management compensation is usually tied to stock valuations. Increased management compensation is a bad thing.
This bill doesn’t seem to include any penalties for acquisitions, buy backs and other financial engineering. It doesn’t seem to have a penalty for increased executive compensation. It had no spending cuts. We can only assume it’s business as usual in DC.
It’s a bad thing.
4
If we were 20 years younger my wife and I would have already left this country. Trump/Republican America: The Richest Third World Country on the Planet.
10
Pretty much everyone agrees that Johnson will vote FOR the tax bill, that he's objecting now just to get some concessions.
But there's stark disagreement on WHY he's demanding concessions. Some say he's just being self-serving; others (and Johnson) claim he just has the welfare of small business owners in mind.
There's a third possibility: Johnson has the welfare of small business owners in mind but his proposals wouldn't accomplish that goal. For example, requiring every corporation to become a pass-through entity is another way of saying the corporate income tax should be eliminated and that owners of corporations (i.e. shareholders) should pay personal income taxes on the corporation's taxable income (that's what "pass through" means here).
That's how it is now for sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations. Adding C corporations to the list would have considerable downside. Most important, it would increase pressure on management to distribute cash to shareholders, who would insist that they need that cash to pay income taxes on their share of the corporation's income.
For a corporation that has no need to invest, it probably won't matter that it can't reinvest earnings. But if it does need to invest, and its shareholders insist on cash distributions, the corporation won't end up with retained earnings to invest. It will need to borrow, which probably will cost the corporation, and its shareholders, more than if it simply reinvested its own earnings.
Remember Rand Paul and other republican senators who opposed the Obamacare repeal bill because it wasn't cruel enough? In the end they all voted for it.
Now Ron Johnson is opposing the tax bill because it is not cruel enough on middle-class workers. He is just bargaining. Eventually he will decide that the bill is cruel enough and vote for it.
I am surprised that New York Time is reporting it as real threat to the tax bill.
4
It was not Johnson's family who owned and operated the multi-million dollar plastics business that is referred to in this article. Johnson married the daughter of the founder and owner of the plastics corporation. It was Daddy-in-law who gave Johnson employment, and who set Johnson up in a spin-off company (along with one of Daddy-in-law's own sons).
Johnson claims to have become a multi-millionaire due to his own hard work and industriousness. I suppose that claim still might be true, if that hard work and industriousness he refers to translates into 'marrying the rich boss's daughter'.
I'm not sure what is the real reason for Johnson's public stance on this tax bill, but I don't believe Johnson's stated objections are the real reason for his public comments.
6
Well, any last-minute amendment to give Johnson what he's really angling for will have to read like the rest of this dense and inscrutable shell game in order to further fool the eye. That way, when passage whizzes by and the two chambers stitch their bills together in no-time-flat, the rest of us furrow-browed will still be scratching away at the summary, with thousands of pages to go.
"Does anyone think Senator Johnson will easily change his mind?"
Of course. Pretty much everyone understands this. But if you were in Johnson's position -- i.e. your vote might make the difference -- wouldn't you press your advantage to get some concessions? I sure would.
2
This Tax Bill is devastating to the Middle Class, especially those who depend upon not being taxed twice in terms of Income Tax and those who deduct Property Tax. Property Tax has increase so much since the GOP Recession ......it will really hurt the Middle Class.
5
Lets see, "pass through" business get a break because instead of being taxed as the business they are they are taxed as if the owners were employees. Of course those "Employee-Owners" get to take pre-tax deductions that would not be available to age earners. So theses business owners get a tax break that we employees with the same gross income don't get. Senator Johnson is just another typical greedy Republican.
7
I own a small forestry company, operating as a pass through. Despite a competent tax preparer I pay 22% in federal income taxes. A large forestry company (Weyerhauser) with billions in revenue pays 0% federal tax. This talk about the tax rate is meaningless. What counts is the actual amount paid. As long as millionaires like Paul Ryan are writing the tax laws there is no hope of tax fairness. Thanks in part to Citizens United, the most evil and greedy of the one percent now own the process.
12
As Leo Gold points out:
"A company with a handful of employees can be a "C" corporation. There are advantages and disadvantages to both..."
Unless a corporation claims special status (e.g. usually as an "S" corporation, taxed much like a partnership), it's a C corporation. That's the "default" tax status for a corporation. A C corporation might have 3,000 employees, or 1 employee, or even no employees at all.
As Leo points out, there are advantages and disadvantages of C corporation status (as distinguished, say, from S corporation status). C corporations pay income tax at the entity level; S corporations don't. On the other hand, owners of S corporations pay tax on the S corporation's earnings, regardless of whether the corporation distributes anything to its shareholders. Shareholders of C corporations don't pay tax on its income (the corporation does, but its owners don't), unless the corporation actually distributes cash or other property to them (i.e. pays a dividend). If a distribution DOES occur, the shareholder receiving that distribution (dividend) pays tax on it. That's what's meant by "double taxation."
That, however, is why many C corporations do NOT distribute dividends to their shareholders. They "retain" those earnings and re-invest them in the business – usually a cheaper source of capital than external borrowing. By contrast, S corporations tend NOT to retain earnings, because shareholders press management to distribute cash they can use to pay taxes.
1
This is a charade on so many levels! Let's just look at the contention
that rescinding the individual mandate saves money which allows lowering
tax rates for some.
Lifting the mandate doesn't magically cut health care expenses, it
just changes the accounting at the Federal level. Someone still pays,
there is no free lunch. Expenses for the uninsured are pushed to
another part of the system. In addition, the insured pool is smaller
and more costly per individual. The total health care expenses are not
diminished. This will change how the expenses are paid. If it's not
the ACA, then what program is the source of the needed money? As a
hint, consider the situation for your local hospital, supported in
part by state and local taxes and private insurance
surcharges. Effectively, we will all pay for lifting the mandate.
Hard to believe the Republicans are pushing this as a means to fund
tax cuts to the wealthiest.
4
Hard to believe the Republicans are pushing this as a means to fund
tax cuts to the wealthiest.
no it's not
2
I firmly believe that President Putin wants us to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion or more, further eroding the "full faith and credit of the United States." When Putin says "jump," Republicans ask: "How high?"
4
The more tax breaks the Republican lawmakers give their wealthy donors the better chance they have of getting a cushy high-paying job when they're voted out of office for ignoring their constituents who actually work for a living.
8
There seems to be sincere confusion about the proposal to reduce (House bill) or eliminate (Senate bill) the deduction from taxable income for state and local taxes -- mostly property taxes paid by homeowners and state/local income taxes paid by high earners.
This will not reduce taxes for anyone. It will do precisely the opposite: INCREASE taxes on taxpayers who no longer would be allowed to claim these deductions. Other elements of the tax bills would decrease taxes, but not this one.
Despite the vehement opposition of many NYT commenters -- baffling to me -- eliminating these deductions would not hurt poor people, very few of whom are affected one way or another by this proposal -- or by the current-law treatment of SALTs, since very few poor people own their home (and thus don't pay property taxes that they might seek to deduct) or have high incomes (and and thus don't pay high state/local income taxes that they might seek to deduct.
I can understand objecting to elements of the plan that would hurt low-income taxpayers. But this isn't one of those elements. This proposal would affect taxpayers who, on average, are not poor at all.
Why not save your protests for proposals that hurt poor people?
1
Where is the outrage?
So few people can cause so much pain and income unfairness.We are millions
And still we take it in the teeth by these greedy power hungry bozos.
We have the power to throw many of them out of Washington,next election.
Listen to new people,not generalities,specifically what they want to do and how!
Take these Trump supporters and leave them to get a real job.
How dare Ryan ask his senator What do you want? To support the tax rip off.
Not how do they get our honest support but how do the crooks get their pockets stuffed?
3
In light of the record stock prices and profits for corporations, it’s difficult to believe that corporations need the biggest tax cut. Greater support for the tax reform plan could be garnered by setting the top pass-through and corporate tax rates at 25% while ensuring maxmimum simplicity and rate reductions for working Americans, particularly the middle class. In addition, eliminating the offensive totalitarian Obamacare mandate would not only save over $300 Billion, but restore some individual liberties and freedoms that hard-working Americans are deprived of under the ObamaCare fraud that was shoved down America’s throats through repeated lies by Obama and Democrats.
1
Much like Rand Paul, another example of a conservative I would normally support who does not understand the basic principle that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Obamacare was not repealed because of such people. Now they threaten tax reform. Not only do we have to get rid of the RINOs who will not vote because their donors are against it, we have to get rid of the ultraperfect conservatives who are unable to actually vote to do something and instead insist on it being perfect before they vote.
5-year "maybe tax cuts" for workers BUT Life-Timr tax cuts for the Profit-Takers
3
“I just have in my heart a real affinity for these owner-operated pass-throughs,” he said. And -- I want more in the tax bill to benefit myself and family, he didn't say. Sounds self serving.
That said, there is merit to his argument. With pass-throughs owners can owe taxes on the income even where there is not sufficient cash generated. On the other hand, being a pass-through is an election that was made for the tax advantages over being taxed as a corporation. In most cases they can change their election.
Johnsons proposed solution -- make corporations pass-throughs -- would be a nightmare for shareholders and tax payers. Say good by to the post card and hello K1's.
3
It's significant that the Republican Congressperson featured here is not against the tax plan because it hurts the poor and middle class, or that it leads to deficit spending.
He cares only that taxes on small business owners be reduced to 16% less than poor and middle class taxpayers.
Corporate taxes cannot be lowered by 15%, or small business owners pay 16% less than others, without deficit.
It takes trillions of dollars to support existing, necessary services in the US--Medicare, Social Security, the VA, environmental protection, FEMA, public education and more.
Republicans are willng to raise the deficit to reduce taxes for the rich. Little good it does America. Since 2007, the wealthy, and wealthy corporations, place their liquid assets in off-shore accounts and allow their investment interest to grow.
Corporations will gladly accept lower taxes, then build and job train in low wage, low tax, low human rights countries. Their investors and CEOs will do well.
The average American's buying power is lower than 1966. Then, the Federal minimum wage was $3.80 per hour. When adjusted for inflation, it should now be $29.48. (https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl).
When this incredibly self-serving tax plan passes, Congress will have a deficit. They will then scream for slashing vital services for the poor and middle class.
While the economy of the rich flourishes and the Dow rises, the majority of Americans pay for it, with zero representation in Congress.
11
Does anyone think Senator Johnson will easily change his mind? I don't trust him as far as I can throw him -- like most of the Tea Party-like Republicans.
12
The appropriate approach for such legislation would be to establish some consensus about principles and goals for the legislation, and then to flesh out the specific details over time, with some vigorous debate as to just how best to adhere to those principles and achieve those goals, in a BI-PARTISAN manner. And the very FIRST principle should be the same as in the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm!"
The current legislation, like most of the other significant attempts at legislation in this Congress, has put the details cart far ahead of the principles horse. Could this be why the previous attempts at legislation have come to grief?
Legislators of all parties need to start heeding this fundamental principle and start putting the American Public first and foremost.
6
For the record: Corporations have been and are currently subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax. Flow-through S Corps are presently subject to the individual Alternative Minimum Tax.
2
But the whole thing is about debt. Nothing fills the coffers like debt, and when you can overprice, and underpay, then people need loans. Need I say more? Assuming this nightmare goes through, the only recourse for many will be loans, by way of credit. We've already seen what the banks do in this arena. It's bad enough as it is, and getting worse.
7
Lets hope that enough of the people voting realize that this is another one of T(rumps) grandiose errors that only mean money for the very rich, and nothing for the average American who have to live on fixed incomes and have to manage to survive on, a lot of times, paycheck to paycheck.
8
Johnson will switch at the last minute to support the Rep. tax plan - it's his style, as he did with the ACA vote. He thinks he gets political capital by seeming to waver.
14
It's a pity that, as trillo says, the Senate is not a deliberative body, as it was some years ago. The Republicans are attempting to force through legislation on a single-party basis. And I mean "force." When the Democrats were creating the ACA, they invited Republicans to work with them over and over, to no avail. Now they simply refuse to allow any ideas but their own to be discussed. The attitude of the Republican Party defines why America Is so divided politically, and why we are in so much trouble today.
It is time for every member of Congress to reassess his/her mandate.
13
And Obamacare was a Republican health-care plan, pioneered by Mitt Romney, who disavowed it. Republicans wouldn't touch their own plan with a 10-foot pole because it was backed by our first black president. These people are dispicable!
8
There is one feature of Republicans' tax proposals which is 180 degrees from what was held by all of the "Founding Fathers." This is the reduction/elimination of the estate tax, which is simply a form of entail, which they all considered to be one of the main evils of the old, European systems. To lock up wealth indefinitely within one family is profoundly un-American. It is one of the best ways available to exclude new-comers from the economy--and that includes, of course, farming. Which is, of course, the very intent of the Republican Party.
14
The GOP wants to cut every "entitlement" that benefits working Americans. They have wanted to do this since Roosevelt created Social Security. In order to make beggars out of all of us the GOP has pushed trickle down economics, privatization of Social Security, block grants for Medicaid and Medicare, cutting off funds for the ACA, repealing any act, law, or regulation that allows Americans to sue for damages when they are seriously injured, financially abused, or just plain killed by businesses who are not interested in being safe in any way shape or form.
The GOP motto is truly one for all and one for all as long as one and all are very very rich. And if you don't think so read "Dark Money" by Jane Mayer.
12
The real objective is to start to cut into Social Security and Medicare, which Paul Ryan thinks of as something like the soft hammock of uselessness. And it will happen the first year, because they were able to get that spending cap into effect.
Ayn Rand is ruling right now!
12
The elites have been anticipating these tax cuts for quite some time. The Wall Street "casino" which operates on speculation and insider trading is going crazy as businesses become deregulated and the corporate tax rates are cut.
If truth be known, wealthy Democrats are secretly smacking their lips hoping this tax bill will pass and those same wealthy donors would probably have voted for Trump if Bernie Sanders had received the Democratic nomination. There's no real opposition to this "tax gift" for the wealthy by either political party.
Next, the financial elite is salivating over the abolition of the estate tax, which the bill mandates by 2025, providing a massive windfall to the top 0.2 percent of households.
There are also a bunch of leading Democrats and Dem donors that also stand to save lottery-like money if this bill passes with the repeal of the inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates.
Chelsea Clinton, just by herself, stands to save $80,000,000 in inheritance tax if this passes (assuming her parents are worth $170,000,000). Also, as of today (with Obamas $60M book deal and paid speeches), Malia and Sasha Obama would save $30,000,000 if this passes, and likely significantly more in the future as Obama's wealth grows.
Has anybody heard from Obama about this or is he too busy giving speeches to banks?
Hillary must be too busy selling her book (now that she finally made it to Wisconsin) and blaming the Russians again for her loss.
Of course this'll pass.
8
Whatever happened to a government of the people, by the people, FOR the people?
For the past few weeks about half of the United States' politicians have been concocting a tax reform without asking for their citizens' input and without working with the other half of Congress. Something is really bad with this and if this tax reform produced in total vacuum can only create a joke or a monster depending on one's sense of humor. Sure, our tax code is unnecessarily complex and is the end result of countless compromises and back-room deals between special interests groups and politicians. It's not fair and has never been good for the taxpayers as it has been created on their back and without much of their own input. Instead of the arbitrary “shock therapy” proposed by the GOP, the process should take its time, reviews what works and what does not within the current system and strive to deliver a plan that works for all American PEOPLE before even worrying about the United States' corporate behemoth.
7
If it weren't for NYT and other MSN covering the GOP tax bill making its way through congress it is likely that half the American public at large would be totally ignorant on the subject. This week going to both FoxNews and Breitbart websites several times a day to see their coverage of the tax bill, such stories were almost nonexistent. Maybe each had one story, buried off their main page lineup. Hard to find. And IMO very slanted by ideology.
Long story short, if Republican and Trump faithfuls are getting the majority of their information primarily from these two organizations, do they even know the implications if this bill passes in its current form? If not, then imagine the uproar in the next year or two when the chickens come home to roost. It will make the past blame game look like a polite game of "Jeopardy".
10
In the end he will vote for it. That's all you need to know.
This posturing is just something he is doing to get concessions. Sounds like he wants a few barrels of pork sent his way.
His statement on healthcare was almost identical to this one.
He knows he's vulnerable for his next election and always does this to try and pick up support.
He has been against quite a few major Republican bills at first and loves to say something like "I can't vote for something that I think will hurt the voters of Wisconsin". Then a week passes and he is right back to voting for whatever the Republicans have put out there.
Nothing Mr. Johnson has ever done or voted for wasn’t self serving.
13
""Mr. Johnson is a firm believer in the power of tax cuts to lift economic growth." The average growth during Reagan (the 1st trickle down) is virtually the same as the growth rate during Carter, and Reagan's growth rate was lower than Clinton's. Why all this myth about tax cut and growth rate? Tax cuts don't give higher growth. Tax cuts make the rich even richer and lead to ever worse wealth disparity.
7
We keep hearing that businesses create jobs so they need special tax breaks, whether they create jobs or cut jobs.
The reality is there is no connection to job creation and tax cuts in this proposal. Just manure spread finely over the language as a cover.
There are those who say with a straight-face that when passive investors who own businesses receive more after-tax income, somehow wages will rise.
Right, tip money to servants should go up, but trickle down is someone's idea of a bad joke.
The most direct way to help businesses in a 70% consumer economy is to increase disposable income for their customers. This tax shell game does the opposite.
It is easy to reform taxes and increase disposable income for the vast majority of people.
First, payroll taxes should be abolished and financed through federal income taxes.
Second, there should be Medicare for all, which is cheaper to administer than the current health care system financed by a hodge-podge of employee-sponsored, private insurance cob-web with opaque costs and therefore no competition.
That would provide businesses with an expenses structure that would encourage instead of discourage job creation, while not denying the wealthy their options.
Third, all income from any source - wages, passive income, inheritance, capital gains, interest, etc. - should be taxed at a progressive rate, rather than the proposed inverted tax rates for wage income versus passive and inherited income.
12
I️ keep reading that the "larger" corporations have a tax advantage because they are "C" corporations. A company with a handful of employees can be a "C" corporation. There are advantages and disadvantages to both e.g., number of shareholders, investment from offshore entities, etc., but the number of employees is not a limiting factor.
3
I thought capitalism was supposed to be about competition in the marketplace, but all we do is give away the bank to large corporations and subsidize them to the hilt. If you took away the money that has been payed by the taxpayers to big oil for example, there wouldn't be much profit. Just as if all corporations had to pay a decent wage plus health care etc... we wouldn't need to subsidize their workers with medicaid and other benefits. Why should the workers give up tax relief for people like Mr Johnson so he walks away with more profits which he can then stash away on some remote island.
4
Greed, thy name is Johnson.
Elected officials LOOKING out for themselves. Our Founders turn in their graves.
5
Ron Johnson is not going to stop the tax bill just like he did not stop the Obamacare repeal. Like with Obamacare, he just wishes it could be used to for an even bigger Christmas present, in this case $2T or $3T instead of just $1.5T, before he remembers that he really hates deficits and we can't afford Medicare anymore. But he knows that just like Obamacare repeal this is a big step in his direction. Anyone who thinks he is going to really stop this train is dreaming.
6
Comparing pass through rates to corporation rates is disingrnuous. Pass through get taxed only once...at the owners level not at the LLC leve. Corporate profits are taxed twice, at the corporate level and then either as dividends to the owners or as capital gains on the value of the stock. There is nothing stopping Mr. Johnson from incorporating as a regular corporation if he thinks they have it so smooth.
2
How do corporations figure raising taxes on the poor and middle class will cause demand for products to rise? What a group of deceitful, immoral groupies to the Kochs and Mercers and Adelsons. Yet people keep voting them in, destroying their own lives and their children's lives and down at least 7 generations.
6
Something like 90% of Americans businesses are "pass through". All "sole proprietors" are pass through. The person working for themselves making $50-75K are now going to be taxed like they're making $250K. And pay more than General Motors. Lets keep stifling entrepreneurs and one day we will all work for government or 6 corporations. This pass through tax is a bad idea.
3
Another reason the deficit is going to explode is that during the campaign debates Trump announced that it's smart not to pay taxes. This past January I read that early 1040 filings were way down compared to previous years. Of course. Who wants to be called stupid? The Republicans have sown, now they get to reap: The till will empty faster than it fills. Reverse Robin Hood is always only a very temporary solution.
2
I wish some news organization would investigate why so many people were fooled into voting for Trump, yet these same people are not fooled by this tax bill.
3
Trillo from Massachusetts says, "I don't see what the rush is here."
The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren have to hurry up and destroy as much of OUR government as they can before we throw them out on their ears.
WE THE PEOPLE must demand they be thrown OUT of OUR GOVERNMENTS at all levels right now before they can do even more damage.
NOW is the time!
12
I wonder just how many small business owners Ron Johnson thinks it is who make the couple millin a year he makes from HIS amall business?
Oh, well, I really must stop being surprised to see just how obvious Republicans are these days about their stealing.
6
The U.S. government serves big money campaign contributors, not voters.
8
Whatever happened to "no taxation without representation"?
6
If it's up to Johnson, it's a done deal. The guy voted for the ACA destruction, 'nuff said.
The American economy is booming: we're in the midst of a historical period of annual increases. Banks are awash in greenbacks. Corporate coffers are overflowing. The top 5% is amassing more wealth at unprecedented speed.
So Congress is... working hard to give these fellows MORE money?
Meanwhile, the middle-class remains stuck in wage limbo, 3 decades and counting.
And the poor, who have enjoyed health care for but a few years, are in serious danger of once again being coverage-less.
Where are the Democrats repeating these facts, in unison and loudly?
Somewhere, the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt is seething: no longer do the plutocrats work behind the scenes, they're now proudly in plain view and openly wield political power.
10
You are not hearing the facts and the many negatives of the tax cuts from the Democrats because the mainstream media is not covering facts, just what people are saying--often not the fact and not calling them out.
A dozen corporations and wealthy families provide over 90 percent of the news that 90 percent of Americans get. Those percentages will certainly will go up when the new FCC chairman throws out all the rules on media ownership here in the next week or two, including the proposed ATT - Time Warner merger on his desk.
Eisenhower would be rolling over in his grave, too.
2
It is not clear what Wyden's beef is. Pass-thru entities would pay 35%, whereas corporations would pay 20% now and then the owners would pay 20% after earnings are distributed, for a total of 20% + (20% * 80%) = 36%. This is slightly more than 35%.
Now it is true that the corporation could defer paying dividends and thus the second layer of tax could also be deferred. But that can only happen if the IRS is satisfied that there is a bona fide business reason (investment in capital expansion, for example) to defer distributions. Otherwise, the corporation is subject to a penalty tax.
If Mr. Wyden's business has bona fide reasons to defer distributions, he can always incorporate.
2
For those of us who would like to see the national debt reduced, eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes sounds good.
It doesn't hit poor people (few of whom pay property taxes, because they usually don't own their homes, and few of whom pay significant state and local income taxes, because their incomes are low). In fact, few poor people even itemize deductions at all -- they just take the standard deduction -- and so the deduction for SALT doesn't help them at all.
Why in the world are so many commenters challenging this proposal? Other elements of the tax bill warrant complaints, but not this one. My taxes will go up considerably if this proposal becomes law, but I'm willing to pay higher taxes to whittle down the debt -- at least if other non-poor people do too.
1
MyThreeCents
With all due respect, I don't believe you understand the tax plan despite extensive coverage.
"For those of us who would like to see the national debt reduced, eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes sounds good."
This tax scheme will not reduce the national debt. In fact it increases the national debt by $1.5 trillion over 10 years, after double taxing those Americans who have paid state and local taxes.
The fact that this not only fails to reduce the national debt, but busts it wide open is beyond dispute by anyone.
The fact this increases the national debt by $1.5 trillion while giving millionaires, billionaires and corporations massive tax cuts while unfairly double taxing individual state and local income taxes, taxing critical medical expenses and health care premiums, educational expenses, etc. is the reason why 75% of the public is against this monstrosity.
5
But your higher taxes won’t reduce the debt - they’ll just be diverted to people richer than you, or used to subsidize states that, unlike California, neglect the health and higher education of their citizens.
3
David Parsons,
"...after double taxing those Americans who have paid state and local taxes..."
The issue is not whether property owners and/or high-income taxpayers have paid SALTs. The issue is whether they should be allowed to deduct them from their federal taxable income. The House bill would limit the deduction; the Senate bill would eliminate it entirely.
My point is that poor people won't benefit from either proposal; it will remain as irrelevant to them as it is now, since very few poor people own homes or have high incomes. Most (nearly all?) don't even itemize deductions.
My point is that I'm bewildered that so many NYT commenters are up in arms about the proposed elimination of a deduction that helps only taxpayers who are relatively well-to-do: those who pay property taxes (which means, in most cases, that they own their home -- poor people tend not to) and those who have high incomes (and therefor pay substantial state and local taxes).
Clear now?
"They believe that on a core conservative issue...no senator will want to be the one who blocks the bill".
Yeah right. I can name four of them who would give a body part to be the one to block ANY bill that would give Trump and the American people a victory. Number one is of course McCain, followed by Corker and Flake and Susan Collins.
3
The pass through entities should be done away with altogether. Even with Sole Proprietorships with one employee, the owner. The business should have to incorporate. An all workers treated as employees. Which means that even the sole owner of the business must be given a wage if they worked for the company. An in partnerships if you didn't work for the business your part of the profit of the business is considered a dividend to your income.
If you want to make the tax code fair for everyone. Then everyone has to be treated the same. There should be be only two types of income for individuals, dividend interest and wages. The corporation is not a person and no person is a business. The way they are taxed should be separate and different.
2
Not only is Johnson demanding a tax cut for himself, his family and his customers, but not one of the senators mentioned is concerned at all about the people who are their constituents, 40% of whom will pay more in taxes as a result of this.
Not one is concerned with seniors, who are likely to face Medicare and Medicaid cuts because Republicans are putting tax cuts to the wealthy ahead of the needs of ordinary folk. And what about poor children, who had no say about what family they were born into?
This is a travesty of American values in every possible way.
5
As much as Mr. Johnson argues for the small business owners, he has a point. Because, small businesses contribute to a large portion of the tax revenues in our country.
However, it is disappointing to not see someone like Sen. Johnson not say anything about the middle class.
Even someone like Speaker Ryan, has said little or nothing about the impact of these new proposals on the middle class. All what we hear is that the proposed tax reforms would benefit everyone.
There is very little discussion on Debt and Deficits that would arise from these proposals going thru. A cut in taxes, will result in loss of revenue. We do not see a convincing argument to explain where the loss revenue would come from. The proponents of the proposals are saying that businesses and other investors will use the savings from tax cuts to generate jobs and reinvest in their businesses. They do not want to look at alternatives, such as investing on infrastructure improvements, where various businesses, and source of new employment would be benefitted, and help create tax revenues. This would not be an option. Because, the whole objective is to cut taxes on the wealthy and large corporations.
The tax reform is another exercise to balance the government's budget. What we can expect Speaker Ryan to propose, in the near future, is to cut down on services to the public, and initiate cuts on Medicare and Social Security. Can we ask Mr. Johnson to look into these areas as well, please?
3
Asking the liver what it needs is obviously not the same thing as asking the whole body what it needs. Whatever thinks and acts like it’s indispensable doesn’t belong.
2
Why not an alternative minimum tax for corporations? This would solve the problem that many now corporations pay zero income tax and would continue to do so after so-called “tax reform”. The bill does violence to the economic health of students, retired people and the chronically ill, and increases the national debt by $2 trillion or more (the CBO is too optimistic). How about one tiny contribution from big business? My children should not have to pay to fatten the Koch Brothers’ and the Trumps’ already bulging wallets.
As an entrepreneur I have founded companies that created many well-paid jobs with good healthcare benefits. Without any tax breaks or government subsidies. The Republican Party, to which I once belonged, now is an embarrassment.
5
When a political party has no real policies other than to continually espouse the worn out mantra that "government, taxes and regulation are evil" , considering what is happening, why would anyone expect anything different from the Republicans? For the first time in decades they have achieved their "dream" goal of having control of all THREE levels of the executive, yet, despite all of that, they have continually displayed that they are totally incapable of reaching any sort of consensus on any meaningful legislation and actually governing the country.
2
The consensus in the GOP seems to be they need a win to survive the midterms.
The tax bill they are offering us is going to slay them in the midterms.
The image of Rep. McCarthy laughing with Ryan is priceless. He’s actually enjoying sticking it to the middle class in his home state.
6
I do not care why any member of OUR Congress votes no. Just Vote NO to this abomination that is meant to destroy democracy in America and put even more wealth into the pockets of The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren.
They intend to put 99% of us into debt to them that we will never recover from.
VOTE NO!!!
11
Watch out, this guy, Ron Johnson is a fake. He will switch his vote at the last minute.
9
Why did we not hear complaints about the Electoral College BEFORE the election?
"The citizens of the United States ... [have] decided to let an obsolete loophole like the Electoral College choose its president for them."
In the 2000 election, Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the EC vote and became President. But BEFORE the election, polls showed it was likely to be just the opposite: Bush would win the popular vote but Gore would win the EC and be elected.
Many op-eds published during the summer and early fall of 2000 extolled the virtues of the EC, advising essentially that Bush supporters (I wasn't one) just "suck it up" and appreciate the lacy beauty of the EC bestowed on us by our far-seeing founders. Complaints about the EC didn't start until AFTER the election. The same thing is happening this time: Try to find any article or op-ed by a Hillary Clinton supporter from BEFORE the election that complained about the Electoral College.
1
Simple, the DNC and the Clinton campaign weren't paying attention and they thought her election was "in the bag".
The electoral college is not obsolete! It is an ingenious solution to equalize a vastly diverse nation. What is good for Los Angeles and New York is often not good for rural states. Thomas Jefferson was right. "Great cities are pestilential to the health, morals, and freedom of man."
It is the nation's small businesses that create most of the new jobs; big corporations shrink jobs or move overseas altogether. Giving all the breaks to the big corporations and not to small businesses will NOT grow jobs.
9
Tell this to your senators in your home state TN. He should hear from you.
5
Sorry Mr. Johnson, you are making war with the republican tribe - who's only weapon is hammers. These mighty warriors don't make deals, they make things worse. Consider their last bill to repeal ACA: No deal making, just worse.
4
These tax bills are a bullet train running over the vast majority of Americans with special mayhem for states that are the economic engines for the entire country, citizens seeking higher education and public teachers seeking to help their students with school supplies, among other groups essential to growth and competitiveness as well as humanity. And yet the New York Times and other credible news sources publish limp analyses with bland headlines that obscure the urgent crisis this legislation represents. Please sound the alarm that is appropriate here based on objective facts!
8
He'll sign on once they pony up the Wisconsin Windfall to sweeten the deal.
7
The citizens of the United States were handed a republic by its Founders. They have the right to demand almost anything they want. Yet, they've decided to let an obsolete loophole like the Electoral College choose its president for them. It chose the most unqualified buffoon imaginable. But it was the citizens who elected a majority of Republicans to both Houses of Congress. Most members of that party told their constituents what they intended to do if elected, and they are attempting to just that. No secret there.
And so that leaves me wondering, aside from the presidency, what all the hoopla is about. Ryan, McConnell and their ilk tell US daily they were voted to do the damage they are doing to the American people. And they are right. Millions did vote for the idiot in in the Oval Office. They also voted for every Representative in the House. And they've just passed the worse tax bill imaginable. It rewards the wealthiest and penalizes the rest of US. Yep, that's what all those who voted Republican did. In Alabama, next month, many are going to vote for a racist misogynist because he is a Republican. His opponent seems like a decent man but he's a Democrat, in Alabama, something that was OK when segregationists like George Wallace governed. We have met the enemy of the people. It is the people themselves who vote in anger for the most despicable candidates. The cancer that festers in American will never make America great again. It is on life support.
DD
Manhattan
11
Sorry, I don’t believe Republicans have ever been honest about what they’re doing. They constantly talk about tax cuts but what they leave out is “but not for most of you”.
8
Dear Mr. D. Lowenthal:
So true, sir. And yet, despite that being the case, how is it possible there are still so many being bamboozled into voting Republican? It must be the wedge issues, you know, the family values, nationalistic appeal to the fading White majority, that gets folks to vote against their interests. White Flight at the polls. What will they do when that fading majority becomes a minority? We shall see.
After a hard case of a Republican triumph, maybe this swift kick in the be-hind of the American Electorate will be a brutal lesson learned. What occurred in Virginia needs to be replicated nationwide. Yes, even in Alabama. If Alabama falls, so shall the Republican party and Trump. "Happy Days Are Here Again" may once again become the siren song of the Democratic Party. Fingers crossed.
DD
Manhattan
Just terrible. Just a total sellout of the ordinary American.
6
Republicans have now poisoned the well of legislative expected conduct. On display for all Americans is nothing but naked raw power, shove-it-down-your-throat politics. The Robber Barons of the 1880's have resurfaced and with pliable politicians in their pockets and from the leadership of the most corrupt and egregious offender of laws in the form of Donald Trump, the 1% is having night after night of nocturnal emissions of pleasure from the rapacious policies shoved down our throats.
Just imagine if the tables were turned.
5
I notice that Senator Johnson did not request that, as done in the past, a joint House/Senate committee be impaneled to address his issues and other to bring out a comprehensive tax reform bill! It could do this within a year. It seems like even he is not interested in including both parties in this process.
3
Senator Johnson is rallying for small businesses, which is great. Where are the Republican senators rallying for the poor and middle class? GOP claim that this will help them, but look at the embedded graphic and you can clearly see where most of the tax cuts are - when it hits $500,000 income, that is where the biggest decline in percentage is. Also, clearly in some cases the new plan costs lower income earners *more* in taxes.
Couple that with the fact that Republican will drive up the deficit with this bill, causing them to go after entitlement programs, and it's a raw deal for the poor and middle class.
5
I am not in favor of any tax cuts for large corporations until Congress closes the loopholes they use to avoid paying what they owe, and I am definitely in flavor of doing away with the estate (anti- aristocracy) tax. If Congress can not even correct the "carry interest" scam, why should anyone trust them to do the middle class any good. The 1% and multinational corporations get enough tax breaks as it is. They are free riders on everyone else's back.
3
I wish Senator Johnson could derail the tax bill. But it takes 3 Republicans to vote against the bill to stop it.
3
The recent price of an unauthenticated Van Gogh exhibits the obscenity of this tax bill giving more money to corporations. Rather than investing in more jobs, the people who benefit from corporate tax deductions will continue finding ways to invest and shield (Paradise) their money rather than providing more jobs for Americans. In addition, any jobs they would provide would be shipped overseas where labor, both in manufacturing and data processing, is cheaper.
Let's see if Flake, who realizes how this will raise the debt, and McCain, who says that going through the traditional process matters, put actions behind their words.
1
GOP donors and Trump himself are the clear winners of the proposed GOP tax bills, make no mistake about it. Majority of the country prefers Obama administration direction, but the old Lassie is being wagged by the GOP tail.
GOP agenda so far: increasing the budget for already mighty defense spend, cut healthcare and retirement benefits from millions of citizens, demolish environmental and consumer protection, crush US state department's global presence and reverse deals with TPP, Nafta, Iran and Cuba while giving your donors a huge tax cut to keep the donations flowing.
Is this MAGA? Is the reference point to MAGA 50's, 60's, or when? Aftern WW II US commanded respect but today not thanks to Trump. I don't get it.
1
Am I missing something? Why not offer corporations a choice: pay a lower rate IF and only if they reinvest the savings back into their business wirh research, development and jobs or pay a higher rate if they don't? And hold them accountable.
6
I own a small business that incorporated a year ago. I started with $400 and we now do over $300,000 in sales. I earn alot but spend little. Over the past 5 years I have pushed profits back into the growth and expansion. this is vital. If hedge funds and large corps get to be taxed less on reinvestment in the business so should the mom and pops. We are the ones who employ local and grow their business with long term employees who become family! We are the back bone of America.
8
What stuns me is that Johnson opposes the tax bill not for high-minded reasons -- because it favors the wealthy over the poor, gives corporations a massive tax cut they don't really need, does not eliminate any corporate loopholes while eliminating deductions that that help the middle class and promote higher education, adds $1.5 trillion or more to our deficit, takes health care away from 13 million Americans, will lead to cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and ultimately Social Security -- but because it doesn't cut taxes for his family owned business. And what's Santorum doing in the picture? He's no longer a senator, just a right-wing talking point on TV.
3
I'd change several things in the tax bill, but eliminating the deduction for SALT isn't one of them. Eliminating that deduction would hurt people that pay those taxes, which mostly means homeowners (property taxes) and high-income earners (state and local income taxes).
Poor people don't benefit from the SALT deduction (most poor people don't even itemize deductions). It's well-to-do people and high earners who benefit from this deduction. It mystifies me that so many NYT commenters stand up for this group.
1
Sorry, Ron Johnson won't oppose this travesty when it gets down to it. What remains to be seen are if there are even 2 GOP senators that will put country ahead of party to stop this terrible policy from being enacted. What also remains to be seen is if the GOP led Congress will get off this binge hyper partisan time wasting nonsense and start legislating in regular order to conduct the nation's business and to fix infrastructure, which will require that the $$ needed for the work not be given away to the wealthy. I won't be holding my breath.
4
The republicians are telling people their bill will save people $1200 a year in taxes. Well if that were true it comes to approximate $23 a week. Ever go the the SuperMarket with $23? doesn't buy much. Yet people like Mr. Trump will get a windfall with this bill. Please!
7
Both Johnston's complaint and this article are confused. The comparison is between tax rates on income distributed to shareholders and pass through income; not between income retained within the corporation and small business income paid through to owners. What, for example, will the tax rate be for individuals on dividends paid to them by US corporations? This is the correct comparison to pass through income. This is quite aside from the fact that the whole bill is terrible economics: what is the sense of borrowing money today to cut taxes on the wealthiest and corporations when unemployment is at 4%?
3
If the GOP wants to cut health care for the middle class with legislation that would actually kill people, and refuses to consider sane gun laws that would actually save lives in America, why would anyone believe they would pass tax legislation that would benefit the middle class? They have shown what and who they are. They have consistently shown who they are, yet people are outraged when they show it yet again. America's long national nightmare continues and if recent history is any yardstick, the GOP will probably get elected again in 2018 because they know hatred trumps logic in so many red states.
9
If business tax relief is justified by the increased employment that it should provide, then here’s a simple (simplistic?) suggestion:
provide tax relief to businesses based on the total in wages that they pay to their US employees (excluding the top earning 1%).
Rookie
6
Legislation used to be a cooperative process so the final bill had already considered every member's input. Now, however, legislation springs forth like Athena, fully formed and armed for battle.
Perhaps it would be less theatrical and more productive for Congress to return to regular order, where large and portentous legislation affecting the entire population -- like health care and taxes -- can be hammered together with the input of all representatives, including those from the party that got the most votes.
As for Ron Johnson, we thought his objection was principled, but now we understand he's looking out for his family plastics business.
7
Our so-called leaders are simply doing to us what they have already done to much of the rest of the world. And luckily for us, they have not done it with a war, which is the way they get their kicks.
3
The US economy is fueled mostly by consumer demand, and most consumers are from the lower and middle classes...which have seen their wages stagnate and decline since about 1981. At the same time upper class income has increased enormously, especially for those at the top (executives, bankers, large shareholders, et cetera) who don't spend their dollars as much, so they don't stimulate the economy as much. Why would they spend money to increase output if there are no consumers with money in their pockets to buy the extra output? Often they just deposit or invest their cash (sometimes overseas), (many large businesses are sitting on mountains of cash), and sometimes they make large campaign donations to politicians who will tilt the table in their favor even more. It's a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle...leading to serfdom...and further national decline. To break the cycle, maybe the nation needs to broadly, deeply, and consistently invest in its people (such as training, education, and a quality health care safety net), infrastructure, and basic and applied research...and somehow...also give lower and middle class citizens, employees, and consumers more bargaining power...as a counter-balance to the vicious cycle happening again.
4
Wow. The GOP tax overhaul, drafted mostly by wealthy men that worked in publicly traded companies, might get derailed by a multi millionaire who complains that privately held businesses like his aren't getting enough of a tax break - but not a word about the middle or lower classes who get tax increases, lose funds for their public schools, see the safety net of Medicare, Medical and other public assistance programs shrink even more, and get stuck with large annual health insurance increases or total loss of coverage. Just wow. These men truly and openly only care about themselves.
9
"...at a time when the party is still searching for a signature legislative victory under Mr. Trump". Yes, a touchdown for Republicans, regardless of who is injured, is much more important than the people of this country. Are they a sports team or elected government working for the people?
4
No Congressperson was quoted here as being against the tax plan because it hurt the poor and middle class.
Not one Democrat was cited. Have they fallen silent on this issue?
Any way you slice this loaf of tax reduction bread, the end result is deficit spending. It takes trillions of dollars to support existing, necessary services in the US--Medicare, Social Security, the VA, environmental protection, FEMA, public education.
Corporate taxes cannot be lowered to 20%, from 35%, without creating deficit. Pass-through income tax cannot be lowered to less than the rate of individual wage earners without deficit.
Republicans are known to hate deficit spending, unless it serves the wealthy (them, their "friends").
So after this "Let them eat cake" tax plan for the wealthy passes, this Congress will be screaming for cuts in deficit spending--that they created.
These reductions will hurt only the poor and middle class, who rely on these valuable government services.
The rich will continue stockpiling their liquidity offshore, and investing, building plants and job training in low wage countries.
While "their" economy will flourish, and the Dow will rise, the majority of Americans will suffer, with no representation in Congress.
3
The tax bill is a reward to wealthy donors to the Republican party, plain and simple. They are expecting the tax cuts and the party leadership is doing its best not to disappoint them. Where are the Christian conservative religious leaders and why aren't they speaking out against this bill?
3
Oh, you’re still waiting for the evangelicals to wake up and do the right thing? You’ll be waiting a long time, I’m afraid.
2
Many economists have shown that the entire premise for tax cuts is completely assailable, yet these elected representatives of the people persist is this endeavor. It is fine to cut taxes if there is no urgent need for the government to do it's mandated tasks such as improve the infrastructure, pay for the armed forces, reduce the deficit, etc. Reforming the tax code is also desirable but it is more important to reform the initial distribution of income so as to decrease the financial inequality to rampant in our nation, allowing all citizens to share in the cost of government.
I live in the NY area. I have a small business. I'm a PC. There is no corporate mother ship to save me. My expenses, taxes and income are commensurate with NY, not Kansas or Tennessee. A $700k house is a normal 3 bed, not a palace or custom build with a six car garage.
Does every single GOP proposal have to gut my business in some way ? I feel like there is a (red, of course) laser sight on my blue back. While the NY/NJ Republican reps voted for their States, I predict some new Democratic seats in California.
I recall in an entry level accounting class the concept that taxes should not cause economic distortions due to the taxes themselves. This bill is all about constituent service to the to 0.1 %. No one else literally has a seat at the table, at least on the R side. Yes, Mr. Trump, and Mr, Koch, I want to pay more so you can pay less. Your money issues are discussed with the staff, and mine are deciding if the car can be replaced this year, or if we have to patch it up again and hope for the best.
You do know that you will own the recession that this bill will trigger, if passed.
4
Thanks for this post, Casey. It hits the mark in a very understandable and personal way. At one time (I'm 71 years old) we all seemed to be in the battle together, more or less. I grieve for our nation.
Price gouging, refusing to American wages, using every tax loophole in the book to reduce corporate business taxes and then getting banks to help out by fee-ing the working class to death.
Where precisely in the U.S. Constitution is there a mandate that our tax dollars should keep ANY business IN business?
Since the 1850s when the GOP was first formed, they have been the party of BIG Business. Their dream of calling billionaire corporations "people" came with Citizens United.
Now when you hear the GOP say they are doing the will of the "people," they are not speaking of millions of working class individuals. They are talking ONLY and EVER about corporations.
How any Republican today dares feel such power to use our tax dollars to do what the Founding Fathers deliberately avoided: creating too few with wealth, is astounding.
The entire purpose of an inheritance tax was to prevent the very thing that this country is enduring now...1% of the population who are now going to pass on that wealth for the next 4 or 5 Trump and Koch generations. All tax FREE.
Time for a rude awakening. None of these billionaires got that way without helping themselves to massive tax cuts and using every under the radar loophole to avoid paying ANY taxes and thereby, increasing their wealth at our expense.
The only common denominator is this: When THEY don't pay, WE do.
3
Small businesses certainly do operate at a disadvantage, compared with large ones. But why does each Republican advocate only for himself and those like him? The role of members of Congress is not to advocate for themselves and their buddies, but to advocate for the good of the populace at large. What about those with no business? What about those with no job? What about those with a job that pays $7.50 an hour? Where is our sense of community? of shared humanity? The only provision the Republicans haven't yet thought of to increase human misery is a tax on the homeless. Let's charge the homeless $10 a day for living on the streets! That'll show them.
3
Everyone understands that the tax bill is designed to give a big payday to the contributing class and no one else. Billionaire "donors" have told the party to pass the bill or else campaign contributions will dry up.
In an environment where money talks, who can blame Senator Johnson for demanding a provision that will directly benefit himself and his family. Isn't that what the multinational corporations are doing?
Only in America is political corruption legalized.
4
I just watched the Sunday talk shows , Mnuchin and Mulvaney each said with perfectly straight faces, that expiration of the personal middle class tax cut in 8 years vs a permanent corporate tax cut was perfectly fair and reasonable AND helpful to the middle class because
1) Congress will do the right thing in the future and make it permanent
2) There will be SOOOOOOO much money from the corporate tax cuts that they will rain their largesse down upon the masses lifting all boats ( well I kind of exaggerated how they said it )
The crazy part? the 63 million people that voted for trump probably believe that the mana from heaven will fall upon them
I'm not holding my breath that Johnson will vote no - its rare for a republican to brake ranks.
2
No one should support any tax reform or cut until the tax returns of the sitting President and the effects on are known publicly. To do otherwise sanctions behavior that violates the spirit, commitment, and expectation of fair end equitable treatment in America. Further, Paul Ryan's advocacy for major spending cuts in the needs of seniors and retirees, while providing more for the wealthy lacks any basis in morality. Rushing this tax plan through benefits but one group: those with much who want more. It also assures a financial dynasty in perpetuity to own and rule America. The proposed tax cuts offer only one, undeniable fact: A multitude of lies!
1
I can only imagine that between attempting (and failing) to game health insurance and attempting to game the tax code, any middle to lower-middle class Trump supporter might be scratching their heads at this point.
They just blame the Republican Senators. Trump is Teflon. They will support him no matter what because they bound themselves so enthusiastically to his nonsense. They've dug in their heels and they can't bare to accept that they've been had.
Thank god Ron Johnson is one Senator standing in the way of this obscenity. But his reasoning defies belief. It's OK with him that the bill will add 13 million uninsured and financially crush anyone with medical bills, student loans or state taxes? Only small business owners exactly like him matter?
The GOP has become a cartoon villain at this point, pushing policies so harmful to ordinary Americans that we've all become numb to it.
2
The Republicans are fooling no one; their ascendancy to power was by the 1% for the 1%. The one 1% has proven that they will take this gift and double-down on offshore accounts to avoid even a whiff of taxation while the rest of us pay the difference and will be ultimately on the hook for the enormous federal deficit. If Americans really believe they are getting a raw deal, then boycott those companies that are not even paying their fair share today. I am starting with Apple and removing them from this holiday's shopping list.
7
This tax con is graft paid to those who bribed politicians to do it. It has no basis or rationale.
People create jobs by having sufficient disposable income to make purchases that provide businesses with sales and profits.
The effective tax rate in the US for multinational corporations is already amongst the most competitive on Earth, as no such entity pays the top tax rate after available loopholes.
The US has the largest national economy on Earth.
Attracting capital to invest in the US is not now nor has it ever been a problem.
But if we deficit spend while allowing our infrastructure to crumble and research investments to dwindle, other nations will be more attractive to invest.
The US prospered taxing corporate entities at much higher rates.
Corporations pay taxes AFTER expenses while individuals are taxed BEFORE expenses.
It is morally and ethically bankrupt to tax citizens on state and local taxes already paid; critical medical expenses and health care premiums; education necessary to have the skills to work; and essential shelter, food, electricity and transportation.
The standard deduction doesn't cover a fraction of these essential expenses.
This is the most shameful legislation pushed by the most shameless people I have ever seen.
I guess after you decide to work with the Kremlin to install a President corrupt enough to sign this tax scam to pay back your political sponsors, there are no standards of ethics left.
6
David Parsons, the Republicans didn't need the Kremlin to come up with this tax bill. This is typical Republican behavior, cater to the ultra wealthy.
1
Randy Smith,
I agree with you that the GOP didn't need the Kremlin to come up with this tax bill.
The GOP just needed someone corrupt enough, and without a shred of ethics, to sign the legislation that personally benefits him above nearly every other citizen.
1
Johnson has a history of grandstanding. He will get some tweak in the law, declare victory and vote in favor.
1
A cerebral, well-conceived tax reform project is one thing. A ham-handed knee-jerk action created in order to: A. rescue this Congress's empty-handed year, and, B. satisfy the simple-minded but thoroughly greedy dreams of the moneyed class -- these .. are not the projects of a great nation. Nor are they portals to some re-imagined 'greatness'.
I invite Congress to stand back a minute, let it cool, and ask something about what sort of nation acts through this kind of desperation?
5
"A firm believer" - that is the problem. Republicans believe on "believing" and not on "knowing". To conservatives, belief supersedes knowledge. All conservatives are like this, from the Catholic Inquisition of the Middle Ages, to ISIS in the Middle East, to the Taliban in Afghanistan, to the Republicans in the US. In this, they are all practically identical.
This reversal of logical priorities brings suffering and pain to everyone and the only way to reverse it is through education. And that is the reason why conservatives - from the Inquisition to ISIS to the Taliban to the Republicans - vehemently oppose education. Resorting to taxes rather than the stake or the firing squad, Republicans are a bit more subtle than other retrogrades in their opposition to education, but their objective and effectiveness are the same. An ignoramus is a GOP's best friend.
1
pssst, Ron Johnson did not start his plastics company. He married into it and his father-in-law appointed him to run it. Now he wants lower taxes so he can become richer. He is squarely focused on his own finacial interests. Republicans today are playing American taxpayers as fools. Small-minded greedheads who don't care how fiscal mismanagement affects the bigger picture. What a public policy nightmare...
4
Anyone who knows Johnson understands that his only objection is that the tax cut for corporations does not give his company, meaning him, the tax cut it gives the larger corporations. Typical selfish Republican, “to thine own self be true.”
2
Democratic Congressmen and Senators - You need to change your messaging! This is not a tax 'cut' but merely charging $1.5 TRILLION in tax breaks to the Federal 'credit card' for us and our children to pay with interest in the future. Any idiot can do that. Any tax break should be specifically tied to showing how future revenue will pay that back. Otherwise we just give corporations, executives and wealthy shareholders the huge divided paid for by our collective future financing. Our 401k's appreciate in the short term, but our children will foot the bill down the road. The Republicans are merely selling our future financial well-being for tax breaks for the uber wealthy. The plan needs to be significantly changed to work for the vast majority of Americans to really benefit.
1
Cowards and fools. Republicans know their plan will not survive the light of day unless they rush it through. Speaking as someone who once worked in corporate finance, I can tell you with absolute certainty that neither bill will improve life conditions for the vast majority of Americans. This bill is designed so my old financial director can buy his daughter another pony. That's the hard truth. All the same, we find this bill rushing forward with the utmost partisan support. I can't adequately describe my frustration.
4
Businesses will be able to "expense" evey new factory and machine immediately - that sans a 100% deduction against taxes. Nice Deal.
...
How about all Americans "expense" their homes and cars immediately as business tools. Nice deal too....except the Republicans need to steal from 300-million Americans to benefit...PROFIT a couple of million richbich country-clubers.
2
This tax bill is a turkey. The rich get stuffed, ordinary Americans get stiffed. Trump and his noxious colluding klan get billions, we probably lose healthcare and social security when the trickle down micron of growth blows up the deficit. And now another cheese head from Wisconsin wants something special. After all the resistance to any Obama priorities and the sequester, they are determined to bankrupt the country and create a nation of uneducated worker bees. Treasonous. Bigly.
15
A Wisconsinite here. Ron Johnson has done absolutely nothing for Wisconsinites or for his country. This is all about him.
He posted an ad during his campaign changing his grandkid's diaper. What a nice man, right? Loving this little baby?
Then how come he's held everyone else's kids hostage and not renewed the CHIP legislation, for children's insurance?
He's selfish, a phoney. And it was a very sad day when Russ Feingold lost to this very greedy man.
14
Ron Johnson is all about Ron Johnson, nothing else.
7
Why isn’t every business, corporate or private, big or small tax rate the same? Everything is over complicated by special interests. Put all businesses at 20%, eliminate the write offs, depreciate capital equipment at 100% under a certain threshold and 3 a year depreciation table on all other equipment. Keep it simple stupid.
1
Same question about personal income taxes. Why aren't they flat for everyone?
Businesses don't really pay tax. All costs including tax are hidden in the price of their products. The tax code allows large businesses to contribute to our representatives campaigns in return for tax favors so the large businesses expenses undercuts their competition. The whole system favors the rich and our entrenched representatives at the expense of fair competition.
The income tax might be progressive on income, but it is regressive on Net Worth. If all you have is your income than 100% of your net worth is subject to taxation, yet for Bill Gates with $70+billion in net worth, only 10% of his net worth is subject to taxation.
The FAIRTAX with its guaranteed basic income (prebate) completely untaxes the poor, is revenue neutral, follows principles of good taxation, designed by economists not politicians deserves to be debated.
As Ernestine, played by Lili Tomlin, the operator, and spokeswoman for the telephone company, said before she pulled the plug on the connection of a complaining customer, "We are omnipotent."
Where are the American people? Do they care that they are being bilked by their betters, the Groper in Chief and his band of merry men, the GOP? We are omnipotent, indeed.
11
Ron Johnson has a net worth of $36M and is the seventh wealthiest senate member. But yeah, that poor, struggling multi-millionaire needs a tax break.
When will the middle class who vote republican realize that republican elected officials look out for their own interests and the interests of their owners- their campaign donors. They couldn't care less about the constituency they are supposed to serve. Now we're hearing that there will need to be massive cuts to social programs like medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Higher learning is being attacked as are college students and home ownership. While we are distracted by our obsession with Al Franken's juvenile prank the GOP is robbing us blind. While we are distracted by the twitter in chief's latest immature and embarrassing tweets they are robbing us blind, destroying our environment, gutting our public education and stealthily setting up a subtle coupe which will place the oligarchy and corporations in charge.
As I type this there are 368 comments yet Michelle Goldberg's column on Franken must go at 3765 comments, a column that posted Friday. While the GOP are robbing us blind we are arguing over this petty juvenile prank involving Franken. The distraction and attacks are intentional. The Russian investigations are more damning by the day and Franken is one of the most outspoken senators questioning the defendants so distract, distract, distract. While the GOP rob us blind and sell our country to the highest bidder.
24
How about a graduated business tax with no loop holes.
Is this the part where the self-serving billionaire showers all his loyal voters with their much deserved riches? No? But.........he promised! It’s OK, America. He’ll promise again next time.
8
Memo to Senators Corker, Flake, Murkowski, Collins, and McCain:
The American middle and lower classes are being lined up in front of a firing squad, and the order to fire is about to be given.
When you look back on your political careers, do you really want to be remembered as having been instrumental in leaving your country economically and morally bankrupt?
Is THAT to be your legacy?
(signed) The Thinking Citizenry of America
17
The only "firm" belief that any member of the U.S. Senate has is saying and doing just enough to avoid primary challengers and win elections. The looming tax scam rewards those with lobbyist who buy the loyalty of Senators like Johnson. Without a lobbyist 99.9% of Americans are on the legislative tax scam menu for the "diners" to eat alive.
Life long government benefit and employment welfare queens Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are the ultimate socioeconomic parasites, scavengers and predators.
This is not the Senate that produced Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun. Nor is it the Senate of Everett Dirksen and Lyndon Johnson. This is the Senate of the pompous preening parading pretending effete likes of Rafael Cruz Republican Texas and Charles Schumer Democrat New York.
Ron Johnson is no Robert M. LaFollete, Sr. nor Joseph R. McCarthy. Johnson has no socioeconomic political principles.
1
Johnson will vote for the bill, just like he always does.
5
Maybe they are saying it but nobody’s reporting it?? How about it NYT? What are the Dems saying in response? Give us a headline? Are they saying anything?
3
And the Democratic party says..... nothing. And they wonder why they lose elections.
8
What is in "it" for me????? That's the name of the game.
5
It's a manifest violation of justice. It's wrong to break the law, yet it's immoral to follow it.
The worry that the elite and the political leadership have to do with less is of prime worry for our elected pets, the fact that actually managing all that tax money so that it serves the voters and tax payers for the purpose of working toward the American dream is repulsive to them....Makes you wonder just who they work for and who let's them exist, they are beholding to WE the People, they exist by the consensus of the governed....For the most part I think they think the Constitution is just hard on them......A tax cut across the board and a widening of the tax base would be reform, remove the progressive income tax and it's entirety and stop the spending without oversight..Work toward lowering the deficit, the debt and improving our GNP and expanding out exports...We want competence and not pampered C- gov officials...MAGA....America for Americans.....
1
How many economists have to shout that the current tax cut scheme that benefits corporations and billionaires is NOT going to stimulate the economy???????? The great unwashed -- those of us who make less than $120,000 a year -- need cash to make the purchases our economy depends on: groceries, medical care, home goods, clothing, cars, appliances, etc. Every year medical costs and taxes take a bigger bite out of our spendable income, and now Congress is coming in with an earthmover to scrape off even more. Meanwhile, corporations, who aren't spending the money they have on hand, and the rich with their tax havens, go untouched. This is a national robbery taking place in plain sight in "the People's House." Congress, you are worthless to us!
11
Ironically, I have to praise Senator Johnson as the FIRST and ONLY Republican legislator to even raise the question of the impact of this bill on small business. At the rate this thing is being rammed through, I didn't expect anything. As a small business, it is so nice to hear someone even consider the smalls. Because, so far, Republican legislation is attempting to exterminate me. What's that about? Oh wait, the speed! Who can see what's in the way and about to be crushed! So sorry (not).
2
Good for Johnson and he is right. Trump promised big tax cuts for small business in his campaign. But then he also promised tax cuts for the middle class and poor.
He lied! He is a sleazy lying cheat and so is the tax bill.
3
I lived in WI for most of my adult life. I can assure you that when it comes time to vote (Mo)Ron Johnson will vote for the bill. He is just trying to get his beak wet and advantage his business and his father-in-law's." (Johnson's father-in-law set him u in business and was his biggest clint for years. Must be nice to marry the boss' daughter.) I still cannot understand how this guy beat Russ Feingold twice, especially the last time as Johnson has accomplished absolutely nothing in his first Senate term. Silly cheeseheads.
5
Don't blame the cheese heads on that loss. I am thinking lots of Koch $ meddling bought Johnson that election. This state LOVEs Feingold and every newspaper endorsed him.
2
Oh this is a classic! Ron Johnson holding up the tax bill so that he personally can make more money on it! I suppose it isn't possible to raise the corporate tax in the bill to be the same as the pass-through. No that's not what Johnson wants, is it? And this guy is an accountant? He wants to scrub more funds off ACA, Medicare and SS to collect his passive income. Disgusted!
9
How absolutely ridiculous.
Businesses will not hire more people than the minimum needed to produce the products to meet consumer demand, more than that is extra and a big problem.
Business will not pay their employees more just because the company is more profitable, that would reduce the new profit and be stupid, besides the Exec's Pay formula probably includes a bump for more profit.
2
He may be in favour of tax cuts,,,, perhaps e realizes this is a tax increase?
1
The NY Times needs to start focusing on what the Republican tax bill will do to Medicare, Medicaid, and ultimately Social Security. This is where the middle class will take the greatest hits. Get your reporters on these important issues.
11
This is supposed to be a “tax bill” which professes to be a benefit to the middle class.
It is a fiction!
1.Most homes in the USA are owned by the middle and lower income classes. Lowering the cap on mortgage interest deduction by 50 % will generate a tax increase on home ownership. This will undermine the whole real estate market which will “trickle down” to the financial markets.
2. Losing the deductibility of state income taxes on the Federal return adds to the tax “increase” and will have the greatest effect on those who can least afford it.
3. Destroying the ACA will destabilize the insurance market and produce significant increases in insurance premiums for those who need the coverage most
In the category of what were they thinking??
The USA has always been at the forefront of scientific and technological advancement. In order to attract the best and brightest, universities offer tuition and research grants to graduate students. To make these grants taxable to the recipients, who are clearly dependent on them , will diminish our country’s long history of innovation.
This plan wants to encourage exports from the USA.
The best and the brightest will find willing importers far from or shores.
Only 25% approve of the plan. That will come home to roost in 2018!
2
Don't you just love the "pro life" Republicans who strip humans of health care, pensions, housing, food stamps, heating subsidies, education and the rest in order to give each other specialized tax cuts and subdidies. Such wonderful people...not!
5
"Mr. Johnson suggested in the interview that if the Senate did not force all companies to operate as pass-throughs, it should at least cut their taxes further to equalize their treatment with larger corporations"
This thief is the ultimate Republicon. If corporations operated like pass-throughs, their tax rates would fall to 0%; then he would argue that in order to compete, pass-throughs should be taxed at 0%. In a real democracy he would be tarred and feathered.
1
Hey taxpayers these are not tax cuts but tax deferments. Republican hypocrisy is very obvious but it is no more damaging than Democratic ignorance. The national debt will eventually bankrupt the nation and then we will really have to pay in a lot more ways.
How is putting the robber barons above the middle class in our legislation a sign that Trump is Draining the Swamp? The GOP and Trump -- like his "university" -- are a fraud. The Swamp has overflowed into the White House because of who resides there now: Donald Trump.
2
Everybody believe in tax cuts,
but not a discriminatory tax cut favoring only the richest 1 % of Americans at the expense of 99 % of Americans !
This biased policy in favor of the richest people in this country cannot stand,
and this is immoral !
2
If the ACA is attached to this ridiculous "Tax Bill" the whole thing should be dropped. Trickle down has never worked and it won't start working now. Don't foist this sham off on my grand children.
3
So, the people who once fought a revolution against "Taxation Without Representation" are now wimping out. Now, all they have to do is vote (and use their brains) but that's a lost concept 240 years later.
2
Just maybe he thinks this "tax overhaul" isn't fair? What a thought!
What is missing here is a more detailed comparative analysis of different tax reduction scenarios and their impact on the deficit. Example: tax cuts for the working and middle class, incentives for corporations to reinvest in the US, and nothing for the 1%. And the numbers would show........? Democrats, where... are...you?
3
This bill is terrible. It is built on a foundation of lies and wishful thinking. Our country is already in terrible shape. It is in need of serious infrastructure improvements and we are in the midst of paying for multiple catastrophes. How in the world is a tax cut going to make our country a better place when people are already suffering more than ever and our infrastructure is crumbling.
This bill is not made up of stuff that made this country great.
2
The RINO tax plan is a hodgepodge. It is the foie gras version of what the Democrats did with Obamacare by the RINOs. One party hastily jamming down big complex legislation is a recipe for disaster. This is not simplifying the code. It is actually borrowing $1.5 Trillion to distribute to the wealthy and calling it a tax cut. But somebody has to pay for it eventually. Can't just keep adding up the debt until it takes all of IRS collections to service the debt. That is roughly where we are at now.
Republican senators are being quiet and cagey about this because they don't want to be singled out or attacked by Trump. But no senator from a Blue state can vote for this. The bill is a mess. They are trying to shove it through before the midterms get started. Republican carnage will be heavy. RINOs are proving that a Bush Third Term is very unpopular among republican conservatives. And NO PAUL RYAN and John McCain are not Conservatives. They are RINOs.
Interesting, but misleading, statistic about 90% of American businesses being pass throughs. In that most law and accounting firms, medical groups, etc. are LLC's and many other types of businesses (restaurants, franchises, etc. fall into s-corp and partnerships, then I can see where the 90% number comes from.
This kind of structuring of American businesses, which is almost solely done for tax purposes or to limit personal liability in the event of mishap in the undertaking of business is intentionally complex, so that "average" Americans don't understand how they are being fleeced.
The Democrats need to lay out for the American public in simple black and white how, for example, a person earning $250,000 and living in New Jersey whose income is derived primarily from his employment will fare under the Republican's tax bill; then how with the same income derived from ownership of his LLC will fare; then how with the same income derived solely from investments will fare. Next, put that person in Wisconsin and run the same numbers, keeping in mind the personal deductions being taken away.
Someone should come up with a quick app that lets you plug in your individual numbers of where your income comes from and based on the state you live in so that every person in America would see how they fare in 2018 (when the election comes up and in whatever the cuts expire). Chances are the big corporations wouldn't let the app stores sell that. So how about you doing that, NYT?
4
Given the unfounded war related deficits, the defense industry’s portion of the deficit, the political and economic distortions exacted by our “war on terror”, the imbalance of our devotion to hydrocarbons and the actuarial/National Defense costs why are Republicans devoted to lowering taxes on very profitable large corporations? Briefly, why are Republicans going to GIVE rich profitable corporations $1 trillion at the expense of 90% of “pass through corporations” that account for 50% of our GDP?
Republicans are quite transparent about why. Republican donors have informed Republicans that they will cut them off if they do not pass this tax cut that their donations are paying for.
Two things are revealed: 1. Republican Legislators are chattel, owned by large wealthy corporations and individuals, 2. Republicans are planning an economic coup replacing our Republic with an oligarchy.
Johnson’s objection and it’s remedy would bankrupt the Treasury. An equal tax cut for “pass throughs” will add another $1-2 trillion to the deficit. Aside from the tax burden passed on to our children, it will enrich China and Saudi Arabia and all American entities that will indirectly tax America by buying our debt/bonds. Republicans plan to empower lenders to tax America by devaluing our currency. It will cement our dependence on hydrocarbons and so enrich the wealthy that small businesses will have to sell at pennies per dollar when they are unable to afford double digit interest payments.
1
Way to go Johnson! Kudos to you for your naked greediness and honesty. That's calling it like is! May I write your press release?
"President Trump made sure he 'got his' in this bill so he can pass on his 'billions' tax free to his knucklehead kids. All I want is my tax break too! Is that too much of an ask? And oh ya - I don't see why Trump's tax break should be paid by the middle call and mine isn't! That's simply the republican way"
Truth in lending meets truth in legislating.
3
Good that someone is paying attention to who is buying laws these days....
2
Why does the reporter take us through upteen paragraphs making the case for Senator Johnson's objections to the House Tax Bill only to end with the fact that it is bogus? He reminds readers that Senator Johnson was also a critique of the Mickey Mouse Health Care Bill the House drew up BUT WOUND UP VOTING FOR IT> Wasted space and a waste of reader's time.
2
After the Orrin Hatch take down of Sherrod Brown, no Republican is voting against.
It’s all smoke and mirrors. Johnson is a businessman first and a Senator second. His goal is to have working taxpayers subsidize small businesses.
Do not be fooled by his rhetoric.
2
This not "small business owner" is going to vote for this tax bill. There is no doubt about it. What he is suggesting is a greater deficit. Republicans are not fiscal conservatives, they are greedy lackeys in the pay of the banks and fossil fuel industry. The rich will only get richer, the counrty's infrastructure will further deteriorate and the working poor, living from paycheck to paycheck, will go deeper in debt. These are the same senators who are working to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and make it meaningless. Trump is their hero. He has shown them how to steal this country blind.
3
This is one of the biggest power grabs in the history of this country. First eliminate state tax deductions forcing states not to tax independently. Then make them rely on Federal handouts with strings attached.
Talk about removal of states rights! We are going from the United States of America to The United Corporations of America.
4
The search for decent Republican Senators to oppose this Treasury raid on behalf of Millionaires and Billionaires moves on.
Obi Wan Susan Collins You’re Our Only Hope!
2
Don't cheer too much over this development. Ryan will do two things: give the Senator the tax cut that helps his family business; and balance the financing by stealing more from food stamps, Medicare and Social Security.
The leash is loosed and the Plunder-Monkeys are running free.
1
Taxation without representation is tyranny.
Now, where have we heard that before?
2
Johnson looking out for himself, and nobody else.
""Such entities, including Mr. Johnson’s family-run plastics manufacturing business, ""
1
There is no better Christmas present America could receive than for the Republican thieves on Congress to fail at passing tax cut legislation. They do not have the support of the American people, and they simply don't care.
2
If we're going to spend $1.5 trillion of our grandchildren's money, let's at least spend it on infrastructure that they will have, instead of on give aways to corps and rich people/
3
After reading this lead article, one can only come to a logical conclusion that Sen. Johnson is nothing more than a business scam artist. He seems to only care about his small plastics business and not the welfare of his constituents who will be paying higher taxes due to this proposed obscene tax bill.
1
Oops! A Republican has pointed out the dark secret of Republican economic legislation:
Small business is usually used an as excuse to push legislation for global corporations.
These deals are created to give the super rich special tax treatment under the guise of a small business tax cut.
The same thing has been done with small farms constantly being used to justify legislation to help global agra-corporations which, end up buying the truggling small farms the legislation hurt.
Small businesses that support legislation to help big corporations, are helping their biggest competitors, their nastiest suppliers, and their greediest creditors.
Small business people need to recognize that their real allies are not global corporations, but their customers, who need higher salaries to buy stuff. That is how you raise demand so that you can increase sales. Increased sales is how you justify business investment.
When Cohn asked a bunch of CEOs if tax cuts would be invested in new equipment, only one raised his hand. If the corporate CEOs do not think this will stimulate the economy, what will tax cuts for the rich do for small business?
2
Thus bill if it should reach the buffoons desk, will not only put all the tax burden on the low and middle working class, but, cut essential programs for the elderly and disabled. The repulsive republicans are also not mentioning what it will do to the rising deficit. They are as more than one of them has said getting this passed to appease their wealthy donors. Contact your Senators, tell them to VOTE NO or start looking for a new job. Save the Date 11/6/18 Time to really drain the Swamp.
1
This plan benefits perhaps 20 percent of all taxpayers at best. More welfare for the rich.
Once the GOP gets done with it's reverse Robin Hood act, taking from the poor and giving to the rich, what will they do for an encore? Go out into the streets and start turning citizens upside down to see what falls out of their pockets?
2
When we see all too blatant quid pro quo where the Donors are saying "Pass this tax cut bill for us or you will get no more money from us", then the Donors AND the Politicians who vote For this travesty need to be arrested and tried for perversion of Government by way of bribing the politicians and them receiving special treatment from the politicains under the RICO Act.
There is a CLEAR case of there being an exchange of goods and services in the donors putting up cash and the Politicians make the laws, and tax rates, more amenable to what the Donor wants, and not at all gearing the tax reform towards helping the Nation or the Public at all, in fact, as has been shown by several already, this tax plan sets up future attacks on vital safety net services that real people's lives depend on.
Multiple news stories have carried the same information, Question, why is the Justice Department Not Looking into this? Oh, that is right, Sessions was one of them there Senatorial critters that never let a dime go by unskinned.
2
It is amazing how many comments are there to all the sexual harassment stories, but articles like these have fewer comments and few from women. What does that say about gender equality, and even adequate education of people, especially women, in this country?
I used to tell women students of mine, Notice how many self help books there are for women...constantly asking them to improve themselves, while books for men teach them how make their own cars, how to make millions and how to make lots of young pretty women sleep with them?
How many women are reading about these tax reforms...which are really taxation of the poor and the middle class, driving them into penury and indebtedness, with more wealth for the already rich and super rich...making them masters of the world, who will very soon use the military to stop protests on the street, and possibly kill off opponents and rebels.
How many American women read about class and gender, or femininization of poverty, or how patriarchy operates not only with men having sexual power over individual women but economic power over lot of women.
Economics, budget, foreign policy, military issues...still under the control of male journalists and male political leaders.
I want to see more women writing on this, and more women commenting on these issues. Ask Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton how many men talked down to them or tried hanky panky with them? Guys would not dare.
The GOP is trying to pull off a $1.5 trillion heist in broad daylight. But it seems the theft may fail because of bickering among the crooks about how to split the take.
2
Smoke and mirror governance and reporting at work, here. A 15% corporate rate is proposed, to allow US business interests to flourish, in a global market. Ignore the fact that most large business organizations presently operate globally, in administration, production and distribution.
Note that US business interests are large corporations, but 90% + of US businesses are taxed through the individual proprietor. These entrepreneurial entities can take a 17% deduction, if they qualify for unstated terms.
Ryan forces the House bill without debate, which causes Johnson to object.
The Senate works a different approach for the 90% of american business. I refuse to use the pass-through moniker, individual tax rates apply. Trump can wait for our legislature to cobble an overhaul. He be tweeting, incessantly.
Give me a flat 15% tax cut, like big business, as I have been paying 38% for years, including the alternative minimum tax applied more than a few times.
This is garbage. There is no meaningful reform. Give me labor law reform, healthcare reform and tax code reform, or get out of office. I vote. NYT, I am getting frustrated.
As difficult as it seems for some Americans, it is clear that the republican form of as embodied by the Constitution, is dead.
From control of the media, out and out purchase of the legislative branch and political efforts to make a once neutral body a political body not there to interpret the Constitution but to rewrite it has all but produced what ancient Rome went through in its last days. a total moral leadership collapse, corruption throughout and a citizenship devoid of any meaningful role as citizens.
So-called president Trump is correct: there is no truth, history or sense of reason. It is every billionaire for her/himself.
The so-called Republican Party is no descendant of the Party of Lincoln which lead the fight to maintain a democratic republic and ultimately fought to give people called slaves a sense of dignity with full rights. My father was correct: the South never accepted its defeat. It continues to return to white supremacy and a national government which it wants to see subservient to its will.
Any so-called tax bill, called reform or otherwise is nothing more than a grab bag of discounts, reductions and transfer and restoration of unprecedented wealth to less than 5,000,000 million 1%-ers at the expense of everyone else.
Once Americans get it, they will write to the NYT and make feeble efforts to revolt. But by that time, the solidification of power will make any effort to restore a defunct government to any place of honor will be fruitless.
Are they taking turns at blocking things just so the swamp can win? Whatever he is asking for can be next. Get this done. We don't need everything all at once, I am a small business person, even I understand this needs to get done. This whole corporate envy thing is left wing ideology. Shall we call him Ron McCain ?
Let's just keep arguing and arguing until nothing gets passed and the dems take control next year. We republicans sure know how to shoot ourselves in the foot. By the way, I'm not seeing much talk about cutting government spending. Same ol', same ol'.
It’s no wonder the Republicans want it voted on and out so fast. A careful reading shows all the - very nasty - ways this is a tax INCREASE for many middle-class folks, including small businesses.
The ONLY ones getting reliable,permanent tax cuts are the large corporations and the wealthy. And why not, they are the ones with the money - they have bought the government and this is their pay-off.
1
In 2016 he made $215,000 and $1,000,000 from his plastic company, while running for the Senate, and working part time, and that is not enough? How can anyone believe these guys will willingly raise wages on workers?
1
The other day when a room packed with CEO's - with Gary Cohn, Director of the National Economic Council and chief economic adviser to President Donald Trump looking on - was asked how many would use cash realized from the proposed cuts for capital investment, only a paltry few hands went up. Cohn seemed flabbergasted and squeaked out a tiny "Why not the others, why not the other hands? - as if he didn't know.
Cohb spent his private working life in the world of finance, firmly in the upper echelons of Goldman Sachs from the early 1990's until he left for Trumps administration in 2017 - during all the years that Wall Street was taking the country to the cleaners and bringing it to it's knees.
His salary at GS was in excess of $20 million dollars - a year - and when he left to make the "sacrifice" to work in civil service, he was given a severance package worth $285 million - over ten years worth of his obscenely high salary.
Make no mistake, he is firmly entrenched in the .1% or maybe .01%.
From this aerie, he supports the huge, 15% cut in corporate tax rates, knowing - knowing - that corporations are already sitting on huge amounts of cash, and that the new dollars will not be spent on raises and benefits or creating new jobs.
This corporate largess must then be paid for by we, the people, already suffering under wage and income stagflation for decades.
And spending cuts proposed are to social programs and nets for the most needy.
An obscenity of a "tax plan".
2
A response to the Trump-GOP tax bill(s) was written long ago by our Founders . . .
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
The other day when a room packed with CEO's - with Gary Cohn, Director of the National Economic Council and chief economic adviser to President Donald Trump looking on - was asked how many would use cash realized from the proposed cuts for capital investment, only a paltry few hands went up. Cohn seemed flabbergasted and squeaked out a tiny "Why not the others, why not the other hands? - as if he didn't know.
Cohb spent his private working life in the world of finance, firmly in the upper echelons of Goldman Sachs from the early 1990's until he left for Trumps administration in 2017 - during all the years that Wall Street was taking the country to the cleaners and bringing it to it's knees.
His salary at GS was in excess of $20 million dollars - a year - and when he left to make the "sacrifice" to work in civil service, he was given a severance package worth $285 million - over ten years worth of his obscenely high salary.
Make no mistake, he is firmly entrenched in the .1% or maybe .01%.
From this aerie, he supports the huge, 15% cut in corporate tax rates, knowing - knowing - that corporations are already sitting on huge amounts of cash, and that the new dollars will not be spent on raises and benefits or creating new jobs.
This corporate largess must then be paid for by we, the people, already suffering under wage and income stagflation for decades.
And spending cuts proposed are to social programs and nets for the most needy.
An obscenity of a "tax plan".
1
I personally favor doubling our taxes and putting Americans to work rebuilding and improving our infrastructure.
You want a better break for small S corporations, Senator? Okay, since Koch Industries and many of Trump's American holdings are pass through firms, how about a cap on any reduction of the rate; if we just have to have such a dubious benefit at all. Let's define what constitutes a small and medium sized business (SMB) and then write a bill that leaves out the elite economic royalists. Maybe that will offset your goodie rather than this con job of "tax reform" by having average Americans pay for it.
1
The entire mindset of Trump, his Cabinet, and the wealthiest members of the GOP in Congress worry me as an American, and as a member of the middle class taking all their hits on my health and budget.
An estimated $20 trillion dollar deficit does not bother Congress though previously their goal had been to decrease the nation's debt. The fact that they are doing the work of the wealthy, especially their huge donors or benefactors, does not bother them.
They took these donor donations from members of the one percent controlling all of America's money, money I now call outright bribes, and are jettisoning Americans and our economy in order to do their masters' bidding.
They had been under orders to also repeal ACA so they are coming back, for the 4th attack against our health care, by sticking a repeal on their so called "tax reform" bill or plan.
Trump and Clan Trump are corrupt, but, I now add Ryan, McConnell, and other GOP members as more of the same. It was reported in the news, several months back, that McConnell was being sued by a wealthy donor who "paid" to have ACA repealed and when that didn't happen, he wanted his money back. Personally, I am curious of the status of this lawsuit today.
Overall, what does this say about who owns America and the degree of corruption well known and running rampant in this WH administration? It is terrifying because it is at every level starting at the top and working downward.
"A fish rots from the head down."
2
'' On the eve of the House’s vote to pass a far-reaching $1.5 trillion tax cut, Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin placed a hasty phone call... '''
The first sentence says it all ~ TRILLION+ dollars added to the deficit and debt of the middle class and poor tax payer AND hastily done.
The republicans can no longer have the mantra of being fiscally responsible ( if they ever did ) and are portraying complete hypocrisy ( yet again ) as they make up their own rules of governing whenever they are in power.
The midterms and 2020 cannot come soon enough.
4
“I just have in my heart a real affinity for these owner-operated pass-throughs,” he said. “We need to make American businesses competitive — they’re not right now. But in making businesses competitive, we can’t leave behind the pass-throughs.”
Ron is among the wealthiest members of the Senate, net worth $30 Million Plus. His family-run plastics manufacturing business is an owner-operated pass-through (OOPT)
Seems he would have been happy to see a much more aggressive addition to the national debt to provide greater equity in the form of much higher tax breaks for the OOPTs — something comparable to the proposed provisions for large corporations.
Fair play and equity — who could argue against such noble, egalitarian intentions?
Anyone supporting this so called "tax cut bill" obviously didn't read it, or more importantly have an accountant explain it to them. It's anything but a tax cut. It's a shell game with a tax increase to the middle class via eliminating much needed and necessary deductions from school, to child, to home deductions. Instead of sneaking this increase in on the middle class working people they should have been cutting government spending. What a concept right? The GOP is committing political suicide believing that we will vote for the worst of them rather then turn the Senate or Congress over to the Democrats. There's a reckoning coming next November in the mid term elections, and I predict a shock wave throughout the GOP incumbents.
In order for a democracy to function the citizens and those they elect must have a certain amount of intelligence and altruism. What I see in both the Senate and the House bills written by Republicans is the same trickle down economics that did not work in the Eighties under Reagan and is not working in Kansas now.
1
It’s back to the Wild West. The one percent is riding down Main Street and just taking what they want. It’s a new world conquest. Fight or be vanquished !
1
Remember the 2014 study that documented that the United States has become an oligarchy instead of a democracy? Here is the citation: https://mic.com/articles/87719/princeton-concludes-what-kind-of-governme...
Read it and weep.
The 2017 GOP "tax plan" being forced down the nation's throat is final confirmation that our country is no longer run for "we, the people."
Not just sad, tragic.
2
I wonder if senator Johnson would mind if the tax bill stripped the business write offs from pass throughs such as personal car expense for entire families, country club memberships, personal vacations labeled as business expenses etc...
2
I think all of the three card monty with personal tax rates is another distraction to keep we the people fighting amongst ourselves over scraps. Meanwhile more loopholes and giveaways are provided to the large multi-nationals, the 1%ers, and the very poor. This will all be paid for, yet again, by the middleclass.
"Mr. Ryan and other Republican leaders employed a command-and-control process and a rocket-speed schedule to minimize Republican dissent. The strategy worked: The bill sailed through the House on Thursday along party lines, two weeks after it was introduced."
Good to know that those elected officials who are charged with protecting our democratic process can merely rely on speed to silence the very people - their "friends" and "esteemed colleagues" - whose job it is to think clearly, ponder deeply, and speak out in order to address our nation's most serious concerns with due diligence.
All good dictatorships know that "shut up, just do what we say" works best to maintain power and control (Congress) over those subjugated to such power and control (us, the voters).
These people are not representatives...they are feudal overlords.
Johnson is going to vote yes just like repeal of Aca. The only hope remains collins, McCain, and possibly corker. But I'm not holding my breath.
Is there a CBO analysis of this bill? Are the corporate tax breaks in the form of tax credits for actual jobs being created?
The Senate needs to repeal rule that makes tax reform impossible.
Nothing comprehensive about these tax bills. Mostly window dressing while congress attempts to make we the people think they are actually accomplishing something. But then they haven't been negotiated between the two houses and passed yet. Don't hold your breath.
Johnson is not going to oppose the tax cuts for GOP sponsors bill.
The Republican Congress is taking up a tax bill with little actual notice and without real debate. That's a prescription for disaster. We need tax reform and that requires some consideration of how and why we tax, not just how to cut taxes for the biggest donors. It's not surprising but Adam Smith laid down the principles of taxation (canons was his term) in The Wealth of Nations. Those principles, equality or ability to pay, certainty, convenience and economy of administration, are just as relevant today in the context of our modern economy as in 1776.
Nothing can shred the social fabric more effectively that treating taxpayers unfairly by imposing taxes on those least able to pay. The GOP tax bill imposes a heavier burden on low and moderate income taxpayers than on the highest income taxpayers. Warren Buffet acknowledge GOP bill does little or nothing to impose equivalent burdens on taxpayers.
The GOP tax bill flunks the certainty principle as well. The underlying economic reality ought to define the amount of the tax assessed. The worst of its provisions are the pass through entity provisions which reward taxpayers with a lower rate for creating pass trough entities and its preferential treatment of investment income.
The GOP tax bill flunks the principles of convenience (a tax on tuition breaks) and economy of administration (no real simplification of administration).
McCain's right. Take up tax reform in the regular order with notice and debate.
1
It's almost funny. The primary critics of these plans are wealthy New Yorkers and their like, who after years of bleating "the rich must pair fair share" now react with outrage when when they are asked the same. The Republican tax proposals aim to give everyone a reasonable standard deduction. That combined with the new brackets, adds up to a break for the 70% of Americans who take the standard deduction. Those who have benefitted from the highly bias deduction based system currently in place can join the masses.
The Senate formula actually provides more benefit to passthroughs than investors in C corps get on an after-tax basis, because C corp income is taxed twice at the company and then the individual level. The 17.4% deduction actually makes mathematical sense at the upper brackets where it provides parity at 32%, and then offers the smaller operators an even greater tax preference. That is why the NFIB supported this approach, and the angst Johnson is expressing about the little guy is so misdirected.
If anything, the Senate formulation should allow the 17.4% deduction for passthrough income only if that amount or more is re-invested in the business, which would be the equivalent of retained earnings in the C corp tax regime. Otherwise it's just a giveaway.
And carried interest should be treated comparably, so that wealthy hedgies pay 32% not 23%.
Why aren't all businesses taxed the same? Why should an S corporation be taxed differently than a C corporation? By the way, an S corporation can be taxed as a C corporation by electing out of its S corporation status. An LLC can become a corporation. I practiced tax law for over 40 years. I remember why we had pass through entities. However, taxiing businesses differently now makes no sense. Tax them all the same way!
First off, I thought part of the goal of this tax reform legislation was to reduce complexity? After reading various NYT articles on the pass-through and corporate rate cuts, I'm still struggling to understand the specifics of the proposed changes. Hopefully we can get a little more clarity on the Senate version before the vote.
Second, one of the biggest concerns I have over this bill is the attempt to repeal the individual mandate. The penalties related to the individual mandate are already weak at best, and eliminating them altogether will completely take out one of the legs of the so-called "three-legged stool" of the ACA law (1] Individual Mandate 2] Fair treatment for individuals with preexisting conditions and 3] Subsidies for those who can't afford health insurance).
Everyone knows that if any of the three legs are eliminated, the health insurance law as written is almost certainly doomed. I understand that Republicans want to get rid of the ACA, but deliberately sabotaging it as opposed to voting to repeal it is a truly abhorrent way to go about it.
The merits of tax cuts certainly should be debated and not rejected out of hand, but the attempt to create instability in the health insurance markets for political gain is something that we should condemn wholeheartedly.
2
As I understand it, the Government sets the standards for what constitutes a "small business" and while many may think a small business is your locally owned bakery - the standards vary according to industry sector - and include businesses with up to 1000 employees and annual receipts over 36 million dollars. When viewed this way - in principle - it doesn't seem that different to giving the likes of Apple or GE a huge tax break.
See:https://www.sba.gov/contracting/getting-started-contractor/make-sure-you...
I guess for the GOP , welfare is bad unless it is corporate and small business welfare.
2
What happened to simplifying the tax code? The code is thousands of pages of complicated regulations and loopholes written for, and in some cases by, the special interests. This proposed bill doesn’t change that.
2
If it's a pass through business, then by definition it should pay ordinary personal income tax. No exceptions, since exceptions, also known as write-offs, are the problem with business taxes now.
2
One of primary reasons small businesses use pass your through entities is because it saves the owners on social security and Medicare taxes. The other is tax benefit if the business is sold.
A small business can be a straight C or sole proprietorship if they want to be.
You can't have the be fits of both? Make your choice.
Guaranteed what will happen is they will push through tax cuts, then next year demand spending cuts due to the deficit size. We are already seeing it with the emergency funds for hurricane relief. Demands for cuts in order to help people.
1
Tax fairness, that what it has to come down to. If you give businesses a permanent tax cut extend that to the people as well.
Though I am wondering whether a tax cut makes sense. This country's infrastructure needs to be updated/replaced. This alone will cost countless billions of Dollars. Rather than hand the rich a permanent tax cut why not simplify the tax code so there are fewer tax cheats?
When I read that "Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, are desperately seeking their first significant legislative achievement..." I have to ask myself, how many of us make the very best decision possible - on one of the most important things in our own lives - when we are desperate?
Desperation blocks reason, the sense of panic overwhelms one's usual ability to think clearly and deeply about all possible outcomes of that decision.
Do we, the American people, really benefit from a Congress ruled by people who are so desperate for a single legislative "achievement" they consider any thoughts or considerations beyond their entirely inadequate two-week time frame to be "pretty late in the game" for one of the most important issues that affects what our government provides, and how it provides it...for every single person in this nation?
Why doesn't congress raise the threshold for taxation of social security benefits? This would really help middle class seniors.
1
I simply have to believe that just about everyone in the United States can do basic arithmetic, as in addition and subtraction, which is what this Republican and 1%ter, entirely bent to favor the wealthiest tax scheme, is all about.
No need to repeat where the benefits will go, other than to indicate it will not be to the poor and the middle-class.
Mr. Johnson has been tasked to appear in the limelight, by his Republican associates, to create the impression that some in the party object to only certain parts of the plan, giving the party the opportunity to relent on some minor detail, thus cementing the false belief they have a care; nothing could be further from the truth.
This bill, if allowed to pass, will in short order be a fundamental change in the economic wellbeing of every corporate entity, in that all of them will pay significantly less taxes; along with them the wealthiest will save billions through estate tax changes, plus other jewels, and each and every salaried individual, whether they be working full-time, part-time, on disability, and or on social security, will be the source tasked with paying, in increased taxes, for this in your face theft of their meager incomes.
Never have so many been fooled by so few.
44
"They believe that on a core conservative issue..."
A 1.5 trillion deficit doesn't sound really conservative. I hope they're right about 'Trickle Down.'
5
It’s the same group that put two wars on a credit card and kept it out of the budget? You are correct, they are not conservative, they are regressive.
2
Good Luck With That . . . Refer to the Laffer Curve and Voodoo Economics . . .
We all know that this is a lousy bill, and many of us will pay higher taxes as a result. But what is really dangerous for US democracy is the way this bill was hastily cobbled together and is being forced through, essentially hidden from view. This seems to me a dress rehearsal for totalitarianism. Rather than democracy, this is government without the people, against the people, at the expense of the people.
32
Almost overwhelmingly American communities would have liked a bipartisan Congress, not have missed this opportunity of repeal and replace of the the tax codes with 21st needed updates.This bill with GOP majority in Congress has an unprecedented scheme of permanent tax breaks for the big business Corporations and Billionaires . Also if passed in existing form help President , who is struggling hard in the aftermath of no successes at all during last 10 moths , on any of major national issues , e. g. Healthcare, Infrastructure investments for new job creation programs ,Tax reforms for new business investments and tax relief for the Middle class . Why the deficit reduction goal if any is being neglected by GOP majority in Congress ? What do you think ?
1
Why is it that a business owner's earnings should be taxed at lower rates than wage earnings? Pass-through companies are set up so that the business's earnings are passed through to the individual. They are therefore taxed at individual rates. Why now are we saying these individuals (many of them super wealthy) deserve to be taxed at lower rates than wage earners? If Johnson doesn't like the taxation of pass-throughs, he can convert his company to a C-corporation. Or maybe we could have a tax system that allows retained earnings in a pass-through company to be treated like C-corp earnings. But once the earnings are no longer retained and passed on to the individual, then they should be taxed at individual rates, no?
13
It's mind-numbingly stupid to even discuss tax cuts with a looming $660 billion deficit this year, 1+ trillion in infrastructure spending needed, as well as retraining & relocation funding for those displaced by technology and globalization.
We need tax increases - not cuts. In 39 years in business, I've never heard anyone complain about income taxes. Not one person.
Despite what all the anti-Democrat know-nothings post here, the Republicans are destroying this country. I guess it'll be up to the next Democratic administration in 2020 to save it from Republican lunacy. Again.
24
I'm outraged! Big Corporations, the uber wealthy, Republican Mega-Donors i.e. the Koch Brothers, the Mercers, and the Trumps get tax breaks, loopholes, and more deductions that poor graduate students, small business owners, the working class, the middle class and high tax states such as NY, NJ, Conn., and California won't accrue. In addition, the GOP increases the deficit and implodes the "Affordable Care Act" by inserting the destruction of the single payer mandate. Fuzzy math & Voodoo economics = Financial CHAOS!
15
Make US industry more competitive? As if the large corporations would reduce the prices of their products just because of these tax cuts? That is really too naïve.
The funny thing is that they are pulling the rug from that large customer group, the American middle class.
Actually, I am really flabbergasted at the sheer naïvety of these money-and-power-addicted corporation owners. They really work in a selfish surprisingly short perspective, don't they...
11
Every Republican who votes for this bill should be run out of office for hurting the middle class at the expense of the rich who will be the greatest beneficiaries of this get-richer-scheme. They are not fooling anybody nor is everyone as gullible as Trump's base of supporters. Those folks will stand in front of a speeding train if Trump told them it would make them rich like him. We all knew then and we all know now, that Trump saw the Presidency as his road to immense wealth and riches for him, his family, and friends who would cheer him on. How these Republicans can face voters in the face and tell them such a bald face lie that this is good for them when everybody knows it's the middle class who will pay for this now and in the future. How dare they insult the American people with this nonsense.
14
There is absolutely no point in going through the "tax cutting" exercise unless the government seriously cuts spending and finds ways to operate more efficiently.
All they're doing right now is shuffling the details, while trying to keep all the vested interests happy. This will never work.
3
The bill as written would mean Johnson could have his business income taxed in one of two ways:
-If structured as a pass through: pay an effective rate of about 32%
-If structured as a C-corp: pay 20% on earnings, then another 20% when earnings are distributed as dividends
If his concern is retaining earnings in his business so the business can invest, he can re-structure as a C-corp. If he just thinks his personal income tax rate should be lower, then explain to me why it should be lower than 32% when a wage earner earning similar amounts would have a marginal rate of 39.6%?
5
Johnson has a fair point about how business entities are currently treated differently and how that difference remains under the proposed reform. Whatever happened to the carried interest treatment of the Wall Street hedge fund managers? Throw that in, give a better deal to the small businesses and call it a day.
The reason for speed is obvious if the American public actually had a chance to figure out what is in the bill support would drop to single digits.
Republicans just can't help themselves this is all about paying back their donor class at the expense of the rest of us.
6
Johnson will say oppositional things to create an image for his middle-class constituency, but don't think for one second he isn't voting for this scam. After a few more calls from donors, he like the rest of them will fall in line. It's not rocket science: the donor class calls the shots, period.
4
My husband owns a pass through. We pay 39% of all our profits to Federal tax and another 10% state. If we need more building space we have to use our profits left over after paying taxes to grow. We have no loop holes. This rate stifles our businesses growth. We are the mom and pop small business that your kids work for. If we are given a 17% tax cut, believe me I wont be buying a jet, I will be hiring more labor. And with capital expenses being an immediate write off, I will be buying many more machines to manufacture.
5
People hear tax cuts and get excited; fix Obamacare, they get excited. Who wouldn't?
Most Americans don't really know how these proposed changes will affect them. They sound good, so lets do it. Even our representatives don't have an understanding of the consequences of what they are about to vote on. Ram something through, so we can tell the folks back home we've done our job is not the way to do things. These changes will have a profound effect on the country for years to come.
It is obvious we can't count on the administration or congress to do what's right for the country.
That leaves the press. What the country needs is an honest debate on tax cuts and health care. It would be great if the major papers would get together with the major networks and broadcast a series of programs similar to the presidential debates to educate people on these two issues.
No sense voting if you don't know what you're voting for.
3
bravo. your so right. the media should be talking about this non stop. they are not doing there job. instead they talk about Roy Moore constantly. what he is accused of doing is beyond horrible. I know because I was molested by my own father at the age of 8 years old. The people of Alabama will decide this. Hopefully there are enough decent people in that state that choose not to elect him. tax policy isn't as sensational as Roy Moore but it is extremely important and the clock is ticking .
I applaud Mr. Johnson's attitude for speaking out for small corporations. If a senator representing each individual state cannot do for his/her state, who else should do it?
How about they do what is best for majority of people and not hand pick only what they happen to identify with or have personal stake in?
Every Republican senator would ultimately vote for this bill because big money would demand them to. Those in the 99% who vote for these conscience-free senators either will not get it or believe their blatant lies. Meanwhile the country will owe much more than ever before, offer even less to the disadvantaged and sick while disproportionally fattening the wallets of the ones who least need it and who won’t spend it productively. To elect enough of such greedy and cunning senators takes extraordinary naïveté - we have that in spades. In other words, we are getting what we deserve.
2
Let's call a spade a spade here:
"Mr. Johnson’s preferred approach to that imbalance would be to force all corporations to become pass-throughs..."
That's a politician's way of saying: "There should be no corporate income tax." That proposition may or may not have merit, but no politician (at least not one who wants to get re-elected) would every phrase it that way -- much better to say something vague as Johnson does here.
By the way, "forcing all corporations to become pass-throughs" would have considerable drawbacks, as any current or former shareholder of an "S" corporation (I, for example) could tell Johnson. If every owner of a "pass through corporation" (aka a "shareholder") were taxed on his or her share of the corporation's income, regardless of whether any of that income was actually distributed to the shareholder (i.e. as a dividend), many shareholders would tell management: "If we're going to be taxable on our share of the company's income, you'd better DISTRIBUTE CASH to us." That's precisely why many limited partnership agreements have a "tax distribution" provision -- i.e. a requirement, with very limited exceptions, that the partnership distribute at least enough cash to partners to cover income taxes on their share of partnership income. Right now, shareholders of "regular" corporations (called "C corporations" in tax parlance) are NOT subject to tax on the corporation's income unless the corporation distributes it to them (i.e. pays them dividends).
1
I disagree that the passage of this bill would be a republican legislative achievement. Instead, the defeat of this lopsided tax bill would be the legislative achievement, albeit with only a few republicans needed to achieve this.
1
Citizens need to calculate as best as possible the impact this legislation will have on their tax situation, and contact their senators to let them know that should they vote to support it they will find themselves turned out of office.
2
The GOP tax cut is a masterpiece of evil genius: It creates the biggest bribery scheme ever by offering small temporary gifts to a struggling middle class and dampening the sense of outrage this bill deserves, even as it transfers hundreds of billions to the richest in the country from our future generations and tilts the playing field in perpetuity.
So while Ron Johnson will quibble with other GOP looters over how to divide the loot, he will not stop this deal. He and his co-conspirators will be long gone, before the voters start seeing the price of the bribe.
6
Ben Franklin famously linked taxes with death, but did so when governments were small and life expectancy was short. Now taxes are higher, but so is life expectancy. There’s a strong connection between state and local taxes and living longer with the states having the longest life spans in the northeast and west coast. States in the South have shorter life spans of about 5 years with the lowest clustered in the lower Mississippi basin where the state tax rates scrape the bottom.
Why? Because taxes pay for good things like education, roads, protective services (police, fire, emergency response)—all things that promote life and its fulfillment. Taxes today, unlike Franklin’s time, support these essential services and support our standard of living. If we want to pursue happiness, then we should try raising taxes, especially on those who do not need the money.
5
If this bill becomes law, and I hope it doesn't, it will mean that as a retiree I will need to withhold a significantly larger amount of my income than I am now so I will be able to pay my 2018 taxes. This law will break some retirees, middle class families and low income families. It may devastate the poor and put them on the streets in some places. And no one really cares as long as the wealthy, the corporations and the donors get their tax cuts at the expense of the rest of us. Elections have consequences. The 2016 edition is shaping up to have dire, deadly, and life-changing consequences for 99 percent of us.
11
Consumers buy more products when they have more income. Jobs are created when consumer Demand goes up for products/services. In order to keep up with the increased Demand companies add more jobs to increase the Supply of their products/services. This is how a consumer-based economy works.
The Trump-GOP tax plan(s) ignore this fundamental law of capitalism. Instead of putting most of the money from tax savings permanently in the hands of middle-class consumers, the tax plan(s) put this money in the hands of rich businesspeople. This does not increase consumer income. Therefore, the tax plan(s) will not increase consumer spending or the jobs in the necessary to make products to keep up with consumer demand.
4
The squeeze on Small Business and the Middle Class started with Reaganomics. The unfair advantage given to large Corporations made it almost impossible for the little guy to compete. Our economy has suffered ever since. Wages for the workers have essentially stagnated with respect to purchasing power while Upper Management compensation packages have increased well over 1,000%. The G.O.P. Tax Plan is essentially more of the same. Get past the smoke and mirrors and you'll see that. Of course the Trump family will come out ahead under this Plan.
1
Why is the only concern one hears from Republicans is for or about business? Is this a country of businesses or one of people? The obvious answer seems to be that for Republicans it's only business that counts. I wonder if the founding fathers had that thought in mind during America's founding and continued existence as a nation.
4
Somebody better derail this impending catastrophe. Given the balance in the Senate that means some Republicans need to stand up for what is right.
Let us pray.
4
I don't understand how anyone could vote for a bill that increases the deficit by $1.00, let alone 1.5 trillion dollars....all to give tax breaks mostly to people who don't even need it.
5
This bill provides permanent tax cuts for corporations. To pay for those tax cuts, Republicans have taken deductions away from working Americans to once again fund tax cuts for the wealthy. They want to repeal the health care mandate which will wipe out that little $1000 they said some people would save in tax payments. $1000 will not pay for annual premiums or pay for medical treatment. In addition, Republicans now want to tax one of the few breaks a student and his or her family can get to reduce the costs of college, that of tuition rebates to students or family members who work at the college a student attends! But they want to protect the tax exemptions that owners of private planes get from the govt. Do you see the values on display in this bill? The scam here is getting people to believe that if corporations get a percent tax cut of 20%, American workers will suddenly see corporations create thousands of new high paying jobs and dramatically increase wages. Overnight, corporations will shutter their overseas sweat shops and stop hiding their profits off shore to bring that money back to the USA where it can be taxed at a negligible level. Yet, in this very issue is reporting about state agencies revoking the drivers' and professional licenses of employees who have fallen behind on their student loans, with monthly payments as high as $1000 a month! Are you really falling for this?
5
If the Republicans want to give Americans a tax cut, make it simple. Everyone gets a 5% to 10% discount on their taxes. Very simple to implement... add 2 lines to the form 1040... line 63a enter 10% line 63 (taxes owed); line 63b subtract line 63a from line 63 (this is your total tax). Let it expire after 1 year so that Congress needs to renew it each year.
Small businesses that surround us in our daily lives are the business that require support to serve us. Small businesses are the life blood and inovators - the growth engine of our economy depends on them. I believe they should enjoy a lower tax rate vs large corporations and that large corporation tax cut be sunset cuts that expire in 8-10 years. Also, if large corporations are running certain large operations overseas to duck domestic labor costs that could be performed here, they should be taxed at higher rates. Any large corporation that has parked earnings overseas and not repatriated these funds back to the US should not receive a tax cut at all. Positive incentives to receive cut cuts must be implimented in order to earn those cuts. 20% rate is too low in my opinion and should not be below 25-28%, yet still be competitive vs foreign Corporations.
2
While I am pleased to see SOMEONE actually speak up, he is a perfect example of what is wrong with today's GOP. He isn't protesting the millions of people whose insurance rates would go up because of a sneaky provision getting rid of the mandate on health care insurance, or because the cuts for the middle class (Temporary) disappear over the next five years while the corporate rate drops 15% (permanent) and because of the deficit it would produce, in a couple years social services (Medicare, Social Security, etc.) would have to be cut to pay for it. No, he is upset because HIS business gets a smaller cut that larger corporations.
Johnson's position is selfish, inhumane, and certainly a violation of the oath he took when voters put him (and other GOP Representatives and Senators) in office
3
This tax bill is like all the other budget legislation. Congress kicks the can down the road to make future lawmakers to figure out a solution. Comments by GOP members on the temporary cuts the middle class would get bear this out.
Mr. Ryan, if people cannot keep healthy or afford to treat illness when it comes, then how can they afford to participate in the chain of life that includes working, buying or selling goods and services, educating themselves and their children and standing united for the country they love? Let alone, insuring that their political leadership is accountable for the money they send them in the form of taxes?
2
This is a tax cut for the wealthy and not "tax reform" as promised. Corporate America will not re-invest their added wealth as a result of this financial windfall at the expense of the 99%. They'll just keep the money or buy their own stock back, just like all the other "trickle down" schemes since Reagan's failed attempt at trickle down economics. To add insult to injury the proposed bill would remove the mandate in the ACA and make affordable healthcare a dream for those who are now struggling financially exploding healthcare costs for those of us who have to purchase it for ourselves on the open market.
The nation has been hijacked by a sick minority who supports the Republican agenda in spite of how the policy is not is their best interests.
The Republican plan is as partisan as it gets with no debate, fuzzy math and if passed will explode the deficit the Republicans always seem so concerned about when we have a sitting Democratic president.
These people don't care about future generations being saddled with the debt they create or this situation wouldn't exist. But they advertise their concern and the fools that elect them actually believe it while facts and history are completely ignored.
It's astonishing to me that this is allowed to take place in a country where the majority is supposed to bed in charge.
Sickening.
2
It's mind-boggling to me that Republicans like Senator Johnson are so concerned about the plight of business owners yet could not care less about the plight of the 30 million or so middle-class tax payers whose taxes would be raised by this unconscionable tax overhaul. The tax rates of graduate students would be increased by a whopping 400 percent. Gouging struggling students, raising taxes on hard-working middle-class Americans in order to lavish massive tax cuts on the rich and on corporations already drowning in cash: the brazenness of it is stunning.
1
Consumers buy more products when they have more income. Jobs are created when consumer Demand goes up for products/services. In order to keep up with the increased Demand companies add more jobs to increase the Supply of their products/services. This is how a consumer-based economy works.
The Trump-GOP tax plan(s) ignore this fundamental law of capitalism. Instead of putting most of the money from tax savings permanently in the hands of middle-class consumers, the tax plan(s) put this money in the hands of rich businesspeople. This does not increase consumer income. Therefore, the tax plan(s) will not increase consumer spending or the jobs necessary to make products to keep up with consumer demand.
1
When will he produce his tax returns so that taxpayers can assess the extent of the benefit that will accrue to him and his family?
For example, the probable estate tax benefit is being reported at between $1 billion and $2 billion. Surely his 'base' would appreciate having a more precise number?
3
Let's rescind all the Republican tax giveaways to the ultra rich going back to Reagan's. That's exactly when we started having a major deficit problem. The top rate should go back to where it was before Reagan started messing up our finances.
1
The economy is the best in many years, lowest unemployment rate in which the economists call at full employment, 6 million jobs not filled, best performance on the stock market. I believe there needs to be tax reform for small business, and for the middle class in which their wages have not kept pace of the real cost of living. Yes, corporate tax rates can be reduced but only to the limited to eliminating the overseas off shore. There should be corporate tax credits for re-training the American workers and re-tooling for technological changes. Not much more. Its a win-win formula.
Instead of giving the $1.5 Trillion to the rich and large corporations, let's cancel out student loan debt for salaries under $100,000. It should cost less and it would target the lower income scale.
1
Although I am opposed to this wealth shifting bill, I would ask the Republicans to put a "put up or shut up" provision in it. They are so convinced growth would fallow its passage just as winter follows fall, let them add this: if at the end of five years, the growth does not reach HALF their expectation or if average wages fail to rise by 20 percent, then the reductions for corporations and the estate tax should immediately sunset. Put our money where your mouth is...
Wyden is not thinking clearly about this. Any pass-through entity can incorporate at minimal cost if there really is an advantage to that.
Reading some of the comments I wonder if people actually do their own taxes. Charitable contributions, teacher expenses, etc, and etc never add up to overtake the standard deduction which is being doubled. That is a win. We are getting to keep our mortgage deduction too. Yes it is capped but that is going to affect very few people.
I too fear that corporations will not do the right thing. Keep in mind that everyones 401k is going to benefit; another win.
What needs to happen next is a change in SEC rules that indexes executive compensation to the corporations average salary. We the people start demanding that and President Trump is just the kind of guy to make it happen.
As a public school teacher and mother of a college graduate who had student loans, I'm outraged by many aspects of the proposed plan. I agree with the comments from many on the inequities of the plan to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy and place more of the burden on the middle class and small business owners. I also question the judgement and thought process in eliminating the $2500 deduction for student loans, which currently top 1 trillion dollars and taking away the measly $250 teacher deduction. Can we do something else to demoralize our already over-worked and under-appreciated teachers in this country? Americans need to call and email their senators and stand up against this proposed plan.
3
Instead of giving tax breaks to those who need them least (repeal of estate tax and AMT), Congress should be helping the middle class. This will not happen by reducing the deductions for SALT, property taxes, education expenses, medical expenses, limiting the deductibility of home mortgage interest, and repealing the individual mandate for health insurance.
And consideration is being given to requiring tuition assistance given by employers to be classified as "income." How does this help those that are trying to keep their skills current by improving their education?
Congress and supporters of the tax cut are peddling the myth that economic growth will increase revenue and pay for the tax cut.
Incidentally, Congress is proposing INCREASING the defense budget. Any one who is paying attention knows that the cuts to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid cannot be far behind.
By the way, when is Congress going to insist that "45" release his tax returns?
127
@Delmar Sutton: The AMT hits millions of "ordinary" tax payers each year. It is draconian in that it was never indexed to follow inflation.
The estate tax is simply immoral. If a family has worked, saved, invested AND PAID TAXES their whole lives, how is it "fair" for the government to swoop in take up to 50% of their lives??? If you believe it is moral, then it should apply to every single estate, regardless of size, no?
1
But SALT and very large mortgage deductions largely benefit the rich.The tax bill increases the standard deduction, which will offset the lost SALT for most ordinary people. And the tax bill will allow mortgage deductions up to $500k, which seems a sufficient level for most non-rich people. So these two items are really an issue for the rich. It seems the Democrats, NYTimes and a lot of commenters are looking out for the interests of the rich here, while the Republicans are willing to stick it to the rich on this front.
It's obvious that you're not a true Republican like our illustrious House Speaker, Mr. Ayn Rand himself.
This takes temerity...Johnson refusing to vote for the GOP bill, while personally lobbying for his own personal loophole. And when McConnell gives him his loophole, he'll surely vote for their bill.
Then when he votes for the GOP tax cut bill for Big Biz, 13 million of us to lose our healthcare, poor children will go hungry without SNAP, and the rest of us with incomes between $10k and $75k to have our taxes increased and not decreased, and our tax cuts will end in 2027.
All of our taxes will be used to pay for the tax cuts for the .1%. Their tax cuts include a loophole for feral golf courses. And $5 and 10 million estates from the Federal Estate Tax termination loophole. Of course Trump says he will never benefit from those! Or will he? Only a billion or so!
Not to mention our $1.4 trillion our deficit will be paid for by cuts to our Medicare and Medicaid. But not to mention Ways and Means Chairman Brady's and Ryan's recent addition to the GOP bill, to eviscerate our Social Security will impoverish our most needy to survive!
PS, Ironically Ryan paid for his college with his father's Social Security benefits, and has been in Congress, except for a short time, since he graduated college. Now, ironically, Brady and Ryan will cut our Social Security benefits to pay for the $4trillion deficit this bill will cost us for cutting corporate taxes!
25
McConnell cannot give Johnson equity or a loophole because that would force Republicans to exceed the $1.5 trillion budget deficit requiring 2/3 vote to pass. Democrats will not join this tax cut effort.
Bankrupting SS and Medicare and Medicaid have been under way for years. The endless war, that has never been funded has added trillions to the deficit and enriched the defense industry and preserved our addiction to hydrocarbons. The unfounded Medicare Prescription Drug program is bankrupting Medicare and is enriching Big Pharma that is protected by legislation from “bargaining” by Medicare effectively permitting any price for medications, or more pointedly: forcing tax payers to guarantee predatory profits to drug companies.
Open debate and discussion. Compromise. It's so anti Harry Reed / Chuck Schumer. I like it. Make corporate tax rate 21 - 22%. Slide the difference to small businesses.
4
The majority of Americans oppose the Republican tax proposals because the realize that most of us will be hurt by them. Where's the open debate about that?
2
You can slide all you want but the country irrevocably slips.
The Republicans are acting like robbers in the Vault of the Central Bank. They are going to hand out 1500 Million in cash to the upper class in tax breaks at the expense of the middle and especially loeer classes. The sell it to us under the promise of a hot economy for which we have to work harder. They will biy the bonds the government has to issue in debt. Then relatively higher taxes we pay goes to pay interest on the paper they hold. Is,that insane or what?
19
Well the top 10% pays 80% of the taxes so its normal that if you lower tax rates they will benefit more. Suppose the government beats people on the head and some people are beaten more than others. If you then abolish beatings the heavily beaten will benefit more. You can't have it both ways.
Considering that the top 10% consume a massively greater percentage of the available resources in this country go cry me a wolf. The point is that the working stiffs pays the bills through long hours of labor and extraordinary effort. Wall Street exploits those labors of the working people through lobbyist, corruption, insider trading, loopholes, and rigging the tax system. How come Trump has not paid any income tax for 15 years and lives the life of riches and wealth while groping women of his liking and behaving like a pig.
1
The supporters of the tax-cut bill are not motivated by selfishness. The driving force behind this bill is hatred. Rightists hate the poor. The poor have to be punished. This is the same motivation that made rightists want to deprive poor people of medical care.
28
Maybe they can cut more people from health care subsidies and medicaid to finance tax cuts to make "pass-through entities" more competitive with big corporations!
5
The fiscal conservatives in the states most impacted by the deduction cuts will be slapped by this bill and our jobs to change those states will be much harder. No group making under 250k should be impacted to give corporations these huge tax cuts. No loopholes have been fixed. The tax code hasn't been simplified. Budgets haven't been cut. This hasn't been a gift to the middle class
13
Finance 101 in a small pass through business. Revenue you earn less the expenses you pay out equals profit. Profit equals cash that you can use to expand your business. Pass through are taxed at the personal tax rate of the owner. If a business makes a profit of $200,000, that amount goes on your tax return as income upon which an income tax, state tax, etc must be paid.
Most new employees do not make a business like mine any money for two years, so to afford to pay that person I must have the cash in the business to do so. That means I must leave the profit in the business to have the cash money to pay for that new person. It also means the tax on that profit must still be paid which comes out of my pocket.
If the pass through tax is lowered, there would be more cash with which I could hire a new employee.
Since most new jobs are created in the small business sector, tax relief would be instrumental in enabling businesses to have the cash to hire new people.
End of lesson.
11
Most small business don't hire employees unless they need them which generally means they have enough business but can't get the work done in time. The idea that expansion is at the heart of hiring is probably only true with a small minority of businesses.
But doesn’t that new employee count as an expense, thereby reducing your taxable profits? Please explain.
you learned an entirely different concept of economics than I did. Your 200K profit is over and above the salary you paid yourself, so you are Not a pass through. You're just a bad small business with little margin and limited revenue. You could hire a person to increase your sales for 25K and call the resulting tax burden even if the salesman brings you an additional 75K in gross revenue in the following year. I'm willing to come and be a business consultant for you at a low rate if you have problems getting by on a 200K net profit.
Please tell me somebody is organizing a march on Washington for next week featuring the "little people"....even if it's just to let the republicans know that you exist.
"We need to take care of our Babies, not our Billionaires"
32
Don't be fooled. Johnson is a bad guy amongst badder guys, who simply isn't as bad as some of those other badder guys.
He's the male Susan Collins. Still on the wrong side 99% of the time, which makes that other correct 1% ultimately meaningless.
38
Read my comment, if published.
He is far worse than bad, given he is performing to an earlier written Republican tune, the one where the possibility of mediocre relief is seen as willingness to compromise, when in fact it's a ruse of the worst kind.
There is nothing the Republican Party has done since January 20th., 2017, which contributed so much as one penny to the nearly empty pockets of the poor and the middle-class, nothing whatsoever.
1
Please tell me somebody is organizing a march on Washington for the "little people"...even if it's just to let the republicans know you exist.
"We Need to Feed our Babies not your Billionaire Buddies"
5
This headline is so, so wrong. This guy wants more tax breaks for HIS business. Not a peep about lower taxes for the middle class. Just another Me Me Me hypocrite. The chances that he'll vote against this abomination is zero. Which is what most of us will get from it -- if not less.
31
These Trump voters are going to have to sleep on their sofa when grandma and grandpa come to their house to live after Medicaid throws these seniors out of their nursing homes. Ignorant people believe the lies that Ryan and Republican think tanks tell them. Have they read the proposals?
30
What makes you think they read, or even can read for that matter. I think there is a percentage of us that would be shocked at the level of adult ignorance in the U.S. We are now getting to see the effect though of that incredibly deep, debilitating, shockingly credulous ignorance.
Hopefully enough senators will oppose this travesty to doom it to failure.
If they don't, Trump will commit an impeachable offense by signing into law a bill that will increase his income by millions of dollars a year according to NBC analysts and may benefit his family to the tune of one billion dollars if the estate tax is repealed.
The republican congress, though, will not have the guts to impeach Trump. We are apparently stuck with this excuse for a leader until 2020 when, hopefully, those adversely affected by the tax bill -- that is, most middle class Americans -- may realize he enriched only himself and his friends and they may stand up and vote him out of office. Until then, Trump can go on building ethics violations daily and taking our country to ruination.
22
Many comments rant
(1) why individual tax rates are higher than corporate rate,
(2) why pass throughs should get a lower rate
(3) why democrats have gone missing
Answers:
(1) corporations create jobs, individuals don’t. Our rates must be lower compared to other competitive countries so multinational corporations will invest here
(2) we need more investments here in our country, we need to attract pass throughs to invest here
(3) thus is about citizens paying taxes, if it was about illegal immigrants democrats would be rushing in
2
Bhaskar,
Your answers are lacking credibility, truth and accuracy.
(1) people create jobs by having sufficient disposable income to make purchases that provide businesses with sales and profits. The effective tax rate in the US for multinational corporations is already amongst the most competitive on Earth, as no such entity pays the top rate after available loopholes.
(2) the US has the largest national economy on Earth. Attracting capital to invest in the US is not now nor has it ever been a problem. But if we deficit spend while allowing our infrastructure to crumble and research to dwindle, other nation's will be more attractive to invest.
(3) the US prospered taxing corporate entities at much higher rates. Corporations pay taxes AFTER expenses while individuals are taxed BEFORE expenses. It is morally and ethically bankrupt to tax citizens on state and local taxes already paid; critical medical expenses and health care premiums; education necessary to have the skills to work; essential shelter, food, electricity and transportation.
2
The other "competitive countries" will simply cut their corporate tax rates. Corporations will stay right where they are now.
1
Just a reminder. Trickle down economics never has and never will work. Corporations line the pockets of their shareholders and Ceo’s while adding to their stick portfolios or yaht collections. It’s the muddle class that when provided with a tax break buy “stuff” that then stimulates the growth of the economy. The Regan republican fallacy that trickle down economics helps all Americans is simply fake news.
3
This whole discussion is absurd. The federal government is hemorrhaging money at the rate of over $650 billion a year. The republicans want to give the defense dept $60 billion more in 2018. The hurricanes are liable to cost well over $70 billion. How can the US afford a tax cut that will create even more debt?
Where are all those tea party republicans that can't stand debt? I guess they have sold out just like all the rest to their corporate overlords.
94
You've lowballed those hurricane costs by $100 billion, mounting steadily. Here are the 10 top (some not in US, but look at the first 3) - https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/october-2017-earths-4th-warmest-octobe...
Hurricane Harvey, U.S., 8/25 – 9/2, $90 billion, 84 killed
Hurricane Irma, Caribbean/Bahamas/SE U.S., 9/5 – 9/12, $60 billion, 124 killed
Hurricane Maria, Caribbean, 9/18 – 9/21, $20+ billion, 98 killed
Wildfire, U.S. (California), 10/8 – 10/30, $8+ billion, 43 killed
Flooding, China, 6/22 – 7/5, $7.5 billion, 141 killed
Flooding, China, 7/13 – 7/17, $4.5 billion, 20 killed
Typhoon Hato, Macau/Hong Kong/China, 8/23 – 8/24, $3.5 billion, 22 killed
Severe Weather, U.S. Rockies/Plains, 5/8 – 5/11, $3.25 billion, 0 killed
Flooding, Peru, 1/1 – 4/1, $3.1 billion, 120 killed
Severe Weather, U.S. Plains/Southeast/Midwest, 3/26 – 3/28, $2.75 billion
etc.
Meanwhile, in their usual cheating style, it ends up costing everyone making under $100,000 a year and trickles up a whole lot.
24
We need a tax revolt, if the corporations are not going to pay taxes, then neither should the rest of the hard working citizens. I'm tired of supporting the wealthy in this country; most of the countries works, and the top percent get handed the benefits. I wonder if those in the congress realize how absolutely ridiculous they look to working and professional people. There entire agenda is defensive; they have done nothing but vindictively and obsessively try and gut everything that President Obama put in place. As I recall, the congress and much of the senate weren't willing to compromise or work with him; now they are willing to destroy middle class families with a tax plan that no one, not even those in big corporations understands. But there seems to be little to understand with this congress and administration-they appear to have the frontal cortex of a 15 year-old.
39
The commenter above is absolutely correct about this guy holding out for his own personal tax cut. What shame this when you consider that Wisconsin could’ve sent us Russ feingold instead.
32
Ron Johnson will vote for the bill. He is just trying to squeeze out the kind of goodies that other Republicans are extorting from the leadership. The ploy will work because the Republicans have stopped considering the American people. They only care about WINNING and about placating their donors, who have told them if they don't cough up the goodies for the billionaires they better kiss their campaign donations goodbye. This is the very definition of bribery or extortion, or both. Senator Johnson knows the game, and he is playing it in spades.
40
Please note that near the end of this article, the greedy Republican Johnson expressed the wish the the Republican budget would have set the limit for increasing the deficit by another $2 trillion or $3 trillion!!!! Instead it was "only" $1.5 trillion.
What ever happened to the shrill calls from the Republicans that the deficit was the biggest danger to the United States and must be shrunk? Bald hypocrisy!
As the Republicans race to pass their hastily crafted legislation before the Congressional Budget Office can score its effects, every independent analysis shows that taxes on middle class and lower class Americans will RISE. Taxes will be lower only for the wealthiest 1% of Americans and companies.
According to the current elected Republicans, deficits matter only when discussing cuts to Medicare and programs for the elderly, poor, and children.
And, if you have been paying attention, House Speaker Paul Ryan plans to enact his long-help pet projects for such reductions next year...vouchers (aka inadequate coupons) for Medicare, raising the age to receive Social Security, failing to renewal insurance for poor children and much more. Why? Because the deficit is too high and America cannot afford these programs for the elderly, poor and children - the helpless among us.
It's good in America if you are rich and can pull the Republican puppet strings.
26
Noam Chomsky described the Republicans with a simple slogan "ALL FOR US NONE FOR YOU" As usual, he is correct.
I really wonder ... are the Republicans collectively stupid enough to pass what is clearly political suicide? It only takes two more sort-of-sane Republicans in the Senate to stop this.
12
They are good at winning elections, hook or crook or just call it strategory.
Define "sort of sane"!
2
Realist -- they were. But they did that by riling up angry white people on a mix of "culture war" and government-resentment positions.
That's very different from stealing from everybody to give to the rich.
Their healthcare failure was spectacular; evidence that they had absolutely no real ideas on the subject except squeezing a lot of money out of healthcare so they could give big tax cuts to the rich. That failed, narrowly, because the public would not stand for it.
Now they are trying to come back to get that big tax cut for the rich even though they can't take enough money out of health care to pay for it. Instead they are going to take it from ordinary people and by ballooning the deficit.
Their base of voters aren't gullible enough to take this lying down.
Chris Collins was honest enough to tell the truth -- the only people served by this are their donor class. The ultimate cynicism here is the belief that you can harm your voters with impunity as long as your campaign gets enough money. I don't believe it -- they will pay badly for this in future elections.
It is time to pay attention to the concerns of small businesses and not just the election time lip service of "small businesses are the engine of growth. Well if you do ignore small businesses then come election time they will teach those running for a election a lesson. I am now beginning to understand why it is so difficulty to pass legislation. Every single senator has their own unique agenda and nothing can please everyone. No one seems to be concerned about the reality for all the citizens or what is in the best interest of the nation. If there were no executive orders and hope of tax cuts, the US would be seeing a poor economic growth and possibly a recession But fortune favors the brave and bold and that is what Trump can ride on. If only Trump took higher ground and realize that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others and not keep attacking Clinton and others he may have been okay.
4
Senator Johnson votes in-line with the president's positions 92.3% of the time. Johnson is doing nothing more than mugging for the camera for a little publicity -- the giant of the senate fighting for small business -- and there is zero chance he will derail this bill.
14
Johnson wants to treat his family’s personal income as corporate tax. Forgive me if I fail to see how greed is a principled stance.
24
Forcing all corporations to become pass-throughs is interesting, but not workable. Large corporations don't pay out all their profits to shareholders, they re-invest them. So if the shareholders now have to pay tax on the corporation's profits, they have to put up the cash for that before they receive anything. The corporation can of course increase its dividend to cover the tax, but now the investor has to receive his dividend, file his taxes based on the actual amount of the corporation's profits, and then return the money to the government. Heaven forbid that he has a diverse portfolio of stocks.
The current system where the corporation pays the tax itself is by far easier for everybody.
5
GOP politicians started preaching macroeconomic dogma again saying that tax cuts increase economic growth of our country. They have no credentials that can be proven by the past macroeconomic events. The comical tragedy is that nowadays the majority of voters don't believe in Republican's lie, but the Republicans can push their tax cuts by taking advantage of the congressional majority supported by the people like rank-and-file Republicans believing falsely that tax cuts would come to their pockets. The rich knows that they don't have voting power but they know how to use Republican politicians with their money. Whenever Republican politicians say that they are doing for the American people actually means that they are doing for the very very rich particular Americans.
10
There is nothing stopping Senator Johnson from starting a "c" corporation if he thinks that is advantageous. But then he will have to pay taxes twice, first on the "c" corporation profits, and then as an individual on the corporate dividends. Instead he thinks he is somehow entitled to have his cake and eat it too; lower taxes, and taxed only once. I am not favorably impressed.
Lowering "c" corporation rates to 20% seems justified due to international
competition. But could not reducing "c" corporation deductions and loopholes be used to pay for most of that cost? It doesn't seem that Congressional Republicans have even considered that.
The tax debate in Congress has opened the eyes of this Trump-supporting Republican. I see that Congressional Republicans seem to be catering to big business lobbyists at the expense of the American middle class. If anything like these tax bills is actually signed into law, I think that Republicans may become a minority party for the next 20 years.
8
According to the article Senator Johnson "said that the tax code unfairly advantaged those corporations, and that the Senate tax bill would widen those advantages, by cutting corporate taxes more substantially than those for pass-through businesses."
Well, not so according to the Brookings Institution:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/9-facts-about-pass-through-businesses/
"The shift occurred because of tax and legal changes that benefitted pass-through business owners and made pass-through form more attractive. For instance, in 1986, the top individual income tax rate fell below the corporate tax rate. This created significant incentives for a business to un-incorporate and for new businesses to organize as pass-throughs."
So it appears that the Senator is wrong and the person who wrote this article didn't think to correct the record. Probably the truth is that Senator Johnson is piqued at the fact (his) pass-through businesses aren't getting as big of a tax cut as the C-corporations, and that the relative distance between the two will shrink under this tax plan.
So C-corporation tax rates are "catching up" to the lower rate paid by pass-through businesses, and that will make the former more attractive again as they were before 1986. Ron Johnson is there complaining that the relative distance isn't remaining the same despite the fact it is still going down in this plan.
Ron Johnson isn't so much principled as he is rapacious.
11
Forget all the facts, the Republicans have big,rich donors they have to please and they haven’t pleased them yet in this administration. They are getting frantically desperate.
Our job is to hold their feet to the fire and in the next election to show congress where the real power is. Remember the Virginia election?
9
Republican fans, if you are nostalgic for the days when life was fairer, try this:
Tax rates for the richest were 90%+ until 1963, 70%+ until 1981. In 1982 Reagan got them down to 50%, 1987 to 38%, 1988 28%, at which point we had a huge market crash, like we usually do during Republican bubbles (1988, 2008).
Income inequality was less than a 10th of what it is now. Perhaps allowing predators to keep all their money is a motivation to hoard, offshore, buy expensive luxuries (& real estate, where Trump needed Russian oligarchs to stay afloat).
The first Bush edged them up and lost to Clinton, who raised them to 39.6% in 1993 and restored the economy, proving trickle-down didn't work. He was stuck, like Obama, with a unified opposition but did the best he could, which resulted in a lot of victim blaming of Democrats, like usual. Of course, his inability to behave himself around women didn't help.
Bush 2 started to get them back down (to 35%) in 2003, along with starting two unfunded wars that cost trillions, made us anathema around the world, recruiting for ISIS, declaring victory while failing to clean up the mess we made (sewage, no power, etc.), giving Saudis lots of weapons, and ended up with an unholy crash in 2007-8.
Obama, once again stuck with unified opposition, finally got the recovery going and the rate back up to 39.6%.
Now the Republicans want to play the same sorry tune, but now they want to criminalize poverty, let the sick die, and jail/suppress opposition.
48
Looking for the perfect over the good...will doom this bill and the GOP will likely cease to exist...with no party loyalty, no party core beliefs and every Senator believing he should be President...not much beyond personal issues will pass the Senate....
Democrats will likely win a few seats....GOP candidates cannot speak for a party any longer....Remember Repeal and Replace?
2
I remember when you could call the Republicans a "Grand Old Party" with a straight face. Why do you continue to take up for them?
It is time to be very honest for Congress & Senate Seat holders to do something good for the public in general without cheap publicity for reelections & President Trump.
4
What you have to understand is that mostly this flows out of Trump's ongoing vendetta-borne machinations upon those people who have ridiculed him most of his life. Rather than understanding why he's been ridiculed, he can only lash out. No self-reflection for Trump, past his suite of mirrors.
If he disrupts the lives of innocent people (and African mammals!) it doesn't matter to him. He's after what he thinks are the hip, educated, elements of the society -- the part that has carried out the actual process of democracy over the life of the US, which he only associates with his own rather strange time on this Earth.
10
...And you absolutely have to hold up to the light the form of social interactions that result on 1/4 of the nation's people selecting him. I am referring to what passes for television entertainment and other video forms such those offered by film and internet.
Since the family company was launched before the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, could Johnson please explain how they pushed him to create jobs, rather than just made him richer. What it boils down to is that he wants to be taxed at a lower corporate rate as a corporate "person" rather than a real one. Sorry, Senator, your greed shows that you are very much flesh-and-blood.
8
Will any Republican Senators be brave enough to reject this horrible bill? Listening to the defenders of the bill cherry pick the tiny number of elements that could actually help the public is an exercise in frustration. the WHOLE bill is a mess, a cheat and outright theft. If the Senate's "Hail Mary" attempt to use it to finally, finally repeal the ACA, it will also kill millions of people.
So now we see the horse trading. Susan Collins gets her teacher supply deduction retained. Lisa Murkowski gets some additional goodies for Alaska. Who knows what is being promised Arizona. And for the rest, who cares? The bill primarily punishes Democratic voters in Blue States, and their Senators are not going to vote for the bill anyway, so why bother to do anything at all to consult them, avoid punishing their constituents or care about their social programs.
The Blue States primarily tax their citizens to make up for the services that Republicans have cut and cut again. Citizens in those states have already paid a tax for those services to the State. Now the Republicans want to tax them on the tax. It is unfair, it is cruel, but who cares? They didn't vote for Trump--so even if a citizen in California did vote for Trump, too bed for them for living in a Blue State. Their grandmother is toast.
16
Republicanism pits all of the states against each other. Divided like this, the fall of the US is inevitable.
5
Paul Ryan as the Black Night, "None Shall Pass" through because it would mean the .01% would have to share.
4
Senator Johnson speaks for our family real estate development and brokerage.
We compete with NYSE companies and we need to have same rates as they and be able to plan on permanence of tax cuts
1
The bill actually heavily favors pass through businesses -- for the first time ever, pass-through partnership income gets its own special lower tax rate. Note that C Corporation income is taxed twice -- owners/shareholders still have to pay income tax on income they get, in addition to the corporate tax paid by the corporation. However, Senator Johnson's idea of taxing all businesses, whether they are partnerships or corporations, the same is fundamentally a sound approach. Additionally, foreign and domestic income should be treated the same for tax purposes, to prevent corporations from shuffling money around.
4
I'm mystified by how bad America's corporations are doing. All the business press details how many corporations are making record profits, and have piles of profit on hand. Business loans are still at near-record low interest rates, there's no, none, zero shortage of capital available for corporations. And yet Republicans are absolutely certain that "American corporations are non-competitive..." and "America's corporations just can't compete..." So where are all these record profits coming from, and where did the over $2 Trillion in corporate profits parked offshore come from? For a further mystery, I am supposedly to believe that if only corporations tax rates are cut, they will generously pass on most of that to me in increased salary, without selling any more or with me being any more productive. Its a mystery - its almost like 'voodoo economics', to coin a phrase...
We should not be increasing the deficit to give tax breaks to anyone, corporation "persons", ordinary working class and middle-class Americans, or the very wealthy investor class. That Republicans are both willing to borrow to give a tax cut, and are doing it to focus 98% of that tax cut on corporations and the very very wealthy, is seditious and dangerous to the future of our country.
24
Funny thing is, people just do not learn from history. They want to believe that somehow this economy will continue to grow forever. Trump/GOP policies are the same ones that led to the last two great recessions. Maybe, we will have growth for a few years and more transfer of wealth to the 1%, but the bottom is going to fall out again. And when it does, the U.S. taxpayer will be asked to bail out big business again as well as clean up all of their damage to the environment.
14
Why does this "50% of the people in the US pay zero federal income tax ...." GOP talking point get repeatedly trotted out? This simplistic (and exaggerated) rhetoric conveniently loses sight of an important detail ... that for two-thirds of all households, the tax levy that matters most is the payroll tax. Overall most households pay far more in payroll tax than income tax. Many taxpayers may not even recognize the difference between the two levies, especially since both payroll and income taxes are withheld from their paychecks and the payroll tax is often listed on their pay stub under the cryptic acronym of FICA. Nonetheless, those households who pay their payroll tax but who may owe little or no income tax are often forgotten in the great tax debates in Washington.
11
Exactly. The payroll tax is effectively a flat tax of 12.4% on all wage income up to about $118,000 in 2015.
5
Senator Johnson totally makes sense. He should be our President. I really believe our next President should be from a small business owner. Small business owners still harbor the can-do spirit. They are the doers, innovators and problem solvers. They must stay competitive in order to survive both foreign and demostic competitions. In fact, "Mittelstand" is the real reason why Germany is still a strong manufacturing nation. Similarly, there are still small manufacturing companies in Japan with almost monopoly of their niche products. I also believe the de-industrialization happened in this nation was a huge mistake. Most Americans don't like to do "dirty work" anymore and they all want to be "managers". In essence, Americans are relying more and more on communication skills but less and less on hand skills. Therefore, for every project, we must deal with layers of layers of "managers" before workers finally show up to do the real work. Of course costs become higher. To make America great again, we must bring back the pride of making things. We must reward small businesses. By doing so, our communities will become stronger and our fellow citizens will have more higher paying jobs. Finally, we have a politician making sense!
1
Today, the only ones agreeing with what you just wrote are the Democrats.
They applied what you propose in the 2009 Stimulus, and when the tax credits and subsidies for small businesses creating jobs (not ANY small business, but those who are REAL job creators) it contained were about to expire, it's Democrats who fought hard to get the extension signed into law, and Republicans who refused ... just like today their "cut cut cut" bill refuses to do anything serious for 90% of America's businesses: small businesses.
If Ron Johnson would be president, he wouldn't be able to do anything for small businesses, as long as we continue to give Congress to the GOP.
And that, of course, presumes that Johnson will vote AGAINST this tax-cut-for-the-wealthiest-only bill, which isn't certain at all ...
9
Doers, innovators and problem solvers with can-do spirit are found in every part of the economy, government and non-profit sectors. In big corporations and small, in local, state and federal government. In artists, law offices and medical offices. In workers on the production line. The notion that business owners are somehow better and more deserving than the rest of Americans is the biggest, most vicious, and pernicious lie perpetrated by republicans.
2
Business people seem to think we owe them something. Sell a good product or a service and I will come to you. You can help pay for roads, police and schools, just like me. They want a tax cut? Should we thank them for their service too?
6
I echo a comment below: UNBELIEVABLE
But then what is to be expected of this current crop of our so called Republican leaders.
I am a Republican and I am no betting man.
But this Senate will not pass a tax cut bill - I can guarantee that on my taxes.
These Republicans would not be able to pass a bill naming a post office after Abraham Lincoln.
What they need is a dose of humility that my come after a strong shellacking in 2018.
They do not deserve to be in majority.
14
So Sen. Johnson (R-WI) ONLY SEES the one item that would impact his family's private business back in Wisconsin. He can't see that HE AND THE GOP also will, once this Tax Breaks For The Wealthy is passed and put in play, will trigger the automatic cut to Medicaid of 25 BILLION over a ten year period. Twenty five billion over ten years. Sen Johnson doesn't see that the hit Medicaid will take will throw easily a hundred thousand people out of nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities all across the US. THAT isn't a problem for Republican Sen. Johnson at all. It's his families plastic business back in WI that puts a twist in his shorts. There isn't one individual in the GOP that is worth having on this planet. Disgusting creatures each one of them.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16651184/gop-tax-bill...
21
The mainstream media have done a poor job of highlighting these potential program cuts. Thanks for your post.
7
I must ask, why, knowing full well that 90% of US companies are pass-through entities, Including probably 95% of New York City companies, it takes an errant senator from Alabama to put this sort of drastic and vital news on your front page. This tax plan has only been public long enough for a computer to analyze. Give your readers a hand. Sheesh.
2
Some useful numbers: "The Shocking Math of the Republican Tax Plan" https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-shocking-math-of-the-republ...
"This bill is much like a teaser rate on a new credit card: ... goodies in the first couple of years, but those disappear ... for those below the median income. In 2019, the first full year ... the benefits are concentrated on the bottom ..., with middle-class people ... paying just under 10% less in taxes ... With each passing year the benefits shift upward, toward the rich. By 2021, those making $20-30,000/year are paying considerably more in taxes, ... between $30-200,000 see their benefit shrinking, and those making more start to see their taxes falling. By 2027, every income level below $75,000/year sees a tax increase, while everybody above that level sees a continued decrease, with the greatest cut ... [for income] more than a million dollars a year.
"The report shows that the rich benefit and the poor are hurt in every way that it measures. For example, the effective tax rate—meaning the percentage ... after they take all deductions—changes in a precisely regressive form. **The poorer you are, the higher your effective rate will rise. By 2027, only those making a $100,000/year or more will see an actual cut in their effective tax rate.** ... the more they make, the greater the cut ... By 2025, there is a direct transfer of money from the poor to the rich and corporations. This is not a flaw but the whole point"
15
Good news is the math indicates that even in high tax states if they take away the state deductions people who make less than 150K a year will get high enough deduction to still do better than before. Might be hard to politicians who raise taxes in places like NY and California to sell it as a federal deduction. They may have to get spending under control, which could be impossible for the Cuomo's of the world who have been stealing tax dollars with corrupt govt for years.
3
Nice cheating. A deduction up front and when people figure out they've been had lots of increases carefully filtering all the money to the top. And meanwhile, the debt increases and those who don't need more money get much more back. And if they've lost some elections they can blame the victims - again.
6
This isn't news...it's wish-casting Ron Johnson isn't a 'no'. He said as much. He wants to reform the bill in committee. That's it.
1
Corporate stockholders are free from personal liability for corporate actions. But the pass-through entrepeneurs also are shielded from the debts of their pass through entities. There is no double taxation of stockholders. The taxes of corporation are based on entirely different income and expenses than those of individual taxpayers. The only double taxation is a play on words, not a reality of tax world calculations or payments. However, pass-through entrepreneurs should have tax changes to give them more tax equality to compete with the corporate giants. We have become a nation of monopolies when it is competition that is supposed to keep our private enterprise blood flowing. Let's get the anti-trust laws working again, Mr.
Trump, if we want to return to our private enterprise greatness.
For every $50,000 in taxes saved by a corporation, that same corporation should have to prove that it has created one job that pays a $50,000 per annum salary.
No permanent, well-paying jobs created? Then no tax cut.
Make the tax cut contingent upon creating permanent jobs. That way, corporations must actually do what Republicans are promising us they will do if these corporations get their tax cuts.
So make them prove they have created the jobs before granting them the lower rate.
8
Never going to happen. They’re sitting on trillions now.
5
That's a good idea, but not a new one.
It was what part of the 2009 Obama stimulus was based on.
As most Republican voters ignore, more than half of the stimulus contained tax cuts - mostly tax cuts for ordinary citizens (for instance families having a kid in college) and small business, BUT in the latter case, they were indeed tied to concrete and real job creation.
As far as I remember though, it didn't have to be "permanent" jobs (no business can guarantee permanence ... ). But at least these tax cuts were directly tied to job creation (it's one of the reasons why the Stimulus managed to turn an economy where 700.000 jobs were lost a MONTH into a solid economy with an average of 150.000 new jobs added each month).
Conclusion:
- Republicans only give tax cuts to their own buddies and wealthy donors, with no strings attached at all - all while increasing taxes for the 99%.
- Democrats pass tax cuts for the middle class and in such a way that they're directly related to job growth - all while slightly increasing them, by the way, for the wealthiest Americans.
9
The Reps don't care what's in the tax bill or who gets hurt--they just want to pass something! At least Johnson is reading the details.
Orrin Hatch claimed he understood what it's like coming from the "poor folks" and defending them for his entire career...so he attended law school on a full scholarship and this proposed tax bill would count his free tuition as taxable income. He was a card carrying steel worker and no doubt got great benefits and still get great benefits at taxpayers expense--so no guilt in cutting 13 million off of Obamacare.
Johnson is right. Hatch and the rest of those Reps are representing corporations not small businesses. They're not representing average Americans and they sure ain't representing the "poor folks", no matter how many bills Hatch claims to have passed in his legislative lifetime.
9
Small business employees will benefit from Mr. Johnson's objection. Ron Johnson is right to speak up for those businesses and ultimately, those employees. News is on Google right now that 90% of small businesses plan to hire in 2018. If you tax them to death, how can they afford to do that?
1
Ron Johnson will work with Speaker Ryan and Mr. Johnson's objections will be satisfied. Here are some stats from the SBA about small businesses in America: Small businesses make up: 99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms, 64 percent of net new private-sector jobs, 49.2 percent of private-sector employment, 42.9 percent of private-sector payroll, 46 percent of private-sector output, 43 percent of high-tech employment, 98 percent of firms exporting goods. It's right for Ron Johnson to speak up for small businesses and ultimately, their employees.
2
Mr. Johnson is not interested in middle class. He working hard for people like his family and himself. He does not care about million of people who do not business with revenue in millions of dollar and majority of Americans who earns less than 100k. Mr. Jonson will extract more concessions at the expense of the poor and middle class but at the end of of the day he will vote with Trump, Ryan and McConnell. I just wonder how people in Wisconsin with annual income of 75 or less and who voted for Mr. Johnson feel now.
5
The headline of this article should have been:
"Why a Firm Believer in Tax Cuts SHOULD Derail the Tax Cut Bill".
Because after having promised tax cuts time and again, the GOP now finally has a bill that they decided to call "tax cut bill", but as soon as you read it, you cannot but observe that:
1. most ordinary citizens don't get a tax cut at all, and on the contrary see their overall income go down, whereas 13 million see their healthcare being destroyed by the government;
2. in answer to that, Republicans now "admit" that it's actually mainly a bill cutting taxes for corporations rather than for ordinary citizens, but ... in real life, 90% of America's businesses don't get any serious tax cut either, it's only the biggest corporations, which are already sitting on their money, who will now get another huge government handout.
It makes no sense to call a bill that increase taxes on most of America all while cutting it - without paying for it - for a handful of the wealthiest individuals and corporations, a "cut cut cut" bill.
This is a Christmas present by and for the wealthy few (= for Trump, his millionaire cabinet, and the wealthiest GOP donors), and that's it.
In the meanwhile, instead of becoming "great again", America sees its debt go up by $1.5 trillion.
How can ANY conservative agree with such a monstrous bill ... ?
Where's the Grand Old Party ... ?
12
Now they are just arguing about how to divide up the spoils taken from the middle class and poor through this tax debacle...that's all this is.
8
Until the American people, specifically those who actually vote, get off their duffs and vote their common sense, if they have any left, which means vote Democratic all down the line, they are going to see bupkis being done for them. Too many of the electorate get caught up in the nonsense of politics. It came down to Trump and Hillary. The choice was obvious, staring you right in the face who was the qualified candidate. But no, millions for whatever idiotic reason found a way to cut off their nose to spite their face. They voted for a dimwit, but someone not so dumb as to harm his nest egg. Americans voted for a billionaire thinking he had made so much money he was looking out for the little guy. Can you imagine how stupid one has to be to believe that? Trump's been pulling this bait and switch his entire career. He's 71, when have you known anyone 71 who's going to change their ways? So, why so stupid, America. Why so hateful of Hillary to want Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress to decide your fate? Well, I'm waiting. How do explain such stupidity? I guess if one is that ignorant there is no logical explanation.
DD
Manhattan
14
i don't understand,
Unemployment rate below 5%
Stock Market up
Wages up
Health Care for Americans up
Mass shootings of innocent people up.
Infrastructure not even mentioned.
Let's build roads and reduce the mass shootings, now that's American.
Giving tax breaks to the wealthy should be the last thing we should be worrying about.
19
Please - take a step back and look again.
The question of "who stands to gain" is being asked far too narrowly and is focusing on the tax bill rather than the consequent flow of money: this is simply the distribution of 1.5 trillion dollars to the shareholders of American companies. The more you own, the more you gain. The rest is noise as marketing.
3
But there is a deficit.
So the benefit to the shareholders is being put on our credit cards and the credit cards of our children and grandchildren.
3
Yes Independent - I agree - it is a gave-away to the wealthy through means beyond the tax code alone. Ultimately, the rest of us will pay.
3
This tax scheme ends deductions that benefit veterans, indebted students, orphans, and people who suffer from rare diseases.
It double taxes income that has already been paid to state and local governments and therefore cannot be used to pay federal taxes.
Yet is preserves benefits for owners of golf courses, so a developer can build homes and a nearby golf course, get a conservation easement on the links, and claim a deduction that can pay for the entire development.
It punishes people who earn the same income from a working wages as those who earn passive income from investments, often twice as much for people with that gall to work for a living.
This is the worst piece of tax legislation ever produced, a monument to corruption and special interests.
15
There is a tax cut.
But there is a deficit.
So really they are just putting the bill on our credit cards and the credit cards of our children and grandchildren.
And we really are getting much of the tax cuts. Just the bill on our credit cards.
All of this after eight years of Republicans scolding about the debt.
This tax cut bill will really hurt the country.
And they wear their flag pins on their lapels.
5
CORRECTION:
And we really are getting much of the tax cuts. Just the bill on our credit cards.
SHOULD BE:
And we really are NOT getting much of the tax cuts. Just the bill on our credit cards.
In 2014, I began a one-woman campaign to repeal the NJ inheritance tax and raise the filing threshold of the NJ estate tax. I sent over 1500 emails to NJ Gov Chris Christie/NJ legislature.
The NJ inheritance tax of 1892 is a tax based on WHO you leave money to. Lineal family members don't pay this tax—allowing the transfer of BILLIONS tax free, while non-lineal family members (if it’s all you have) pay the tax. The filing threshold starts at $500 bucks, essentially a flat tax of 16%. It affects the poorest of the poor, living and dead. This tax is really an estate tax in drag, simply shifting from the estate paying it to the heirs. What’s the difference? It’s the hard earned money of NJ decedents—rich ones and poor ones.
The NJ estate tax of 1934 is a "privilege tax". The tax is triggered based on the VALUE of a NJ decedents estate and treats all equally. This tax was created to ”level the playing field” because under the NJ inheritance tax, decedents with lineal family were paying zip. Effective 1/1/18, with the repeal of the NJ estate tax—we’re back to square one in NJ. The NJ Inheritance Tax of 1892 and it’s arbitrary classes of “family” is unfair, prejudicial, discriminatory.
Trump is calling for the repeal of the Federal Estate Tax while the unjust and discriminatory inheritance tax lives and breaths in NJ and 5 other states. I do not support the repeal of the Federal Estate Tax. The United States is already a plutocracy.
1
I give up trying to make a honest buck by starving myself to start a business. Why should I lose sleep, get sweats whenever things don't go well. Or wonder if my un-subsidized individual payer healthcare is going to be killed off by our brave leaders in Washington.
I too want to do it the easy way, like Trump and family.
I am willing to work for Manafort type money to take our GOP politicians to the next level of cheating the middle and working classes without them noticing it. I'll bring over a few hard core political leaders from "developing" countries, like India, for example to conduct classes or be consultants to show how to do direct action vote buying so now the politician just makes one or two campaign rallies and not bother with kissing babies or shaking hands of all the loser poor and middle class people. Just give them a few hundred bucks, or my team will on your behalf and get voted in.
Once elected you have a free hand in looting the treasury, grabbing public and private property through fear and intimidation tactics. We'll do all the dirty work for a fee.
Pretty soon my services will be in high demand and I'll become a one percenter. Ha! and they call me crazy. I 'm counting the cash, I mean my team of accountants are counting my cash already.
Obviously the republican tax plan..our system calls these things "budgets" favour the rich which is a characteristic of CONSERVATIVE governments under the westminster style of parliamentary style of government also. My comment is regarding your mortgage interest deduction which Canada has never had. One commenter says they are fully retired and losing that deduction will really penalize them. In Canada people if possible try to pay off their homes so they do not have that debt hanging over them....although the current insane housing market makes that difficult.
1
America is well on it’s way to the very successful economic model of the third world, an extremely rich tiny click and none to crumbling infrastructure.
7
So the real reason this guy is against the current bill is that he see's how it will not benefit him personally. This gives me so much faith that congress is looking out for the average person.
We have elected people who are incapable of putting themselves in other peoples shoes.
7
You have elected people who project, not people who empathize.
Although I have little use for Senator Johnson, I don't think it is fair to characterize his opposition to the current bill as personal interest ... at least not on the basis of what he seems to have said. He said that his own experience shows that small business need -- and benefit from -- a tax cut more than large businesses. I think it is not unreasonable for him to focus on aspects of the bill about which he is personally informed ... this does not mean he is opposed to it because it does not benefit him.
By contrast, which Republican was it who said he had to vote for the tax bill because otherwise his donors would no longer give him money?
Small businesses definitely operate under time consuming burdens, such a the perpetual hunt for a more affordable health insurance plan.
The more money workers have to spend, the more sales businesses will make to customers. The more sales businesses make to customers, the more products manufacturers will make for businesses to sell. This makes middle-class consumers — not rich businesspeople — the true job creators.
This is why the Trump-GOP tax plan will not work. It favors rich businesspeople over middle-class consumers. The Trump-GOP tax plan is a fraud like Trump "University" was a fraud.
8
Fill wealthy donors’ coffers with taxpayer dollars via unnecessary, unearned, and undeserved tax cuts; suppress voting rights; seat a judiciary friendly to it all; and we see that Republicans couldn’t care less about the non-wealthy.
Makes their “pro life” shrieking particularly heinous.
7
They even presume every fetus wants to be born into a world that will count it an original sin to be punished for life.
2
Call the following senators. Leave a message and tell them why you think the proposed tax bill is a disaster for the American people. A friend told me to do this, and I don't feel quite so helpless and despairing.
Senator Murkowski 202 224 6665
Senator Collins 202 224 2523
Senator McCain 202 224 2235
Senator Corker 202 224 3344
Senator Flake 202 224 4521
Senator Lankford 202 224 5754
11
this story fails to address a key point: If owners of pass-throughs feel corporations get kinder tax treatment, they can incorporate and get the same deal. They don't because pass-throughs actually get a better deal, as their income is taxed only once, when received by the owner, while corporate profit is taxed at the corporate level and again after it is passed on to shareholders.
2
I'm losing my mind. It's not only this story that misses your point, it's Sen. Johnson too. The important rate is the rate applied when distributions get to the individual. In my opinion, C-corp taxes are just sales tax, collected by business and forwarded to the treasury.
That is not the point of the story. The point of the story is that owners of pass-throughs who do no work but invest money get a break but that owners of pass-throughs who actually work do not get a break.
1
Ah, so I guess pools of investments that are held in C-coprorations could grow to larger pools because they would be taxed less (since they have yet to be distributed). Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. One small quibble with your comment though. This NY Times story doesn't mention at all that difference between business operating profit versus investment profit, so it's unfair to say "The point of the story is that owners of pass-throughs who do no work but invest money get a break but that owners of pass-throughs who actually work do not get a break".
I supported GW Bush bailout, Obama policies and Obamacare and have the following opinion about Trump tax bill.
1. More people paying taxes - good (50% pay no fed tax now)
2. Corporate tax reduction - GREAT, more money in USA is better than overseas. It just is.
3. Charitable deduction decrease - Good. religion is no longer apolitical and needs no tax free status
4. Obamacare mandate removal - Really Bad. Too many 55-65 are holding onto jobs just for healthcare thus not making room for younger employees to move up.
5. I will like to see cuts in welfare, section 8 and have some medicaid copay, the abuse is mind boggling and the welfare queen is alive and well in newark, NJ.
Trump is making America more exclusive (like his condos), which is quite good, it has been open season on stealing american jobs and american trade with bad policies for decades. Time to make it difficult to enter and stay in USA to regain it's exclusivity. Stop listening to economist and academics, those who can't do, teach.
1
I am teaching economics to a class of 35 PhD students. Of the 35, 3 are Americans. Who is "stealing jobs"?
1
It's not tax reform. Its Republican Taxation.
3
You know Corporate America will use their tax cuts to buy back stock and make shareholders happy, and it is indefensible when the issue has always been wage disparity. Bigger yachts that lift no other (middle class) boats.
More money to store overseas in secret tax havens. More opportunity to open businesses overseas and pay workers pennies on the dollar. For reference, see Trump Organization and Family.
2
Why aren't corporate taxes progressive like individual income taxes? Should Joe's Used Car Lot be taxed at the same rate as Apple?
1
Good appraisal of this latest Republican "Welfare for the Wealthy" tax "reform" bill ran Nov. 17 in The New Yorker. (www.newyorker.com)
1
What this ordinary citizen wants: a back-to-basics tax plan
Step 1. Eliminate the current tax code, all 75,000 pages
Step 2. Replace it with a four-page code: guiding principles (1); basic policy, including exemptions (2): implentation (1).
Step 3. Require that any changes be voted on, item by item, by Congress.
And, Santa, please bring me a unicorn, too.
1
In a world where Christian fundamentalists vote to turn the country over to an immoral sexual predator named Trump, why can't the poor and middle class white voters turn the economy over to the Robber Barrons called the Republican leadership. Makes sense, no?
4
The Democrats do not seem to be taking this tax bill as seriously as they did the ACA repeal bill. That is a mistake.
The Republicans are persistent in their efforts. Don't underestimate their chances to pass this outrage. The Democrats and liberals seem to be tiring. They are distracted from this tax cut bill by Trump's vapid tweets about everything and anything. They need to re-energize and re-focus their efforts to stop this abomination or the Republicans will succeed with doing tremendous damage to the nation for generations to come.
7
Well Johnson is right. The Republican tax bill pays little heed to small businesses and only serves large (and often corrupt) corporations like Wells Fargo, Exon and the infamous Koch Bros businesses. But worse still the tax bill does not serve the common man: the one with a job, wife, kids, a mortgage and often illness. Thus the tax bill does not serve backbone Americans: the middle class and poor and it should because we are not Russian peasants---we are Americans!
5
A lot of talk about small business, big business and no concern for the debt, but most of all no talk about the middle class! Typical Republican.
3
This is legislative malpractice. Did Republicans learn nothing from their ACA fiasco? The Democratic legislators represent far more Americans, but once again they have been completely excluded from any involvement with these tax bills. When bills are attempting to remake the entire economy of the United States and reach into virtually every household and business, there should be hearings, expert witnesses, committee meetings, debates, and absolute transparency which would normally take several months if not the year and a half that the ACA took.
Just on Tuesday a few days ago at night, Republican senators introduced two massive changes -- the repeal of the ACA individual mandate and the sunsetting of all individual tax cuts after a few years, while the corporate tax cuts and other gifts to the super wealthy are permanent. The Senate had begun its committee review on the Ides of November.
Two weeks is ridiculous to suddenly push out a 400 page tax bill, not letting experts and certainly no laypeople time to understand its impact or consequences. As Samuel Johnson said, "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Republicans are hanging the average American out to dry while kissing up to their millionaire and wealthy corporate sponsors.
There needs to be a special circle in Dante's Hell for Trump and the current Republican Party. The harm they are doing is beginning to be irreversible.
9
Pity the Radical Republicans.
Tied in knots.
Damned if they don't.
(their crazy circular loop with their base demands that they pass this dog of a bill)
Damned if they do.
(wildly unpopular tax breaks for the wealthiest that the Democrats will hang around the neck of the Republican Radicals)
The commercials write themselves if this passes:
"Your financial problems just got multiplied by 10… all so this guy (man driving a sports car while smoking a cigar) can have his cake and eat it (same man at a fancy party eating cake with his posh friends) while you and your family have keep struggling for everything. Never a break!
Vote Democratic - flip the House and Senate in 2018 and we'll undo this "giveaway to the rich" law before it even takes effect.
And if President Trump won't sign the bill to undo it, well, you can vote him out too in 2020."
You don't need this nonsense.
4
Corporations are sitting on a ton of cash. Unemployment is the lowest in over a decade or so (thanks to a Democrat) and the Trump administration is bragging about the economy, like there's no tomorrow. Well, if the Republicans get their way with this tax bill, maybe, there will be no tomorrow after all. This bill has the potential to break the middle class. The middle class is the back bone of this economy, this country.
This bill may find itself in a precarious situation, similar to that of the health bill.
1
Very noble for Senator Johnson to speak up on behalf of the little guy, the small business owner who only makes $2-2 million a year(not counting his Senate salary).
Why not several tax brackets for businesses, just as their are several brackets for individuals?
Under $1 million 20 percent,
$1 to 10 million, 25 percent,
$10 million to $100 million, 30 percent,
$100 million to $1 billion, 35 percent,
$1 billion to $10 billion, 40 percent,
$10 billion to $100 billion, 45 percent.
2
We need a tax rate that treats all taxpayers and businesses equally with zero deductions and loopholes. The government needs to get its spending in line with its income like most of us individual taxpayers do already. We need to pay down the deficit, cut our unrealistic military budget, fix our crumbling infrastructure, take care of our people, etc. , etc.....
2
Have you ever seen the initials, “PC,” or “PA,” or “LLC” following the degrees on your Doctor, Dentist, or Attorney’s name?
These are not academic defeees, or even honorary ones. They merely signify that they have decided for purposes of reducing their taxes, to incorporate their practices. Under the proposed pass through legislation in the so called tax cut bill, income earned from these practices will be even further reduced. So the proverbial secretary in a high end law firm or medical practice could conceivably pay a HIGHER tax rate than her high earning boss.
Income is income, and should all be taxed on the same basis.
This provision is just another way to greatly reduce the taxes of very high earning individuals, at the expense of the middle class. While I’m glad that Senator Johnson is opposing this horrendous bill, I do question his motives. His personal income from his family owned business stands to benefit from the pass through tax cut.
If someone is fortunate enough to live in our great nation, and earn a very high income, then he or she should be happy to pay their taxes at the regular rate.
4
I love the way this tax reform thing is described as "the first significant legislative achievement of the Trump presidency."
Is that what you call a piece of legislation that benefits so few at the expense of the many? That is concocted on a unilateral basis at warp speed, with no input from the opposition party? And that contains a good dose of punitive political revenge thrown into the mix?
39
"Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, are desperately seeking their first significant legislative achievement of the Trump presidency."
As I read this arcane debate over pass-through versus corporate income tax cuts, I couldn't help returning to the key phrase, "first significant legislative achievement."
Is that what you call a piece of legislation that benefits so few at the expense of the many? That is concocted on a unilateral basis at warp speed, with no input from the opposition party? And that contains a good dose of punitive political revenge thrown into the mix?
13
As a shareholder, I consider the income tax charged to the corporation to be a reasonable assessment for its use of public infrastructure to conduct its business.
3
@Steve Bolger: as a shareholder too, I couldn't agree more. Given how many big corporations have hidden revenues in the Caymans, instead of a tax cut, they should be charged a retroactive tax increase. Yeah, I know what they do is all "perfectly legal" but I doesn't make it right. Working stiffs don't have the luxury of parking paychecks in the Caymans.
3
Working stiffs can't write laws to benefit themselves.
People think voting for rich people makes sense because they don't have to abase themselves to get richer, but politicians are typically folks who spend faster than what they bring in in their private lives too.
We in Wisconsin know Ron Johnson. There's no way he will go rogue on this. He's been an intellectually challenged mediocrity for years and he thinks a little grandstanding will get some attention. He pulled the same stunt on ACA repeal, and voted for it in the end. Please don't count on his opposition to the tax bill, he's a spineless ideologue and he'll support it.
25
Ryan asks Senator Johnson "What are you going to need?" Tamping down the bile I feel about this horrible extortion/payback/bribery - call it what you will - Mr. Ryan and his ilk need to know that what they need is a spine. They need clear eyes and honesty about what they are doing. They need to throw the money men and women off their backs and look and see and listen to the American people. This tax plan is a disaster and a moral catastrophe.
12
This tax bill is the dumbest bill to come along, perhaps in our history. It flips Republican philosophy on its head by increasing the deficit, cutting taxes on everyone but stopping those cuts on real people after a few years while allowing them in perpetuity for “corporate people.” The bill increases the transfer of wealth from rich states to poor states without any plan to increase jobs in those poor states, so the bill will not do anything to be economically constructive. The same thing tried in Kansas was a complete fiasco that resulted in major losses at the ballot box in the next cycle.
Meanwhile, that extra money corporations will have will go no where because the opportunity for investment isn’t out there. Corporations are already swimming in profits (parked off shore) and if they needed money to invest, the cost of borrowing has rarely been lower but they aren’t borrowing for investment either.
But the worst of this bill are the burdens put on borrowing for education, on the huge payments for healthcare paid by the elderly and poor, on the many ways in which Republicans have slyly cut the legs out of support for philanthropies of all kinds.
This bill kills the future, it doesn’t build for it. And the most deplorable thing of all is to have to listen to Ryan and McConnell lie over and over and over about this bill. Republicans who vote for this are counting on gerrymandering to save their future but you cannot escape your lyin’ eyes or your lyin’ mouths.
18
Gather at The Capitol on vote day, ye Americans!
8
The non-crackpot contingent of the Republican party needs to stand up and be counted.
3
Something as important as a tax bill should not allowed without a 66 vote majority. Yes 66 not 60 and god help us 50 + one. Then we need a you have to vote for at least half of the other sides bills or you can't run for election. Something so the all have to work at bring bill that work for all America not a select few.
2
This is what diversity looks like. While there is very little difference of opinion on anything important among the remaining Democrats, nearly all progressives, the GOP actually has a wide range of opinion on nearly every important issue.
While the Democrats represent the rigidly top-down closed country dominated by an elite-led central state, the Republicans really look and sound like America.
In the end, Johnson is a YES vote. They'll give him what he wants- more breaks for small businesses, Everything else he agrees with. An entrenched aristocracy is the goal and that's what we're going to get. All of this who were scammed by Trump will feel the pain. I just don't know if they'll realize and understand who did it to them.
4
Remember ... tax cuts don’t drive additional investment or higher wages within an individual entity, ONLY increased demand for that entity’s product or service will do that.
Tax cuts enable the tax payer to keep more money for same effort. So counterintuitively, if taxpayers is content with current income, lowering the tax rate will actually reduce investment and effort - all the while retaining same after tax income.
No business makes investment decisions based on tax rate itself. However, the decision may be influenced by the increased optimism that a lower tax rate my produce.
Regardless, appears both tax proposals are more special interest / wealthy donor giveaways than a considered restructuring of tax policy.
2
Most people who pay state income taxes will pay more taxes under this bill, this year. And more than that in the following years. It really is just that obvious a ploy to place more of a burden on middle class taxpayers who have been provident enough to provide for local services without reliance on the federal government. The revenue will be used to support the rich (who have absolutely no obligations under this gift) and to support the states which can't take care of themselves without federal subsidies because they don't tax their citizens' income.
4
A tax cut is a mistake at this time. 1.5 T in infrastructure would create jobs and we would have something to show for increasing the debt.
I've been a tax professional for 28 years, the majority of that time in Big Four. All of my clients to this day are the 1/10 of 1% crowd. This bill is not reform and we cannot afford it. We have our hands full with federal disaster relief these days and we are running 660 million short in revenue for our current budget.
This so-called reform is nothing of the sort. It is a scam and a rip-off of the American people. They can set large corporation tax at 10% - 20% - the ones that pay have an effective rate of 18% anyways.
We have heard for years that we need to manage our federal monies like a business. Well a business does not increase their debt by 1.5 T and decrease their revenie. Of course, the President has filed bankruptcy often and stiffed his lenders and shareholders so I don't believe he can run a business effectively and Ryan is just flat mean. He is itching to prove we are broke and can't afford Medicare or Social Security.
43
It’s nice to read the informed facts and criticism of the GOP tax proposal, but please also call, email, or write and tell GOP Senators exactly what you think of this tax bill (even if you are in another State). Don’t be silent. Let them know 2018 & 2020 are not that far off and that their constituents will remember. It’s not much hope, but maybe our only hope, that we find at least three GOP Senators who have not lost their minds, who are still patriots.
I’d like to see each post end with, “And I have contacted x GOP Senators to express my opinion on the tax proposal.” I have contacted 5.
9
Len, are you worried about too many of the poor workers near you getting jobs? Is that it? I'd thought that repressive era in Democrat Party thinking had passed by the civil rights era.
Black unemployment is already down thanks to Mr. Trump, and reportedly 13 states see their lowest unemployment figures this century.
Where is the GOP tax plan calculator promised by Paul Ryan? It was promised on November 2 that within a week the House GOP would post an online calculator so that all Americans could see how the new tax bill would affect them personally. I have not yet found it.
5
That’s a king cobra of Trumps snakes kingdom!
1
This Republican tax proposal is twice as stupid as the Bush tax cuts that coincided with fighting multiple wars on credit.
Demand that it be voted down.
14
So besides Democrats not supporting this legislation, small business owners , middle class & fiscal conservatives are lost to the Republicans. I cannot wait till the State of the Union address in January. To start with,the accusers of sexual harassment by Trump should be guests of the opposition. There should be demonstrations against the dismantling of legislation by the Trump administrations executive orders . Loopholes to write off $900 million mistakes by businessmen should be closed. Americans need to note that no one & nothing is too big to fail. Universal healthcare will take the burden away from businesses to supply it. Trump has a very Marie Antoinette attitude towards America, believing it exists to serve him, he has never had any record of service to anyone. God help us.
8
H E Pettit: If trump ever finds out that his accusers will be guests of the opposition at the State of The Union address in January, guess what? NO STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS! trump has shown us that he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do, and he doesn't have to abide by any rules, protocols, or laws. Mentally ill AND CRIMINAL.
4
I heard a Republican Representative defending the temporary status of the middle class tax cuts. "Well", he said, "there will be a whole 8 years to initiate new legislation to rectify that". My question, so to speak, would be: then why not make the middle class tax cut permanent, and the corporate tax cut temporary. Same remedy.
Deceitful bunch of men, not doing their jobs, not representing their constituents and thinking that people can't see through their illogical arguments.
693
Republicans bow to the wealthy and allow them to plan by giving them a permanent tax cut. They are not deceitful. “Well", he said, "there will be a whole 8 years to initiate new legislation to rectify that", means Republicans serve the rich alone.
2
To Marci of Linwood. Why should they care if people can see through their arguments if these people are still willing to vote them in to office. And all they had to do to have average Americans ignore their own interests was to blow a few dog whistles about minorities and abortion. Forget the complaints with the Republicans however valid they may be. Your complaints are with the electorate. The one thing you cannot protect a person from is their self.
1
Marci, if their constituents saw through the crooks, they would have been voted out of office years ago. Instead, the kleptocrats own the country now.
1
Well but, Ron, I'm not following you; you guys WANT big corporations to have an unfair advantage, right?? Isn't that like pretty fundamental to Making America Great Again?? Clearly I'm missing something!
3
Nearly everyone in the country is crying poor mouth. People are so angry and disillusioned they voted for Trump to fight for them. Big oops! He’s leading the charge to grind them further underfoot
7
In the end, he will vote with the rest of the "rape and pillage" party in Congress. This is for show.
22
I am a fully retired member of the middle class. Because I have already saved adequately for my retirement, I give a fair amount to charitable causes and spend most of the rest of my annual income on housing, food, travel, family etc. I have projected my taxes for Calendar Year 2018 under the current system, the House plan, and the Senate plan. My taxes will increase quite substantially under the GOP plans--partly because of the loss of personal exemptions, but mostly because the loss of itemized deductions for property taxes, state income taxes, and home mortgage interest. Under the proposed GOP plans and the resultant loss of deductions, I will be taking the proposed standard deduction, instead of itemizing. Because of the shift to the proposed standard deduction, I will no longer get any tax benefit from my charitable deductions. (This loss of tax benefit for charitable deductions will be true for everyone taking the proposed higher standard deductions.) The bottom line under the GOP plans is that I will pay substantially more federal tax, have less to spend for things that benefit the economy, and have less incentive and after-tax income to give to charity. All of this so that Congress and the President can provide tax cuts for multinational corporations and the very wealthy, who also may have less financial incentive to give to charity as well under the proposed plans.
54
well said.
Senator Johnson frequently talks a good game but often, when it's time to put his money where his mouth is, he goes silent and aligns his vote with the leadership. He did this with ACA repeal: "He was an early and vocal critic of the party’s legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act, though he ultimately voted in favor of the bill."
His fellow congressman from Wis., Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner, recently referred to Johnson's opposition to the tax bills as "strutting around like a peacock" (http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/17/jim-sensenbrenner....
Few in Wisconsin take Sen. Johnson at his word. He likes to strut like a leader, get his name in the paper, and fan those feathers, but when it comes to the vote, he'll pull those feathers in and vote for the tax cuts. Don't believe me? His words: "“I’m optimistic . . . because we all understand how important this is. I don’t want to block this. There’s no way I want to block this.”
Whether or not he gets the pass-through cuts he wants, the Republican leadership can count on his vote, especially if his is the vote that would deny passage. Ultimately, the senator will fold tail and run to get in line.
6
If Mr. Johnson stocks to his guns (and I'm not betting on this) it could lead to the sort of broad rethink that this process needs. It could become actual tax reform, in other words, instead of the massive redistribution of wealth upwards that both House and Senate tax proposals currently represent.
2
In 2019, the first full year that this bill would be law, the benefits are concentrated on the bottom of the income stream, with middle-class people, on average, paying just under ten per cent less in taxes than they would if the law weren’t passed. With each passing year the benefits shift upward, toward the rich. By 2021, those making between twenty thousand and thirty thousand dollars a year are paying considerably more in taxes, those between thirty thousand and two hundred thousand see their benefit shrinking, and those making more start to see their taxes falling. By 2027, every income level below seventy-five thousand dollars a year sees a tax increase, while everybody above that level sees a continued decrease, with the greatest cut in taxes accruing to those making more than a million dollars a year.
8
At this point, you can't possibly be surprised by this....... but well stated.
3
Senator Johnson opposes the tax cut Bill because it favors big businesses over small businesses, including his family own company. Yes, it is feathering his own nest. Do not be fooled as to why he is against the legislation.
2
Seems like there is no real rationale for this society-destroying bill other than "the GOP needs a win."
Many thanks to the Supreme Court for the infamous Citizen's United decision, which has landed us in this mess where the "donor class" must be appeased no matter the cost to our democracy.
9
Conclusion: a "firm believer in tax cuts" (which should actually read "corporate tax cuts", as apparently he's perfectly fine with increasing taxes on the middle class) refuses to call a "cut cut cut" bill a tax cut bill if it excludes 90% of America's corporations.
And of course he's perfectly right: why would you dig a $1.5 trillion hole in the budget, basically to give the biggest corporations, which are already sitting on their money, even more taxpayer money all while leaving out most ordinary American businesses ... ?
Republicans already admitted that it's mainly a CORPORATE tax cutting bill. Now it becomes apparent that it's even not that either, but rather a WEALTHIEST corporations' tax cutting bill.
Ron Johnson is showing how utterly hypocritical this tax "reform" bill is - essentially a "Trump tax avoidance bill", as it allows millionaires and billionaires such as Trump to pay even less taxes, and that's about it. It's a tax cut for Trump.
And somehow that in itself is supposed to mysteriously make not Trump but "America" great again.
Now that Johnson exposed the fact that the emperor has no clothes, however, he cannot possibly vote for such a horrible bill. If he does, he will merely have exposed himself as a completely phony lawmaker ...
7
Trump may have wanted to call it the "Cut, Cut, Cut" bill because it is aimed at Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. If that is true, I will credit him with an instance of honesty.
2
Please derail it. It is a tax hike on the middle class who work for their money just to put it into the hands of the wealthy and a strategic revenge on blue states.
7
Like his supporters, Trump seems bent on spiting his home town to deny his roots.
1
Now you see it. Now you don't. A tax cut bill is going through the senate now, but it's not just a tax cut bill since the Republicans have included another damaging blow to Obamacare inside the bill.
It's like that age old discussion at the dinner table when the parent tells the kid that they are going to have a banana split for dessert, but ..... they have to eat every one of the green beans on their plate.
One thing for sure Trump will get his banana split regardless if the bill passes or not and regardless if he finishes all his fried chicken.
1
Heads Trump wins, Tails everyone else loses. No wonder his enablers consider him uniquely blessed by God.
2
Well Senator make some suggestions for changing the bill to one you can support.
Still missing in the argument--average American taxpayers???? Why are business entities the only constituency important enough to merit backlash? Americans need to get their proverbial "stuff" together and wake up-- to what is happening to the "no skin in the game" citizenry!!!!
This is unbelievable marginalization of the electorate. Where is the outrage people???
416
I am outraged at this rammed through horrible House tax bill. I am calling and/or calling every Republican senator to remember the "middle class" is the largest voting bloc. Wake up people!!!. Storm the phones, web sites and social media and calling out this insanity. The rich and corporations will only send more money to tax havens. They are indeed a sad, greedy, bunch who will lose the senate and the house in 2018.
5
I am plenty outraged, have told anyone who will listen, called my Republican Congressmen, e-mailed them, and they con't care. I have discovered that a female Democrat is running for the House in my district,against the long-entrenched Republican white male, who has forgotten the citizens elected him. We need more women in the House and Senate for a lot of reasons. I will be active in her campaign.
5
@Sandra...perhaps because there is roughly 40% of the tax paying population who pays no federal income tax. Talk about no skin in the game. Perhaps if very tax payer had to pay, regardless of income, there would be a lot more parity in the tax system. Just a thought...
Conservatives should be avoiding deficits. This is not only deficit making but a naked cash transfer to the rich. The middle class will be expected to pick up the costs of this for the next 100 years.
Businesses will not invest in a way that will increase jobs significantly. They will invest in things that reduce costs (automation especially). They will return the money to shareholders via buy-backs and/or dividends.
Finally, those who benefit from this insane largesse will continue to invest it in solid things that stand the test of time: real estate, means of production or "rents", stores of wealth and so on. Best if they invest this in things that produce more and are taxed as little as possible while employing as few people as they can manage.
This tax overhaul is a pathetic joke.
9
History has proven, the more money you put into the hands of the 1%, the more they put into off-shore tax havens and 'so called' charitable trusts, which this tax plan wants to retain, while taking away the 99%er's charitable contribution deductions, LOL. The 1% are in bed with the congress and senate, and make and rewriting tax laws in their favor. How much public comment was requested of this plan? Zero, they are rushing it through.
Tax breaks have never been an incentive for corporations to invest in the US, and never will be. There is no data to support this. The more money you give corps, the more they will continue to invest in off-shore cheap 'or free' labor; low/no tax havens.
The proposed tax cut formula is upside down. It should be; tax the rich and ultra-rich at 35%+, depending on mega million income level.
Tax corps 25% + on profits made from goods and services produced, or sold in the US. Lower small business taxes to $15%. Lower personal income tax rate for anyone making $100k - 200k to 25%. Lower income tax rate for anyone making $50-$100K to 20%. Don't tax anyone making less than 50k, because, really, that's the new poverty level in this economy.
Run this scenario through the CBO, and see what you come up with.
#cleantheswamp #replaceallofthem
481
Historically, the US has been a good place to manufacture because imported labor tipped the supply-demand balance of wages in favor of employers. This doesn't work as well anymore, now that transportation technology allows the work to be taken where the labor and other costs are cheapest and the product can be shipped anywhere else in the world economically.
1
No, it should reinstate Eisenhower rates and tax the wealthiest at the highest margins at over 90%.
1
And yet, the "1%” cumulatively pay more tax than the other 99% combined.
The problems the GOP has is that they are lying to their constituents and they know it. The constituents are now waking up and will most likely vote them out of office if they continue to follow the marching orders of their rich paymasters. What is a greedy GOP Congressman to do? Disappoint the rich paymasters and run out of campaign money or disappoint the electorate and get thrown out of office.
They deserve to ride the razors edge all the way to the bottom of the trash heap. They made their bed and now they have to sleep in it.
6
They can keep their campaign coffers if they retire.
Ryan, Trump... the blind leading the blind.
7
Senator Johnson is spouting nonsense and is trying to gain preferential tax status through logic not based on fact. Pass-through already her a benefit PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY ARE PASS-THROUGHS. They avoid double taxation the C corporations have to pay. If pass-throughs her the same tax reduction as the proposed bill states, it would be tantamount to a huge personal tax reduction for owners of LLCs and S corps. Is he stupid - or does he think everyone else is?
2
Repubs will throw him a bone and it will pass. All they want is a win.
2
This bill is a sham and the Republicans know it.
8
Dude is not satisfied. Dude thinks the tax-free bill for rich people like him should add three trillion to the debt. Where are the old white tea party Wisconsinites now? They all dead?
4
i guess the wall is gonna be built out of paper mache , with a tax on the stupid.
8
Just curious-did anyone hear about all that infrastructure spending that was going to jump start the economy? That is noticeably absent from both and with adding at least 1.5 trillion to the national debt, rest assured it will never come to fruition.
28
BECAUSE, it is not going to be done that way.
Theyre going to try to do it through private contractors who will get all the gains while assuming none of the risks. Theyre going to take the money and run.
2
Just my thought. There should be more emphasis on this in the press.
3
I think that plan achieved its goal. It occupied the news-space for several weeks, and made President Trump look good....so its job is already done. Who really cares about the actual work?
2
Excuse me. But wouldn't he be the 49th Senator to oppose the bill out of 100.The reason the Reps have the problem they do is that they are trying to cram all their mean and nasty stuff into a 52-48 majority. This bill, if it passes, will not represent at least half of all Americans, uh, constituents.
And, they know it.
13
All I see these tax bills doing is harm to the average American family. Neither cuts taxes for the middle class. Both add trillions to our national debt. Both give corporations and the wealthiest 1% tremendous tax breaks for no economic or governmental reason. Both will cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, education, environmental protection, and healthcare for middle class Americans.
Neither will allow funding for any new spending on basic infrastructure. While all of the rest of the modern world is funding huge projects in alternative fuels and transportation, we are cutting funding. As a final slap in the face, the paltry tax cuts proposed for households in these bills will automatically increase in 8 years.
Instead of simplifying the current tax code, these bills simply change the loopholes. The swamp lives on, and the American people are paying for it.
16
The GOP knows that the voters are coming after them next year, so they are staging a smash and grab robbery while they still can. Their mission is to grab all the wealth they can for corporations and their rich owners and stack the courts with favorable judges. After that, they are content to block and challenge every attempt to restore wealth, security, and justice for the wage earners of America.
42
The GOP knows that the voters are coming after them next year, so they are staging a smash and grab robbery while they still can. Their mission is to grab all the wealth they can for corporations and their rich owners and stack the courts with favorable judges. After that, they are content to block and challenge every attempt to restore wealth, security, and justice for the wage earners of America.
2
None of them want to block a tax bill. If there are truly principled objections, I think they will be addressed somehow. The rest will be bought off.
My husband and I will make out, probably. We are retired and don't itemize our deductions.
If I were not concerned about my children and grandchildren, I might join the chorus demanding this "tax-cut" be passed. As it is, I keep saying now is not the time for big tax cuts.
Real reform could simplify our tax code. It might give small corporations the same tax rate as the big guys who hire expensive lawyers to legally minimize the amount they pay. It would also close loopholes that make that so easy.
It would certainly not make students pay for the tuition waivers they receive. This contortion is a big red flag that something is rotten. So is the sun-setting that makes the impact on the deficit less painful.
4
I could be wrong, but didn't Johnson reject the bill days ago? The question is whether we can find 2 more Republican senators to oppose it!
4
Tax cuts should be paid for by reducing Social Security payments and benefits.
1
Greg,
You evidently do not understand the basics of taxation and social security. They are paid for through totally different mediums and billionaires receiving all their income from investments pay zero into social security.
You do not seem to understand that social security benefits that people have prepaid do not add anything to income tax.
Not to mention that your comment is mean spirited and cruel.
5
Senator Johnson will be a yes vote. His concerns were being voiced but not addressed. They will tweak the bill and have his vote. Collins will be a no. They can't make uptake money without scuttling the individual mandate and she would likely be a no for some other reason if they did. The unknowns are Flake, McCain and Corker. It depends on whether they see a political future for themselves. My guess is they get 50 votes.
1
Then Pence, the christian-in-name-only, casts the deciding vote to crush whats left of the middle class.
I think much of the hot air Republicans tax plans have stirred up is a bit of a red herring. It will set the stage for many people breathing a sigh of relief when a compromise plan comes forward that would otherwise still be totally unacceptable.
What is inescapable in our system where Congress has the power to both spend and tax is that taxes taxes are set by the hard work of producing a real budget of how much money be spent and when. Taxes are not set by tax cut plans.
Once all spending is decided on, taxes are automatically set. The only decision is about how much if any to borrow at what interest rate.
3
The economy is humming along. Unemployment is low. The stock market is high. Corporations are sitting on piles of cash parked in off-shore accounts. Why do we need huge tax cuts for the rich which will add $1.5 trillion dollars to the national debt? And it will likely be higher as the bill assumes an unsustainable rate of growth.
The bill has to die, just like the health care bills.
12
The subject should be about "The Federal Budget" a budget being where most people thinking of budgets, they think of a typical household budget – given a certain amount of money, how much should be allocated to various expenses? This system usually works fine for individuals, but in the business world there needs to be a lot more involved. Determining how much to spend on various expenses is only half the battle. The other half is for a company to be able to effectively judge its spending financial performance. Regardless of the type of business, the ability to gauge performance using budgets is a matter of life and death in the business world.
The uber rich via the GOP are using the American tax system to optimize THEIR corporate spending financial performance. The American tax payers are being made to carry "all" of the corporate debt. The people of this country don't mean anything of human value to these people. It's not personal...it's business. The Federal Budget should be "The People's Budget"... " A government for the people by the people". People need to boycott all industries taking "The People's" money.
4
Here is how to fix the tax law:
1. Families making $50,000 or less should be exempt from income tax and shouldn't even be required to file a tax return.
2. Cancel tax cuts for those who make $1 mi or more. They should continue to pay the same rate as now.
3. Add another higher bracket for those who make $5 mi or more (there is no harm in having more tax brackets - more brackets don't mean more complex tax code).
4. Estate taxes should be eliminated for estates worth $15 mi or less, but the rest of them should continue to pay the same taxes as now. The idea is to help small businesses to continue after the owner's death.
5. Corporate rate cuts are too steep. Make 15% for small businesses and 20% for medium-size businesses, and 25% for large business.
6. Federal government shouldn't tax the taxes. That means State/Local income tax and property taxes should be deducted from gross income to calculate AGI.
7. Special interest tax giveaways should be eliminated (e.g., carried interest).
11
This makes a lot of sense but then again we’re blue staters and our senators are certain no’s.
I go for what you say with the exception of #5. You could make taxes on large corps zero and they still would not pass it through to workers, they will add the cash to the bottom line so their stock prices will rise and that benefits only the stockholders which means corp officers and basically the rich.
1
The reality today is that an egalitarian ethic of sharing wealth is obsolete. No more capital for the masses. Why? The world is entering two technological revolution, A. I. , and gene manipulation which will create new life forms. Unlike the revolutions of steam, electricity, and computers, the next two revolutions are not scalable. The next two revolutions are literally going to change life as we know it, by definition. The great mass of people will or have already become politically irrelevant (see China, eg) leaving an upper class just large enough to maintain the oligarchical uber-state, while being paid off by privileged access to the benefits of the two revolutions. The middle class, what is left of it, will be indoctrinated into a culture of consumerism, distracted by toys masquerading as necessities, and further degraded in morals and culture b y the relentless onslaught from mass media. And that is the good part. The bad news is , the world over, the oligarch plan is to triage the most ecologically vulnerable. That is why global warming denial is not only necessary, but also an acceleration of fossil fuel use is considered desirable.
What was formerly the Republican party is now the Interna tional Oligarch's Party, and its interest is in expanding its power in the wealthiest nation state while conditioning its citizens to accept an illiberal political system.We are seeing that happen right now.
3
Everything about this supposedly important tax overhaul stinks: the secrecy, the rush, the deals, the pressure to do something, the wealthy donors demands, the coming deficit that is suddenly alright with the GOP(!) and finally of a coming depression (rest assured it will be worse than the 2007 recession as there is no war to grow the economy)!
And guess who is going to be paying the bill? The future generation of college graduates trying to pay their loan back, with most of the jobs taken away by the army of Robots coming to replace them and the remaining unavailable to them due to retirees who cannot retire due to their retirements getting wiped out, again.
God bless this country!
4
One thing is increasingly clear. The more Trump succeeds the worse it will be
for America.
7
Mr. Johnson worked as an accountant. He presumably has a good grasp of mathematics and a foothold in reality. None of these things bodes well for Mr. Ryan.
1
I dare Republicans to dare other Republicans to vote for this bill. The general public is not asking for this. It's a giveaway to the donor class. By voting for and passing this bill, they might ensure the donation money keeps flowing, but they'll lose the moderate Republican vote.
2
Are there really any moderate Republicans left alive in this country? I thought the last remaining RINOs were hunted to extinction.
I think they will pass this haphazard, badly thought out tax plan simply because they're desperate for any accomplishment. God help us. The bill will increase the deficit, increase already record inequality, and not substantially help anyone except wealthy Americans and corporations. Forget about generating good jobs or increasing wages. This bill won't do that.
We are running large, unsustainable deficits for many reasons but mainly because of a previous round of Bush tax cuts and military/war ventures that are interminable. So the very last thing we need now are more tax cuts and increased military spending. This is insane.
We need to increase revenue, invest in improving American infrastructure, job skills, education and the common welfare including healthcare. Those priorities will really put Americans first and not just amount to anither meaningless Trump slogan.
5
Having grown up without a working toilet and dirt poor..I love how politician's and the media claim taxes are to help the poor.
The US has a signficant spending and money laundering problem. If you ask the poor people, you'll notice little difference in his/her lifestyle with each new tax. He/she, however, do notice when gas, food, toys for Christmas become more expensive (as we would save $23 the $19.99 toy, hoping we can cover the sales tax).
Please stop pretending the trillions in spending are actually help the poor. The US needs tax cuts and better and honest spending..that's the only way to help the poor and middle class.
1
Such entities, including Mr. Johnson’s family-run plastics manufacturing business,....“I just have in my heart a real affinity for these owner-operated pass-throughs,” he said. -- Nice to see a politician admit that his heart is in his wallet.
2
Expecting Republicans to pass a Democratic tax bill is silly. But expecting them to pass a Republican bill that is consistent with Republican values seems fair. Where have they gone wrong?
1. Republicans are supposedly thrifty. They don't add $1.5 trillion to the deficit at the drop of a hat.
2. Republicans supposedly believe that profitable businesses are the key to individual wealth. It makes senses for them to encourage profitability but they also should encourage the fair distribution of wealth. So stop giving special treatment to capital gains and tax them like wages.
3. Republicans supposedly believe in the American Dream. So reduce taxes for the middle class and hold tax rates steady for the wealthy.
4. Republicans supposedly believe in small businesses. Small means small. Give breaks to small S Corps. Tax large S Corps like C Corps.
5. Republicans supposedly believe in fairness, no special treatment for anybody. So get rid of tax loopholes and retain the alternative minimum tax to make sure that that wealthy taxpayers can't avoid taxes.
6. And finally, Republicans are supposedly thrifty and conservative. So give even more favorable treatment to 401(k)'s, IRA's and Roth IRA's, and increase taxes on hedge funds, real estate flipping, currency traders, and other highly speculative investors.
There was a day when Republicans stood for hard work, fairness, and the middle class. Those were the good old days.
125
Today's Republicans obviously are not conservative when it comes to making changes carefully and incrementally, with continuous monitoring of the results, including vigilance for unanticipated and unintended consequences.
2
In other words, Republicans are not what they advertise themselves to be.
Emphasis on old, like 50 years ago.
I appreciate this senator’s principled stand on this issue. ‘What about me? Where’s my cut?’ At least it’s honest.
27
Wasn't this how America became great?
As a former small business owner (S Corporation, which doesn't retain net income in the company), I never found the GOP much help, so I'm glad to hear that at least one Republican Senator recognizes that small businesses are a large part of the economy. Unfortunately, unless we banded together, we couldn't afford to buy Senators, like the larger companies do.
22
Who do you think the NFIB really represents?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Federation_of_Independent_Business
It looks like another propaganda project of plutocrats to me.
I think they will pass this haphazard, badly thought out tax plan simply because they're desperate for any accomplishment. God help us. The bill will increase the deficit, increase already record inequality, and not substantially help anyone except wealthy Americans and corporations. Forget about generating good jobs or increasing wages. This bill won't do that.
We are running large, unsustainable deficits for many reasons but mainly because of a previous round of Bush tax cuts and military/war ventures that are interminable. So the very last thing we need now are more tax cuts and increased military spending. This is insane.
We need to increase revenue, invest in improving American infrastructure, job skills, education and the common welfare including healthcare. Those priorities will really put Americans first and not just be a meaningless slogan.
35
At this point they look like a rusty gun trying to prove it can still shoot.
What does victory look like to the Republicans? Putting health care out of the reach of millions? Adding to the tax burden of at least 25 million middle and low income Americans? Adding at least another trillion and a half to the national debt in just 10 years, with over a trillion of that going straight into the pockets of the richest 5%?
All of this talk of "vctory" is underpinned by the premise that if you just give rich folks more money it will eventually all come trickling down to the folks who need it most. If corporations just had more money, they would invest more money in expanding their businesses and hire more folk at higher paying jobs. All of this is, of course, a massive deception. Over the past 10 years American business has been drowning in cash. What have they done with it? They have poured over three trillion dollars into buying back their own shares, not investing in their businesses. Why? Because it is an easier and simpler way of improving returns to shareholders, and most importantly, senior management compensation. As they often say in Don the Con's world, if you're on the con, go big or stay home.
22
It all rests on "faith". That's why there are no visible links of cause and effect. It is expected to work supernaturally.
1
Wisconsin lost its soul when it elected Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold.
53
Feingold is the best this country could ask for. He was informed enough to stand with McCain for campaign reform. He was courageous in voting against Bush's hideous lies of the Iraq War. And when Georgie Bush came forward with his idiotic "Patriot Act" Feingold was the lone voice in the Senate who stood against it. His record shows foresight, courage, and leadership. Instead we have from both parties, the most bought and the least able.
4
Worth a closer look at Mr. Johnson's so-called win. It's fairly easy to rig an election.
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election
Voter turnout in Wisconsin was reported to be at 20-year lows yet absentee ballot voter turnout was 98%
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2016/11/09/wisconsin-voter-turnout-low
How Hackers Broke Into U.S. Voting Machines http://fortune.com/2017/07/31/defcon-hackers-us-voting-machines
https://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/qualsystems.asp
The Insecurity of America's Old and Underfunded Voting Systems
http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/07/20/538312289/fresh-air-for...
Donald Trump Warned of a 'Rigged' Election, Was He Right?
http://www.mintpressnews.com/donald-trump-warned-of-a-rigged-election-wa...
1
This bill will result in the middle class (and our descendants) funding a gift to the wealthy, which some of them do not even want. Why are there not hundreds of thousands of us standing in front of the Senate with pitchforks and torches right now?
28
We'd rather drink beer while watching football games.
1
In order to use the term tax reform, the GOP needs to restructure the massive use of shell companies by corporations and wealthy individuals. The use of these corporate structures has grown over the years and many are used to hide from taxes, divorce decrees, or facilitate money laundering by drug cartels, gun-runners, and other illegal acts. These entities, no address needed, along with tax havens are the two areas most in need of reform. The GOP leaves them untouched and indeed fosters TLC on tax haven users.
The GOP bill is thus just Tax Evasion TLC paid for by folks with a W-2,etc.
11
One is regaled by the names of the entities created to transfer crown jewels of corporations between public and private equity that post public notices in the Business Section of this newspaper.
I find it very surprising that republican from New Jersey, California, New York, affluent areas of Mass, Florida, etc, etc etc voted for this bill. As a married couple if you both happened to go to college and majored in the more profitable majors such as engineering, computer science or the professions (md, jd etc) it's very conceivable that your total income is about 300k. In fact it needs to be to be able to afford the mortgage on a house in such towns as Summit, Westfield, Madison etc in New Jersey. Effectively the republicans voted against their own constituents by removing education credits, state and local credits that even these people need when they send their kids to college. Their taxes rise. The plan is not beneficial to them at all.
The reality is that the only true person who benefits from this tax plan is Trump himself. The guy is ancient. Removing the inheritance tax allows him to croak and cheat the government again out its fair share of taxes.
6
Peter- Massachusetts has no republican congress members or senators. While your observations are correct accuracy is also a must!
The Republican tax plan is a big giveaway to the wealthy (wealthy people and corporations which equal wealthy people) at the expense of regular Americans.
This is the Republican Party showing it’s true colors—any regular American voting Republican is voting against his or her own economic interests.
The rest of the Republican platform is designed to be a distraction from this fundamental truth.
3
A great deal of the Republican platform appeals to people's concerns about what happens to them after they die. It may not be logical, but defying it could have eternal consequences.
2
I hope each and every GOP Senator will choose and a unique problem with this “tax” bill - one different from every other problem!
That way the whole thing will come to a Perfect Paralysis - which is the best we can hope for.
Instead of this “tax” boondoggle, there are many things the citizenry could make good use of, starting with helping those who were hit by horrible natural disasters, then fixing healthcare so everyone gets decent coverage, shoring up Medicare and Social Security, better public education, including technical skills and industry apprenticeships, caring for the environment and our national parks, infrastructure.
If money is borrowed, it should benefit every citizen through strengthening core social programs and things like roads and bridges that make business and travel possible.
This tax-giveaway is not a necessity! It’s just like bribery to wealthy donors, to which the GOP feels beholden. If all elections are funded by the government, then those fat cats will no longer need to be fattened any further.
5
What about infrastructure?
1
Do you think any of these ostensibly craven people could be bold enough to cross the aisle to the Democratic Party side?
Small business needs better treatment? How about your average wage earner? Or is earning a paycheck instead of being an entrepreneur now considered being liberal and therefore not deserving?
16
"More than 90 percent of American businesses are pass-throughs." And Congress wants to give all the tax breaks - 35% down to 20% - to the big corporations. So, again, even though the majority of employees in the US work for pass-throughs, they get a weak tax reduction.
The problem Congress has is that if they gave the pass-throughs the requisite tax cut, the tax bill would exceed the 1.7 trillions limit. So they only accommodate the large corporation - their major donors. Interesting!
Clearly, this rush to get something done by 31 December is political brinksmanship at its worse. The ONLY thing important to these Republicans is a win - something they haven't been able to do for a long time.
4
I've yet to see one ad anywhere from the Democratic Party telling people how this bill will affect lower and middle class voters. If they want to elect Democratic candidates, they need to be more forceful than just saying "vote against Trump".
36
I'm reading NY Times Comments right now. Throughout the day I will click on CNN, The New Yorker, Guardian, Politico, maybe Slate and others.
TV commercials? I don't watch TV so TV ad money has no effect. Meanwhile,
think of all the American households that have Fox News on during all the waking hours -- where political advertising pays off. Of course, I'm 90 years old. What do I know?
3
You must have missed Sherrod Brown’s rant.
Interest rates remain at all time lows. Buying power of most people remains mired in stagnated inadequate wages so buying power remains marginal. Corporations have already shown what they do in a low interest environment:mergers, acquisitions, stock buy-backs, and higher dividends. The stated tax rate of 30% is a fiction as this does not count the many loopholes.This gives the same small percent more buying power but far less than the greater potential buying power of the vast majority of Americans who find their incomes eaten away by rising costs and a smaller number of workers in an aging population. Rising costs are to some extent offset by imported products and more market concentration creating fewer well paid jobs. This does not seem so hard to grasp. But still the deficit and need for modernization grows and mismanaged military spending along with wealth concentration haunts us.
How hard is it to understand? WE need to raise wages, tax the upper 10%, reform military command/management, and develop our infrastructure so we can reduce the deficit.
317
Guess what -- higher wages bring in more taxes, that can be used to support important government programs like infrastructure -- which creates more jobs, so that more people are paying taxes, including, hopefully, the corporations that will be contracting for the projects. If we're going to run a budget deficit, wouldn't it be wiser to create it with projects that will not only encourage more businesses to create jobs, but also produce more tax revenue to support the government.
this is how I see it.......we can say goodbye to the much needed and much vaunted Infrastructure Project......there will simply be NO MONEY available to pay for ....we will have already given it away to wealthy people.....and that loss of the project is a dreadful shame....now THAT really WOULD have resulted in higher wages, more tax money into the treasury.....many more jobs created...and things we really do need in this country going into the 21st century.....better roads, bridges, dams, reservoirs, public water and sewer systems, schools, police and fire station and other public buildings.....I could go on and on but you get the picture......I do not see any chance of the infrastructure project coming to fruition any time in the near future.....and that was the ONLY project Trump wanted that I agreed with..!!
But the poor mega-donors. Have mercy! They are hurting for.....more money.
In other words, the GOP members only care if it negatively effects them personally. That is all you need to know. What type of "people" are they?
8
Johnson isn't going to derail anything. When it's time to vote he'll be a definite yes. Oh he will blather about how he got the changes he wanted and now it's the greatest bill ever and that's why he's a yes. Don't count on this guy.
6
Not enough tax breaks for your family, Senator Johnson? I'm sure that was an oversight on the part of your esteemed colleagues.
Greed knows no bounds.
7
So, adding 1.5 TRILLION to the national debt is now a "conservative value?"
10
adding to the debt was never a problem for republican administrations
1
Don't put your anti-taxbill-eggs in any basket labeled Ron Johnson. He is as much in Ryan's, McConnell's and Trump's pocket as anyone can be. He has done nothing unique as a Senator in his years in the Senate and is merely looking for some headlines to remind Wisconsinites that they have two Senators. (Tammy Baldwin needs to do something similar since neither she nor Johnson have distinguished themselves as Lions of the Senate.)
But as far as Johnson goes, he is as predicable a vote in favor of the Tax Bill as Baldwin is against it. Look for some other "wavering legislator" to profile if there is such a thing.
7
Watching this underhanded economic war from a distance makes me wonder:
Are Americans actually paying attention to the con job the Republicans (and their wealthy donors) are perpetrating on regular working folk?
It doesn't take a Nobel Prize in Economics to know that you're all being played for fools.
All you need to do is ask the following simple question: how, exactly is this legislation having a positive impact on your life if you aren't in the top 10% of the population? You should all be raging against this nonsense.
You might also ask yourself, do you really believe that this tax "reform" could have concentrated solely on those in the bottom 90 percentile rather than insulating the wealthy and providing them benefits they simply don't need?
You'll have the answer to these questions when you all wake up in the not-so-distant future and the U.S., a once great country that invested in it's people and infrastructures, falls apart before your very eyes. You won't have to worry about immigration or attacks from terrorists because, simply put, no one will want to seek "the fabled American Dream." The truth is, the Chinese and other nations will grow in influence while the "United States of Yesterday" crumbles under the weight of it's own stupidity.
9
voodoo economics-trickle down never works.. republicans are scamming
more ways to put money into their donors pockets.. not for American people but for big corporations and the wealthy elites. Democrats have the numbers right and the prospect of any republicans voting no is dream... wake up and fight for the 2018 elections ahead and really make a diffrence in changing the majority back to the democrats in the house and senate next year... lets start by turning Alabama to a democrat next month--a big event if it happens..
3
The Tax Plan is welfare for the rich.
8
This is great! This man is holding his own party hostage to give himself a tax break.
8
How is it possible to write an article comparing taxation of C-corps and pass throughs and not even mention the 23.8% dividend tax??
2
From a federal government perspective, in particular the Congress, our national debt has grown from about $1.5T in 1982 to today (2017) approaching $20T. It is Republicans AND Democrats alike who share the shame for the lack of fiscal discipline. How can anyone explain to our children, progeny, successor generations this recklessness of not "tending to the Nation's business.
Ah yes, politics and greed.
Voters need to revolt and send a clear message to Congress: "implement any tax plan that raises the national debt and you lose my vote in the next election." We need an income tax structure for the next 20-25 years that imposes a surcharge for paying down this obscene debt. Otherwise, figure out how to tell your children and grandchildren, "sorry, it's now your problem!"
7
That debt is held privately, including by bonds, many of which are held by Americans.
I blame the republicans much more
There is no pretense or subtlety to this denouement in a 36 year Republican campaign to transfer wealth from the (formerly) vast middle to upper middle class to the business/corporate class and the upper upper echelons of the wealth stratosphere. It began under Reagan (remember when the top tax rate was near 90% and "capital" in the from of investment income was heavily taxed), picked up speed under Dubya (when investment income really began to be treated far better than earned wages) and now is traveling rapidly towards an endgame of no taxation whatsoever for heirs of the uber wealthy (aka Trump, et al) with the elimination of the federal estate tax. Pogo was right after all...we've met the enemy...and it is us.
15
Senator Johnson has not satisfactorily set forth how or why his family business, part of the group which has so much cash it accounts for more than half of the nation’s business income, earning untold bagsful, gives unfair advantage to larger corporations. It sounds like unfair disadvantage to individuals and families. Senator Johnson wishes non-wealthy individuals and families to foot bills for his poor-family business by diverting attention to larger corporations. His romance-writing is not tax philosophy. One’s mind is open but not for tax-romance. One hears from Senator Johnson miserable Reaganism. One notes Senator Johnson is a senior Republican. Paul Ryan’s empty argument to Wisconsin, elect Republicans to get things done, leaves out the more-important, that doing the wrong thing harms American families. This party espouses self-emigrating. GOP functionaries could follow their own advice and get out of Congress.
3
Donald Trump campaigned as a champion for working people and it seems like the only ones he's really going to help are millionaires and billionaires. I feel lied to. Now the Republicans appear to be willing to do anything to have a "win". This is politics at its worst. Especially since the "win" will hurt more Americans then it will help. Shame on them!
22
Feeling some buyer’s remorse, “Proud American”? Anyone who voted for Trump and his GOP minions in the House and Senate brought this pox upon themselves, and the rest of us. Aren’t you all special?
4
Seems to me that if we were to have a more equitable tax law we should look at how corporations are structured and make modifications there. Since Citizens United has defined corporations as "individuals", the differences in entities such as C corps, S corp, passthrough, etc should be adjusted. Aside from personal liability, what is the purpose of establishing a corporation in the first place except for outside investment opportunities and tax advantages.
5
This is a moment to act deliberatively and, as Senator McCain urges, to return to regular order. Important deadlines to keep the government running are looming, and the number of days Congress will be in session before New Years is small.
Tax cuts are never easy, and what has been proposed by the House and Senate is not popular with most constituents. Congress struggles to find offsets so they can fund health care for children and pay for the costs of our recent natural disasters. We just learned there may be a large increase in military spending as we deal with nuclear threats. I want to be able to retire soon, feeling relatively secure about the Social Security and Medicare I'll receive for the rest of my life. Any notion of cutting taxes to benefit the rich at the expense of the rest of us is repugnant. And what about our failing infrastructure and President Trump's deadline re: DACA?
Let's take time to think things out and deliberate.
11
How about simple: 3 tax rates - poor, middle, rich. Zero write offs. Same exact brackets for businesses. Again, zero write offs. Everyone pays the same based on revenue only. Income, dividends, interest, sales . . . whatever. You pay taxes on revenue/income. No write offs for anything.
2
Zero write-offs means businesses cannot deduct expenses. They would have to pay tax on gross receipts.
1
The GOP's disgraceful, toxic tax reform bill that passed the House is a national disgrace. I expect the Republicans in the Senate - with no input from the public or from Senate Democrats - to be toxic as well. Republicans aim to please their donors first and happily bring back The Gilded Age at the expense of the vast majority of the American people.
9
Barb, it will be The Gilded Age for very few. For the rest of us it will be The Middle Ages, and we will be the peasants. This is SO reprehensible that I do not sleep anymore.
3
It all seems like an Emerald City charade. "Pay no attention to the extremely wealthy people pulling the levers of power behind that curtain." The rich make most of their money from dividend and asset appreciation. Tax reductions to corporations go straight into the pockets of the global elite.
Honest tax reform would just junk all the loopholes and make all the businesses pay the same rate, level the playing field, make things fair. If corporations really want special tax breaks, how about linking them to providing good jobs to the middle class.
360
That is actually what he is suggesting -- that all businesses pay the same rate. Not one rate for hedge funds and real estate partnerships and global corporations and another for your local businesses - one rate no matter what business you are in. The proposed bills punish the domestically located small business that hires people and pays wages in the United States.
1
Where is the outrage? We the people should be protesting in our streets EVERYDAY !
These crooks in power are destroying our country and don't care. The debt is outrageous while they rob the bank creating more debt !
Getting rid of the estate tax is just for the billionaires and millionaires in this administration. The rich stash away billions in accounts untaxed...and now pass it on to there heirs without ever paying one cent of taxes. This is outrageous and we the people need to revolt loudly!
2
The global elite? How about Joe Lunchbucket who simply has his 401k in the market? The lack of basic economics in these posts illustrates why gov't has lived so long with this ridiculous progressive income tax code that is now over 70,000 pages.
Let it crash and burn. There is no worthwhile logic to it, no fairness, and certainly no bipartisanship - the American people deserve better.
60
Just one question that for some strange reason I have not heard anyone ask in the context of this 'Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.'
The net result of the proposed Act will be to reduce federal revenue by about $1.5 trillion over the course of ten years. That $1.5 trillion will instead be in the hands of wealthy heirs who will inherit large estates free from federal taxation; wealthy individuals, most of whom will obtain income from passive investment at reduced tax rates; and corporate shareholders who may see increased dividends.
However, both the Trump and Clinton campaigns promised to embark on a major, $1 trillion plus program of infrastructure restoration and improvement that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and invigorate the economy.
This so-called $1.5 trillion 'tax reform' is being sold on the off chance it will encourage job creation. The infrastructure plan would directly invest the same $1.5 trillion - soon to be foregone federal revenue - in communications, roads, schools, bridges, public transit, hospitals and other concrete benefits for the common good, at the same time providing work and income for many, many Americans.
Why has no one asked the simple question: 'Why is it that we can afford a $1.5 trillion tax cut, but cannot afford to invest that same $1.5 trillion in building American jobs and infrastructure'?
Because if this tax cut is implemented, the deficit will explode and the ability to fund public projects will become a fond, distant memory.
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sounds like a plan doesn't it?
Add in the cost of conducting two undeclared wars for 16 years, natural disasters like the recent hurricanes, and Trump and the Republicans costly DoD funding increase--putting that budget higher than the next 8 countries combined including China and Russia.
Great question, ask your Senator.
This argument that pass-through businesses are taxed at a higher rate than "C" corporations (usually large companies) is not only a red herring, it is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the truth.
The pass-through business tax rate is ZERO. The business itself is not taxed. Instead its income is passed through to its owners, and is taxed on their individual tax returns. If you compare a "C" corporation on this same basis to pass-through entities, then the "C" corporation rate is 55% (35% at the business level plus 20% at the owner level taxed as dividends). Under present law the highest pass-through rate is 39.6%, the highest individual marginal tax rate. This is precisely why CPAs advise their clients to structure their businesses as pass-throughs if possible.
A special pass-through businesses tax rate isn't needed for business reinvestment. Most of that, (ex. wages, R &D, advertising, supplies, fixed asset expensing), is fully deductible. If a pass-through business earns an extra 100K and then invests that 100K in R&D in the same tax year, the taxes on that are ZERO. The R&D expense offsets the income and there is no taxable income to tax.
This fiction that a special pass-through rate is needed to compete with large "C" corporations is a cynical con job by the Republicans who are trying to sneak through a policy that is really just an excuse to give the top 10% of pass-through businesses (Trump has over 500 of these) a tax cut that they can't otherwise justify.
3
Any tax break that is PERMANENT is insane. Taxes need to be adjusted due to economic conditions. Think about the $180b that will be needed to repair TX, FL, and PR. It doesn't come out of thin air. Taxes need to be adjusted to match reality - which changes.
6
It is becoming glaringly clear that one thing Congressional Republicans are not adept at is legislation. Despite holding the House, Senate, having a Republican in the White House hellbent on getting a bill passed, and campaign donors anxious for their money's worth, the GOP is fumbling on tax policy after a series of failed healthcare laws.
Let the ineptitude roll! The 2018 elections are around the corner, so let the Republicans' inability to govern speak for itself.
10
The GOP does not govern; it commits crimes against humanity.
1
I am a small business owner with a lowercase "s."
I'm a family physician who owns a solo clinic in rural WA. I have one medical assistant and a volunteer office manager (family member). My business is a pass through entity (sole proprietorship). About a third of my patients are on Medicare or Medicaid.
Tax reform is not a priority for my business, but I have run the numbers for this bill and it would absolutely harm me, my family, and my employee. I would end up paying more in taxes. My employee would end up paying more in taxes. And I would substantially more in healthcare insurance premiums for my family and employee.
The proposed Republican tax "relief" bill is a swift, repetitive kick to the gut for me and all those close to me.
98
Ready, fire, aim! A 'win' (for anything) (at any price) is the primary objective.
The complexity and breadth of this bill and lack of time for experts to weigh in on its impact will result in short- and long-term damage to the economy and the country.
Do we even need a tax cut (other than to further enrich the .1%)? Corporate profits and the stock markets are at record highs. Interest rates and close to record lows. Almost a full employment with critical labor shortages in some areas? Do we need further stimulus in the form of tax cuts that will spur inflation?
Most companies don't even pay the current statutory rates--they are able to take advantage of many deductions and loopholes that significantly reduce the rate that they pay (in some cases to 0%).
What about national priorities (rebuilding infrastructure, educating the workforce for new skills, scientific research) all of which require funding and will provide huge paybacks to the economy? The tax bill, as written, promises to hinder all of these and many other real stimulators of growth and competitive advantage.
A Senate rejection of the bill and commitment to a bi-partisan tax bill that has real benefits to the entire economy, including corporations and people, will put the country on a sounder long-term footing rather than the current bill that solely enriches the .1%
7
Actually, with all the billions needed just to cover hurricane recovery expenses and the coming military adventures in Africa, we should be raising taxes.
20
I am hoping for a tax bill so bad for the middle class that it will sink Trump and the Republicans for the next 20 years.
29
It is all a game - Republicans in the house pass the legislation to much fan fare and get on Fox News and other outlets touting success. Behind closed doors, the House Republicans are hoping that the Senate will do the hard work they didn't do and come up with a reasonable bill.
Good for Mr. Johnson. It takes courage to stand up to his own party, let alone when the party stooge is a fellow representative from his state - must be his Minnesota roots helping him stand tall.
We can only hope that more Mr. Johnsons step forward in the Senate. The middle class needs their voices - desperately.
3
Kelly, PERHAPS "Good for Mr. Johnson." I don't trust ANY republican. When push comes to shove, he can be bought off, and vote with the rest of this pack of thieves and rapists. I pray that a few GOP senators have some integrity, some character, and some courage. If they do the right thing, they should be rewarded for being honorable and moral.
2
This is true. The EFFECTIVE average corp tax rate was 12.6% in 2013 - so cutting tax to 20% would make this less than zero. Repatriating overseas profit (estimated about $2.5T) is a different issue, for which corps have been given a "tax holiday" in the past... Bush did this (didn't create jobs) and Obama tried to get corps to commit to using it to create jobs (corps wouldn't commit) - it's unlikely anything has changed, so don't expect jobs to be created... the consensus is that corps will use excess profit to buy back stock and/or merge with/buy other companies. Small business owners should get the breaks since big ones don't need it, but this is not the Republican way of doing things.
2
From the article: "Mr. Johnson earned between $215,000 and just over $2 million in pass-through income in 2016, through several limited liability companies."
The current Senate tax bill already includes provisions to reduce taxes on pass-through corporations. Mr. Johnson is holding out on supporting the tax bill to gain changes in the bill that would give him an even greater personal financial benefit than under the current Senate bill. His argument is that the current bill isn't fair, because C corporations get an even better tax break than pass-throughs.
In essence, Mr. Johnson is arguing that he opposes the current Senate tax bill because these other rich guys get a bigger tax cut than I do. Isn't this a direct financial conflict of interest? How do the good people of Wisconsin elect such people?
6
So the struggle here seems to be between how much largesse we will bestow upon large corporations vs. wealthy small business owners. All the drama surrounding Mr. Johnson at the moment is a tempest in a teapot -- he will come around and vote for whatever bill ends up on the floor. (We should have allowed an increase in the national debt of $2.5 or $3 trillion? Wow!!) And Mrs. Murkowski will also vote "yea" due to the provision in the bill allowing oil drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. So what Republican senators of integrity are we left with? We shall see, though I am not optimistic about the eventual outcome.
4
People hear the phrase "tax cut" but have no idea what they're about to lose in terms of their current deductions. I'm sure some portion of the 99% will be net winners, but I seriously doubt that the majority will be in that category when the final calculations are made.
The long-term hidden cost in these bills is the loss of government services that most of us will experience. It will mean either going without those services, or paying out of our own pockets to replace them. Luxury items like, oh, Medicare.
6
I don't care for the overall tax package, but Senator Johnson is right to insist on better treatment for small businesses. With additional funds, small businesses actually do hire more people and are often willing to pay more to their employees. Big corporations do nothing for their employees, rather they simply give additional money to their share owners. Corporations are already enjoying record profits and have healthy stockpiles of cash, but they are not doing anything with it!
1
Sadly, there seems to be scant discussion of individual Americans in this "tax cut for the middle class". I agree that small businesses should get some sort of break, but are we making it easier for the young to go to college and not emerge from the experience only to have accumulated crushing debt? Obamacare tries to make it healthcare insurance affordable for ordinary citizens, not just captains of industry and congress people. Isn't a healthy population a value we all share? Taken on purely economic terms, does't it cost us less to have people living healthy lives?
We see ourselves and being "the best", "the brightest", "the richest", "the smartest" and yet.... I have recently returned from Eastern Europe, where the infrastructure, is at least equal if not far ahead of ours, at least in the cities - roads, internet access, healthcare, all emphasize a level of service to the citizens of these countries.
I for one am willing to pay our current level of taxes , or even higher, so long as our values emphasize fairness to ALL. And by the way, Corporations are not human beings.
4
"Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday became the latest Republican to admit the GOP is trying to ram through massive tax cuts for the rich to satisfy its wealthy donors, telling a journalist that if the party’s tax push fails, “the financial contributions will stop.”
Folks, that's all you need to know. This tax swindle is an unnecessary and appalling, final attack on all working men and women of this nation who have already been sacrificed to the bone on the alter of the morally corrupt oligarchic elite over the past several decades.
16
This new tax law is simply the Republicans paying back their donors.
8
Thankfully Senator Johnson has paid attention to the needs of small businesses which drive most economic growth. The Congres could lower rates for small busineses and push the corporate a bit higher to 22.5% to equal rates and stay within the mandates for budget. Giving all the breaks to big companies won’t drive the jobs. Congress needs to focus on small businesses.
77
Economic growth is based on consumer spending, not corporations or small businesses. If consumers don't have disposable income, no amount of pass-throughs or corporate tax cutting will work, period. As a consumer (in California, a high tax state) if you lower my spending ability, no one wins and the economy will falter. When I start laying off gardeners, housekeepers, handymen, plumbers, etc., it will reverberate through the local economy, trust me.
3
Don't worry, any distributions from "C" corps taxed at 20% would be taxed again at regular income rates for the recipients. Besides, nothing will get passed because it only takes 3 GOP senators or 20 GOP House members to kill it. CA's GOP House delegation alone is most of what's needed to shelve the tax proposals.
This is another RoJo ploy. He will, in the end, vote for this bill even if it continues to do nothing for small businesses and the middle class. The man is all show and no substance.
2
This tax bill will put us into a recession. It takes spending power away from the middle class, or at least what is left of it. The last time we had income inequality this extreme. it caused the Great Depression. It looks like we are headed for a repeat performance.
3
So, surprise that the bill does not benefit college students, families with members with high insurance costs due to disability, small business, or relatively, the lower income brackets, to name a few. As a middle income earner, I get $80 in tax savings and then in the very near future get to spend $150 because my Medicare has been cut? Sounds foolish to me and if I had a high paid lobbyist, I would tell them to urge a 'no' vote. Sadly, I have no voice in this beyond the 'comments' section of the Times.
We are certainly good at looking at step one of the puzzle and how it may impact us as individuals, but the future cuts to health care/increases in premiums, among other services, is a frightful unknown that no one seems to be considering.
4
Some Republicans are beginning to feel the backlash created by the extreme greed of the the GOP owners, the Kochs, Mercers, Adelsons, etc. While Ryan and McConnell continue to follow orders .(.or else!) others are heading for more neutral ground to escape a possible surge of anti-Republican, anti-Trump voter sentiment. These Republicans are hypocrites nevertheless since they supported the ignorant vulgar Trump and the cowardly, greedy Republican leadership until self-preservation has set in.
3
Senator Ron Johnson is right -- we must encourage our small businesses.
The establishments in both parties are enslaved to big money corporations, and could care less for mom & pop stores.
Keep taxes for small business lower than big corporations.
And if we meet our 2025 fiscal and employment targets, cut their taxes further down to about 10%.
Mr. Johnson's complaint is the whining of a rich man who has not been given a big enough cut of the spoils from this tax bill. Boo Hoo. Donald Trump and his billions has something like 500 pass through entities and may be counted in the statistic of "half the corporate income" even though it goes to a phenomenally rich man.
The Republicans need to explicitly write into the tax bill exactly what they claim it will do. Trickle down; supply side. Make all of the corporate tax cuts including pass through entities contingent explicitly and totally on the creation of new capital investment and new jobs. There should even be a higher tax on every merger or acquisition since they virtually never create anything for workers and often lead to layoffs.
Mr. Hatch, for example, has his beliefs so utterly and certainly convinced that the tax cut for business will go into job creation that he had a temper tantrum when his motives were questioned. Certainly Mr. Hatch wouldn't question legal provisions that require job creation since he is totally and morally convinced that the bill will do that anyway.
It won't happen, of course, because Republicans are lying through their teeth about the benefits for the middle class, but we that are opposed need to make them write into the bill what they claim it will do!
4
Once again, the fate of the middle class (and the nation) rests in the hands of three or four Republican senators who refuse to kiss Trump's ring. I pray for their courage.
1
The whole idea of a pass through (LLC or S-Corp) was designed so that small enterprises could more effectively compensate its owners without the burden of the double taxation on distributions that occur with a C-Corp (corporate tax on profits and the individuals/owners pay individual income tax on distributions).
Now that Congress wants to lower corporate tax on profits, pass-through entities are complaining for s similar break - to do so would make tax code more complex and may create incentives for everyone who is currently an employee to form a pass-through to take the same advantage.
Instead, maybe make all corporate entities the same under the new tax code law - C-Corp, S-Corp, LLC all pay same rate; any pay would be wages; any distribution would be dividends and taxed as such (after corporate tax had already been paid).
This would give all the same benefits and start to simplify the tax code.
What is with this lower rate for pass-through businesses? My wife and I had a small business (25 employees max). In it's best year, we made almost $250,000. That was after profit-sharing paid to our employees. We paid taxes on it as ordinary income. A lower rate would have done nothing except leave more money in our personal bank account. Investment decisions are based on opportunity and risk. This is nothing but another give-away to those already well off.
1
Why are tax cuts so central to the Republican party? Tax cuts by themselves make no sense.
Taxes must be considered in light of our needs, our goals and our deficit. This is not the time for a tax cut, for anyone.
2
I wonder how much Mr. Johnson's family business pays their workers. Is it a living wage; full-time jobs; do they get benefits - in particular, health insurance? If he wants tax breaks so he can increase profits, who benefits from it? His family or his workers?
2
It is pretty clear from the majority of Republicans in the House, the Senate, and of course the White House, that the purpose of this tax bill is to reform taxation to the benefit of large corporations and economic sectors with big lobbying budgets.
If you look ate what is actually being passed, as opposed to what the leadership members say is being past, but in fact is not, it is abundantly clear that there are very select groups, including real estate developers, golf-course owners, Wall Street financial manipulators and other people who are extremely wealthy, whose interests are being very well cared for. As for the majority of Americans, including small business owners, wage earners and the poor, not so much.
So plutocracy in action, not exactly a big surprise.
The pass through proposals are technically flawed and do great injustice to people
who earn their living by working hard for wages. And the Senator wants now to saddle
more on top ? Every small business owner can incorporate its business, if one feels disadvantaged. Guess why it’s not done? Because it is not so advantageous, tax-wise; to run such a business through a corporation, one ends up with double taxation. And that is true for each corporation; big or small. So there goes the perceived disadvantage. Secondly, I don’t get it why in this country there is this big fantasy that small businesses should be subject to a lower rate of tax. From a macroeconomic perspective, small businesses do in particular rely on infrastructure which is provided by the state, and they contribute directly next to nothing for its development or maintenance. So small businesses should actually pay more, not less tax than the general population. At least not less tax than anybody with income from employment. Finally, why should businesses with multi million $ revenue numbers get the same treatment as the corner soda store (actually , the corner store treatment is worse, because it does not employ a lot of capital, and the favorable pass through rate is based in essence on the capital employment factor). If Congress and Senate are really so much concerned about the “real” small business owners, it would be sufficient to put in a low bracket for, say the first 90,000 of business income.
Is there not a single Democrat in Congress with a different and better idea about how to reform the tax code, if indeed it needs reforming which Republicans have not made the case for? I'm pretty sure there is. Let us hear from them, NYT. Meanwhile, I have some ideas. Close ALL the loopholes that corporations and other business entities use to avoid paying the sticker price on their profits/income. Punish offshoring and shell company cash hiding. Tie any business tax cuts to the number of employees they hire in a given year and the percentage they raise all their employees' wages and salaries. Treat all income the same. No special rates for capital gains, dividends and other investment income. The overall goal should be to distribute the wealth created by workers and entrepreneurs more evenly, to broaden the middle class and raise the standard of living of all.
Its rare to find a Republican with a conscience, ethics and moral values. I hope that Senator Johnson stands his ground and gets changes done. Obviously what Mr. Johnson found unfair greatly affects his family business and that is his primary motivation. Sans his family's plastics manufacturing business I wonder if he would have been interested.
The Republicans told us for the last eight years of the Obama Administration that they could govern. Frankly what we've seen so far gives little hope. And given Mr. Johnson's record of caving to the Republican Party I doubt that he'll have any reason not to vote for the Republican bill no matter how unfair.
I look forward to the mid-term elections in 2018. If the Republicans continue on their course they will have succeeded in offending everyone and taxing most of American to death.
By the mid-terms Americans will have no healthcare insurance, less Medicare and Medicaid, fewer benefits for widows and children and even less civil rights. And, of course, taxes for middle class or what's left will go up.
I don't have much hope for the future. We're headed on a collision course of economic and social catastrophe. We're due for an American Revolution.
1
Wait, a Republican Senator, not just any one, indeed the senior Senator from Paul Ryan's state, thinks the tax reform act is biased towards big business?
No, that has to be wrong. Even with Citizens United tilting the playing field towards big money, that can't be right. All our Republican Senators and Representatives are telling us that this is a tax cut for the little guy. A tax cut to ignite the economy and help the poor and middle class with a hand up, after years of terrible financial hardship.
Is it possible that the more than 400 pages of the bill, assembled in a back room by just a couple of representatives, hasn't been throughly vetted by the entire congress and their professional staffers?
No, this bill is way too important, with very long standing consequences, for it to slide through without congress know what's in the bill. I'm sure the congress has targeted tax reform at exactly the segment of our population that needs it most!
2
Both tax bills promote bad public policy. They reward Wall Street without regard to Main Street. Both tax plans reduce taxes for corporations and investors without tying the reductions to U.S. job and wage growth.
Neither positive nor negative reinforcement is built into the tax plans to encourage economic behavior that is good for average Americans. Trickle-down economics is wishful thinking. Why leave to chance what could be accomplished by design? Is the GOP that foolhardy or is the GOP too corrupt to care about the people they are supposed to represent?
Tax reform must begin by taxing all income as ordinary income. The deficit exploded because we charge lower rates to investors than we do workers. More and more income is earned in a passive way and charging lower rates exacerbates inequality.
It is just wrong. Fix the field and then review the rates by income level. That is true tax reform. Any other plan is just payback to donors at the expense to workers. Demand your leaders support their voters.
Senator Johnson's demand that small pass through businesses be given equal tax treatment to the large corporations was at minimum one small pocket of resistance slowing the continued deterioration of this country's democracy and its transformation into an oligarchy. The U.S. is quickly becoming a banana republic for which the middle class has been hollowed out and the country is controlled by its wealthiest elite who own most of the nation's capital. These elites have already acquired ownership of the GOP. Thus, they will thus reap a substantial return on this investment by receiving the lion's share of the tax benefits from the GOP's proposed legislation. Which makes it all the more troubling that Mr. Johnson will likely cave in his minimal demand that small pass-through businesses be treated equally to large corporations.
1
Ron Johnson is a showboat like Trump. He can't resist being on TV and getting coverage from The Times. Look for him on the Sunday talk shows. He was against the repeal of the ACA but voted for it and will vote for the tax bill, even though he says he won't
He should be ignored. Better for The Times to remind voters the Republican tax bill will give the average American a miserly $40 more a week and only for 5 years.Tax cuts for the rich and corporations are permanent.
Most important of all, remind the 95% of Americans who depend or will depend in the future on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, that the 1.5 trillion dollars added to the debt will trigger cuts in these vital services. One of the main drivers of Republican tax policy is to rob the government of revenue to support our social safety net through exorbitant tax cuts for big business and rich donors.
If this bill passes, $250 billion will be taken from Medicare, every year to finance its transfer of wealth to the already rich. Within the next 20 years, a majority of Americans will experience economic peril on a regular basis.
12
First, passing a bill that has only a 25% favorability rating should hardly be called a victory. Secondly, far more people actually work for, rather then own, small businesses and they should get an equal voice in this legislation. Third, this guy is holding the bill hostage (not holding it up) in order to get special concessions, which he will get in a promise if not in the legislation and he will vote for it. Forth, this whole process has proven that the only thing Republicans care about, from accepting Donald Trump as their leader to disrespecting protocol, historic precedent and the rules of good governance, comes down to not having to work hard to fill their reelection coffers. The Supreme Court looks more and more naive that they didn't think this would be the result of Citizens United.
589
I hadn't thought about Citizens United for awhile, but you make a good connection. If the Supreme Court made a good ruling in the sense that this is what the founders intended, then the Constitution is not a good foundational document.
1
Oh, no not naive. EVIL!!
2
Excellent analysis but for the kindness you extend to the SCOTUS which is responsible for the proliferation of guns, debasing speech as money, licensing racism by subverting the voter rights act, and conferring preferential treatment to religious organizations and “recognizing” the religious privileges of corporations.
The Court has effectively voided the First Amendment protection from state sanctioned religion by giving permission to religions to promote and legislate their beliefs into law at the expense of women who have had their equal protection voided in an effort to govern their bodies and their sexual behavior and to favor the “rights” of fetuses over the rights of women.
The Court has deliberately erased the qualification for the “RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS” by ignoring the clause “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” We shudder at the capacity of The Court to so corrupt the English language and willfully distort this Amendment disregarding 35K lives sacrificed each year to grammatical sophistry.
The Court gave license to racism and voter abuse with it’s decision on the stated supposition that the racial climate had changed despite the immediate demonstrated racism of several states that have limited and blocked the voting rights of minorities.
The court has handed power to the wealthy elite in the form of subordinating ordinary citizens’ speech to the monied and encoding corporate entities with privileges superior to citizens.
1
This GOP Reverse Robin Russian-Republican Orthodox Tax Cut plan remains an award-winning economic, moral and intellectual obscenity.
All it does is invest in capitalist billionaires, mega-corporations and their wealthy shareholder gilded class on an American Taxpayer Express Card while rewarding the middle class with a few cheap rewards while doubling down on widely discredited, debunked and disgraceful 'trickle-down' economics.
Purposely blowing up the debt to fund oligarchs and multi-national tax dodgers and sticking the bill with the middle class is an attack on our country, as much a form of treason as a land or marine invasion of our country....it's just more subtle because our tax code is completely opaque.
This tax cut bill is yet another in a long-running series of right-wing coups' d'tat of the USA.
Fortunately, Republican candidates will be massacred at the voting booths in November 2018, 2020 and 2022.
385
We hope. Never underestimate the ability of the American voter to be conned. After all, Donald Trump is our President, and a proven child molester may well become the junior Senator from Alabama.
6
From your mouth to God’s ears!
2
Ayn Rand is sailing up the Potomac, as we speak!
2
If better small-business treatment is all that’s keeping Sen. Johnson’s vote from being recorded in the “aye” column, I expect that an accommodation will be made that secures that “aye” vote.
But if “pass-through” entities are his bugaboo, then the accommodation will need to be a complex one. I’ve owned two such entities for 17 years and I’m opposed to special tax treatment for them beyond what’s already done – their income is taxed only once. Normal corporations, “C”-type corps., have corporate income taxed once, currently at the 35% corporate rate; then, once net profits are distributed to shareholders (to the extent that they are), the income is taxed a second time as individual income. Subchapter-S corps and limited liability entities, which are treated as partnerships, “pass through” corporate profits to the owners or partners, whose individual income is taxed only once, unless profits are retained in the entity, where they’re taxed as other corporations are taxed. But that strikes me as being a sufficiently significant advantage already.
Of course, a small entity of any kind, owner/founder-operated and particularly when it’s largely a family operation, gets hit with double Social Security collections (12.4% instead of the individual 6.2%, subject to the earnings cap), since the owners or partners pay both the corporate and the individual side.
2
The larger entities are hit with ObamaCare requirements that they pay health insurance for their workers when many didn’t need to before (and arguably couldn’t and remain profitable). States also increasingly are hitting all employers with increasingly burdensome unemployment insurance requirements.
It would be more than a little politically difficult to seriously lower “pass-through” income taxes beyond the proposed individual tax rates when that income isn’t taxed at the proposed 20% corporate rate first. But there could be room for more favorable treatment on more expansive deductibility at the individual level for some of those added and increasing expenses at the corporate level. While even as a Republican I’m not in favor of messing with current arrangements regarding these entities, I expect that just such an accommodation will be made, and Sen. Johnson will be voting for the bill.
Another option is to NOT tax "retained earnings", or profits left in the "pass-through" entity, up to a certain annual cap or a total amount of retained earnings tanked in the entity.
That would be a very significant advantage, because it would allow these entities to accumulate capital for expansion, untaxed at any level. But, politically, there probably would need to be some complex requirement that they actually USE that capital for expansion, or it could become merely a personal, untaxed investment piggy-bank for the owner(s), whose returns would not be taxed until they were distributed as profits to the owners.
As I wrote, this would need to be complex. But it's doable.
1
You have described how the profits of a C-type corporation are taxed twice, once at the corporate and once at the shareholder level. If someone works in the corporation and is a shareholder, than yes, they perceive their profits as taxed twice. But aside from that circumstance, what is the disadvantage to the corporation of this "double taxation?"
3
I own a small cottage industry manufacturing concern structured as an S-Corp pass through. There is something that can be done to change the tax code that will increase business investment for small operators like me. Keep in mind that we are a huge section of the economy when taken together.
Any value added to the business, primarily in inventory and cash is taxed even though it stays inside the business. I can't spend it on myself unless I take it out as salary or as a distribution. If I want to accumulate money to buy parts or equipment next year, I get taxed on those holdings. I can't use my business as a piggy bank to grow itself year over year. I have to spend the money the year it was earned or it gets taxed. This is horrible! If I take on debt to finance such expenditures, I don't get taxed because the debt is subtracted from assets. It's a negative on the balance sheet.
Let us keep money in our businesses for future investments. The whole idea of a pass through is the owner is taxed on what they get paid. That makes sense. The owner receives no benefit from cash stored in the business until the cash is used to generate profits which are then distributed to the owner, or, is used for salary. Tax that money.
Some use the pass through as a gimmick to avoid paying FICA taxes. I would be happy to get rid of that perk. I never use it and most of us don't make enough money to bother.
Forget about tax breaks for passive investors.
38
As long as your idea wasn’t applied to c-corporations or large pass throughs, it sounds like a good idea.