Following yesterday’s comments by President Obama, the S Corporation Association joined together with more than 30 other business associations to make the case for action by Congress to avoid the massive tax hike on private enterprise looming next year. As the letter states:
Main Street businesses are America’s job creators. They are responsible for 60 percent of the net new jobs created in the last decade. But uncertainty about the economy and looming tax hikes have kept this sector from hiring new workers, resulting in a weak economic recovery and slow to nonexistent job growth. Until Main Street begins to hire, we fear the unemployment rate will remain unacceptably high.
Congress returns next week and the first order of business will be the much-delayed package of small business tax provisions. This legislation is the perfect vehicle for extending the tax rates and Congress should jump at the chance. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, failure to take action would mean that taxes next year will rise on families and businesses by $227 billion.
Despite the President’s opposition, momentum for extending all the expiring rates appears to be growing. In recent weeks, senators Ben Nelson (D-NE), Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) have all expressed support for extending all of the rates. Meanwhile, former OMB Director Peter Orzag wrote in the New York Times earlier that, given a choice between doing nothing and extending everything next year, Congress should extend everything.
Each of these Senate defections is significant since any effort to extend current tax policy will need 60 votes, and the Democrats only control 59 prior to the elections. As The Hill noted today:
Senate Democrats would need all 59 Democrats and at least one Republican to pass the Obama administration’s plan to extend tax cuts for the middle class while allowing the tax breaks for the highest-income tax brackets to expire. That plan could be a non-starter in the Senate without Nelson’s support, since another GOP vote would be needed for passage.
Moreover, the Democrat’s majority may shrink immediately after the November elections. Three states — Delaware, Illinois, and West Virginia — will immediately seat their new Senators after the elections in November rather than wait until January, which means if any of those seats change parties, support for a full extension would grow.
As before, we continue to believe the most likely outcome is continued stalemate on extending the rates and no action by Congress this year, followed closely by Congress choosing to extend all of the rates for at least a year. Each additional defection, combined with any Republican victories in Delaware, West Virginia, and Illinois, increases the odds that the latter option becomes law.
S-CORP on Fox Business News
S Corporation Association Executive Director Brian Reardon appeared on Fox Business News last week to discuss the Obama Administration’s newest stimulus proposals.
As discussed above, if the Obama Administration wants to see some real stimulus, it should seek to remove the policy uncertainty hanging over the private sector and support extending all of the current tax provisions that either expired last year or are scheduled to expire next year.
While some of the specific tax items offered up — particularly expensing and a permanent R&E tax credit — are attractive to members on both sides of the aisle, finishing the existing “honey-do” list of tax items is more important.
The amount of capital available to the private sector — and currently buried in money market funds and ridiculously low-interest Treasuries — completely dwarfs the $180 billion package proposed by the President, even without the offsetting tax hikes that are planned to accompany the package. Getting that capital off the sidelines is the first step towards helping the job market recover.