Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Tax Nerds Feeling Vindicated After Their Long-held Viewpoints Are Paid Lip Service

Tax Policy Center co-director Eric Toder is feeling good today. Why? Some people known for not doing much of anything productive are saying things that sound remarkably like some people who plan to do something productive!

The House Ways and Means Committee, in a letter signed by all its Republican members to Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, states its intention to “make the tax code fairer by scaling back preferences that distort economic behavior and often benefit only a narrow group of individuals and businesses.” These cuts in preferences will be needed to meet Chairman Ryan’s goal of a tax code that raise the same revenue as current law with sharply lower individual and corporate rates.

A letter makes it even more exciting! And if there's anything that policy wonks love, it's when their long-held ideals are officially recognized as the common-sense, right thing to do regardless of the politics:

For years, we have fought against proposals by politicians of both parties to lard the tax code with more special credits, deductions, and exemptions for supposedly worthy purposes. We have argued that these preferences make the tax law more complicated, distort economic choices, create unfairness in the treatment of taxpayers with equal ability to pay, and produce a general public cynicism with the income tax system. We have called the preferences “backdoor spending” or “tax expenditures” and argued that many of them would not stand up to scrutiny if introduced as direct spending programs.

And now that the Ways and Means peeps are on the same page with the TPC — that is, a whole slew of tax expenditures need to be on the chopping block —  everyone's ready to get to work on the most important part: actually following through with a real plan!

But there’s still a big problem: With the exception of a reference to benefits for corporate jets in the Senate’s resolution, there is no mention of a single tax benefit that the Committees would eliminate. And most of the money from tax expenditures comes from popular and widely used provisions, such as the exemption of employer benefits for health care and the home mortgage interest deduction.
Details to come! Maybe! 
 

Latest Accounting Jobs--Apply Now:

Have something to add to this story? Give us a shout by email, Twitter, or text/call the tipline at 202-505-8885. As always, all tips are anonymous.

Comments are closed.

Related articles

angry stress ball

Busy Season Problems: You Deducted What?, Dumbest Conference Idea Ever, Clients Taking Ls

It occurred to me the other day as I was setting up my bullet journal spreads for next month that it is almost April. How’d that happen? As I was casually drawing out colorful little calendar boxes, checklists, and doodles without a care in the world I remembered that there are a good number of […]

The Accountant Shortage is So Bad Anime Waifu Girlfriends Are Taking Up Tax Prep Now

TW: TurboTax bashing Before you get all bent out of shape over an anime dating sim that asks for your Social Security number for the purposes of helping you complete your federal tax return, know two things: Steam yeeted the game you’re about to see off the platform in a mere 24 hours and Tax […]