What can Congress do in its remaining 31 days before its August recess? It wants to make progress on a budget, raise the debt limit, keep the government running, repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and reform the tax code. It’s quite a to-do list, but Republicans are, more or less, optimistic.
Speaking of tax reform. The Hill outlines five tax reform issues dividing Congress: Whether tax changes should be permanent or temporary; how low tax rates should be; whether to adopt a border-adjustable tax; how to treat business investment (“expensing” of interest); and whether to tie tax reform to infrastructure spending. The Wall Street Journal considers the political obstacles (paywall) and finds the status quo may be the path of least resistance.
But a handful of lawmakers still think bipartisan tax reform is possible. The 34-member congressional Problem Solvers Caucus, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, believes that Congress can enact a major tax reform and infrastructure bill by early 2018. At least that’s what its co-chairs told Politico.
Illinois takes another try at a state budget. House Democrats spent the weekend debating the Senate-approved $37.3 billion spending plan. The budget would raise the personal income tax rate from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent and broaden the sales tax. It would also cut spending by $3 billion.
What do Stephen King and Charlotte’s Web have in common? Not much, except that the famous spider and many of King’s protagonists lived in Maine, where movies about these characters are not being made. So frustrated state lawmakers are doing what legislators often do: They are moving to increase tax credits for filmmakers. They’d get the expanded credit if at least 25 percent of producers, directors, writers, and principal actors; and half of non-starring cast members and production and post-production staff are Mainers. Legislative staff have no yet scored the bill.
The Seventh Annual IRS-TPC Joint Research Conference on Tax Administration is on June 21. The Internal Revenue Service and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center invite you to attend the only annual conference focused exclusively on tax administration research. Researchers from the IRS, other government agencies, academia, and private organizations will discuss some of the latest analyses aimed at improving the effectiveness of tax administration. Register here for the event. If you can’t be there in person, the event will be streamed live.
Congress is in recess. The Daily Deduction will resume its regular schedule on Monday, June 5.
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