Home/Tag: fiscal cliff

Tax Outlook

The conventional wisdom in the press is that the agreement on the fiscal cliff killed tax reform. By making permanent so many tax policies — including the AMT treatment and estate tax rules — the deal deprived policymakers of catalysts for doing something big on taxes later this year.

That view may prove correct, but there remain several good reasons to believe taxes will be a big part of the policy conversation moving forward, including:

  • Debt Limit: The debt limit fight hasn’t been avoided, just delayed. Congress will need to raise the limit prior to the August break, setting up a redo

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2019-02-01T20:11:41+00:00February 5, 2013|

Built-In Gains Relief in Fiscal Cliff Deal

Happy New Year everyone!

As everyone knows, the President signed into law H.R. 8, the so-called mini deal addressing the fiscal cliff yesterday.

The agreement was the result of negotiations between Vice President Biden and Senate Republican Leader McConnell and effectively reduces tax revenues over the next ten years by just short of $4 trillion dollars.

It passed the Senate easily early New Year’s morning by an 89-8 vote and then, after a little drama with the House Republican conference, passed that body on a much closer 257-167 vote that evening.

For S corporations, the package is a mixed blessing. Under the agreement, top

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2019-02-01T20:11:48+00:00January 3, 2013|

Pass-Through Coalition Weighs In on Fiscal Cliff

The S Corporation Association joined with more than 40 other organizations in a letter to Congressional leadership calling for action on to pursue comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates on all forms of business income while also addressing entitlement spending. States the letter:

[W]e call on Congress to avoid raising marginal tax rates on employers, either as part of negotiations over the fiscal cliff, or as part of larger effort to reform the tax code. Instead, Congress should seek to enact comprehensive tax reform that simplifies the tax code and encourages economic growth for both pass-through businesses and corporations.

[W]e are

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2019-02-01T20:12:11+00:00November 28, 2012|

Cliff Notes II

With less than 200 days left before Washington leads the economy over the fiscal cliff, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) has offered up more evidence that Congress needs to act to extend the current tax rates for everyone, including those business owners with higher incomes. As Bloomberg reports:

President Barack Obama’s plan to raise tax rates for the top 2 percent of U.S. households would mean higher taxes on the people who report 53 percent of business income reported on individual returns, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

According to the JCT, in 2013 nearly 1 million

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2019-02-01T20:21:27+00:00June 20, 2012|

Cliff Notes

House leadership has made clear they will take up legislation to extend the current tax rates and other policies through 2013, combined with expedited procedures for tax reform to be enacted in 2013.

This one-two punch is designed to address two challenges facing policymakers today. The first is the tax component of the “fiscal cliff” we face at the end of the year. The pending expiration of the lower rates on wages, business income, and investment income is having a tangible, negative impact on investment and job creation right now and, left unchecked, threatens to push the economy back into recession.

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2019-02-01T20:21:27+00:00June 19, 2012|