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Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), about to become the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday that he aims to eventually rewrite what he described as a “dysfunctional, rotting mess of a carcass that we call the tax code.” But in an acknowledgement of the challenges of tax reform, Wyden said he wants to quickly extend dozens of expiring tax provisions for another year as a “bridge” to reform and he even embraced some new tax subsidies.
Wyden will replace Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), who the Senate confirmed Thursday as the new U.S. Ambassador to China. Speaking in Los Angeles to a conference sponsored jointly by the USC Gould School of Law and the Tax Policy Center, Wyden framed his tax agenda around several key issues:
- Narrow the gap between taxation of investment income and ordinary income.
- Significantly increase the standard deduction.
- Simplify and enhance the refundable Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit.
- Revise savings incentives by creating a new investment account for all Americans at birth, shift savings subsidies from high-income taxpayers to low- and moderate-income households, and consolidate and simplify the current tangle of existing tax-preferred savings incentives.
- Enhance job training.
- Restore Build America Bonds—a short-lived idea that partially replaced tax-exempt state and local bonds with direct federal subsidies. He’d also seek ways to encourage business to funnel overseas earnings into domestic infrastructure investment.